ICAD Catch-up

I've been keeping up with creating my index cards for the 2015 ICAD challenge, but I've been failing to get them posted to my blogs in a timely manner. I have a couple to post now, from days 3 through 5. I completed my sixth and seventh index cards on their respective days, but I still need to photograph them so that I can post them. Just think of it as building suspense.

I'll post my index cards for days 3 and 4 both here and on my mixed media blog. These two are mostly drawings (and writing, as you'll see), their primary medium used being pen, but with some Distress Ink action involved as well. Since I consider it more of a mixed media piece, my index card from day 5 will be posted to my mixed media blog. Visit my Trash to Treasures Art blog using the tab at the top of this page!

The third day's prompt was to draw a map. The fourth day's prompt was mailbox. So, without further ado...

Being an animal lover and human counterpart to a number of four-legged furballs, I drew a map more or less representative of my home. Welcome to the Land of the Pet Lovers.

For the fourth day I decided not to draw a mailbox itself, and instead I scrawled a quick letter and spruced it up (more like roughed it up) a little. Edgar Allan Poe was more or less my muse for this one.

This ICAD deal is really quite fun!

A New Day. A New Blog.

I have started another, second blog. This other second blog is dedicated to my mixed media art. It is called Trash to Treasures Art, as my mixed media art is built heavily upon recycled and upcycled materials that I found here and there and everywhere.

My mixed media art is created using not only traditional art supplies, but also recycled cardboard, old book pages, and other various finds.

This blog here, MissAdventureArt, will remain put and will be dedicated to my more traditional drawings and illustrations. I decided to create a second blog so that my drawings and my mixed media art could each have their own space, rather than being cluttered together in one hectic blog. As I've noted before, I also have two separate Etsy shops, one for my drawings and one for my mixed media art. My Etsy shops can be visited using the tabs at the top of each respective blog.

So, please also visit me over at Trash to Treasures Art!

Art in Honor

It has been well over a month since I last made a post here. One primary reason for my absence is that my beloved 21-year-old cat fell ill, and after a two-week battle I ultimately had to say goodbye to her following a diagnosis of heart failure and widespread cancer.

I had previously shared some drawings I created of her, and here is one of them again:

Her name was Rosie. She was one tough cookie of a cat. She was a true trooper and went through a lot during her 21 years, including an emergency eye removal surgery just this past January.

I have always been a huge animal lover, and my sweet 21-year-old cat was a big influence on that trait of mine. I'll age myself here by divulging that my family acquired this cat of mine when she was just 8 weeks old and I was just 4 years old. I grew up with her. I miss her immensely.

In her honor, I have set up a memorial corner for her at my house. My memorial for her includes a beautiful red rose (a fake one, admittedly, so that it will last forever) and none other than a piece of mixed media art that I created especially for her:

A rose and artwork to honor my sweet cat Rosie.

Creating this piece of art for my Rosie was one of the main ways I coped immediately following her passing. Art in itself brings me a great deal of comfort, and so creating art in honor of my loyal companion of 21 years was very consoling to me during that difficult time.

I don't believe I had ever truly appreciated the full power of art until I created this piece for Rosie. It all came together for me in an artistically healing process, and creating it helped me to feel and stay close to Rosie. I chose the purple and pink color scheme for a reason - my favorite color is purple and so (as a result of my selections) many of Rosie's favorite blankets were purple, and I always loved the adorable pink color of her paw pads and nose. Even the Distress Ink I applied was in direct honor of Rosie - she was a beautiful calico cat, and so I used my Black Soot, Vintage Photo, and Antique Linen Distress Inks to imitate a calico color scheme with the border and background. What's more, the white ribbon I attached to the top of the art piece was one with which Rosie used to play often.

And, of course, I wrote a message upon Rosie's art piece that rings very true for me:

Cats leave paw prints on our hearts.

More trash to treasures.

I finished three more mixed media art tags, and they are now available in my TrashToTreasuresArt Etsy shop!

"Keep calm and eat pie."

"Be U."

"You're a hoot."

Links to both of my Etsy shops can be found at the top of this very blog!

Happy Easter!

Cake and Chemistry

There are two more new mixed media art tags available in my TrashToTreasuresArt Etsy shop! Here they are:

Words to live by: "Keep calm and eat cake."

Instead of pages from old books, for this one I used an old chemistry catalog. Copper + Tellurium = CuTe!

I've really found a new passion in creating these art tags. I get to use so many different media and techniques, while employing the awesome practice of recycling/upcycling otherwise unwanted material. I'm also working on revamping some cardboard boxes using these same mixed media techniques, although the boxes admittedly take longer to make (but of course they're still fun!). My first box is almost completed, and I'll post some pictures of it here -- as well as put it in my shop! -- as soon as I've finished it.

Happy April, bloggers! (No, this post is not an April Fools' prank.)

Stocking up!

I am working diligently to stock up my TrashToTreasuresArt Etsy shop. These two art tags are now available in the shop:

"Keep calm and eat cookies."

"C'est la vie."

Today I started on a new batch of tags, which are still in the early stages of production. I also have a number of tags that are almost ready to be added to my stock in TrashToTreasuresArt. These are some of those almost-ready tags:

These tags are extremely fun to create. From start to finish, I'm having a blast with each and every one of them. If you want to visit either of my Etsy shops, just click the links at the top of this blog!

Web store news!

I'm excited to announce that I have opened a second Etsy shop, this one dedicated to my mixed media art! I am of course still maintaining my MissAdventureArt Etsy shop, which contains my drawings, but after some deliberation I ultimately decided that I wanted to manage my mixed media art and my drawings in separate Etsy stores.

My new shop's name is TrashToTreasuresArt. I chose this shop name because my philosophy in creating my mixed media art is to largely use recycled and upcycled goods, such as scrap cardboard and old books that are otherwise not being put to use. I am working on stocking up this new shop as quickly as possible, but these three art tags are already available at TrashToTreasuresArt:

"You make my heart tick."

"You're my cup of tea."

"You're the cat's meow."

To visit either of my Etsy shops, just click on the links at the top of this very blog of mine!

Good night!

Mixed Media Mess

My workspace is a mixed media mess today. I'm working on creating some more art tags as well as revamping some recycled boxes with some mixed media art. Fun times!

The scene of the crime.

In the upper right corner of that picture you'll see just a couple of my newest mixed media art tags. In the upper left corner is a WIP box I've been working on. Soon I'll share some pictures of the fruits of today's labor. Also, I'll be sharing some Etsy news sometime in the next couple of days. Stay tuned!

I hope everyone is having a beautiful weekend!

Mixed Media Art Tags

A couple of posts ago I showed you the first ever mixed media art tag that I completed. Since then I've been experimenting with a few new products and techniques, and with these I've created some more art tags. I had a lot of fun in the process, and here are the results of that fun:

I think I've truly found a new love in creating these mixed media art tags. They allow me to create fun little drawings and experiment with fun collage techniques. What's more, I'm happy to be practicing a lot of recycling/upcycling with these, using scrap cardboard that I cut into the size and shape of tags. And the paper onto which I drew the images is simply from the pages of old books I've had sitting around for ages. Even the little decorative dots you see on the tags are recycled/upcycled, as I acquired these using nothing but my trusty hole puncher and some empty yet pretty Kleenex boxes.

I hope you like my art tags so far! I've got plenty more of them in the works, so stay tuned!

I hope all you bloggers out there are having a wonderful weekend!

Cup of Tea

One way I've decided to use my old book pages is by making tags. I create drawings on bits and pieces of my old book pages and then, in a sort of collage, I use Mod Podge to adhere them to a piece of scrap carboard that I've cut down to the size and shape of a tag.

Here's a shot of the first mixed media tag I've created:

"You're my cup of tea."

I still need to attach the string at the top of the tag, but other than that this one is finished. I hope you like it! I've already started my next mixed media tag -- amongst roughly a thousand other projects -- so stay tuned for more!

WIP: Experimental Fun

I've been branching out more than usual lately and taking on some new techniques and projects. A lot of these new undertakings of mine revolve around mixed media art, which I've come to really enjoy. Although I prefer to keep my mixed media art relatively simple, I've found that it allows me to incorporate a little of everything I love doing. It doesn't get much better than that!

My latest project is something I'm creating for my sister (in other words, I'm using her as a guinea pig for a new series I'll be starting soon). This piece is still in the works, and I'm more or less experimenting as I go, which I find is a great way to learn new things and to get my creative juices flowing. Here are a couple of shots to show you what I've been up to with this piece today:

I finished drawing the background of this piece last night. The next step was to adhere the little pieces of the quasi-collage portion of it.

Mission accomplished!

This piece is not yet complete. I have some definite plans for it yet, as well as some potential experimentation to put it through. I love creating little mini drawings to incorporate into pieces such as this. I also like to collect pretty Kleenex boxes, magazine clippings, and mailings and use the pictures and designs they offer in my little quasi-collages such as this one. Fun!

I hope all you bloggers out there are having a wonderful weekend!

More Mixed Media Mania

I'm having a blast with my newfound love of mixed media art. Thus far I've kept my mixed media art simple, and I personally like it that way. I like to choose some magazine clippings, select and arrange a quote that I believe matches the clippings, do a little original drawing to tie it all together, and then Mod Podge it all together. This allows me to do a little bit of just about everything I like doing best, all to one common artistic end.

I've got plenty of these mixed media pieces in the works, but for now I'll just share some shots of the one I've most recently completed:

I'm calling this one "Dance in the Rain".

For this piece I used one of my favorite quotes: "Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about learning to dance in the rain." I tore the edges of the paper to age it a bit, and then I splattered the strips with dilute blue food dye for a cloudy, rainy effect. (A little fact about me: I used food dye because, quite honestly, I do not currently own any paint. Although I wish this were not the case, I have never personally found much joy in painting.)

I used my favorite art pens to draw this colorful little girl wearing her rain coat and rain boots and holding an umbrella.

I am far from perfect in creating this mixed media art. But, that's one of the great things about art -- since it's not possible for any one artist or technique to be the same as another, there really is no such thing as "perfect" art.

In other news, I hope to finish my last two My Furry Family pieces soon. I also have some more InspirACEOns in the planning stages, as well as tons of other pieces and projects I hope to get to soon. As usual, I'll share them as I make progress with them.

Happy Sunday!

Midnight Dreary

I finished my first mixed media art piece. In my last post I showed you which of my mixed media works in progress was my favorite, and of course that's the one I completed first. Here's the finished product:

I'm calling this piece "Midnight Dreary".

I started with pictures from old magazines. After I found clippings I liked -- these particular ones all containing some quaint architectural elements -- I used Mod Podge to adhere them all to my base cardstock. Then, once I had that initial canvas, I had to decide what to do with it.

Although I love to read, I've never been a big fan of poetry. That being said, though, I do enjoy the eerie poems of Edgar Allan Poe. My favorite Poe poem is "The Raven", which is what inspired my final touches of this mixed media art piece. I decided to add two of my favorite lines from the poem -- "Once upon a midnight dreary" and "Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore.' " -- to this piece of mine. I wanted the paper on which the quotes were printed to look aged, so I tore them so that the edges would be frayed, and then I stained the paper slips with coffee. And, I drew a little raven on cardstock paper to add to the mix. Then I pulled the Mod Podge back out and adhered the quotes and raven drawing, and applied a final coating of Mod Podge over the whole thing.

I prefer to use glossy Mod Podge, as I like the sheen and texture it gives the final product. However, being a novice photographer at best, I find it difficult to capture just the right picture of my glossy Mod Podged pieces. Nevertheless, I tried various angles and lighting in order to capture the gloss and texture of the Mod Podge finish I used. So, here's another picture of my "Midnight Dreary" piece, this one giving a little indication of the textured, glossy finish:

I hope you like it!

Experimental Fun

This weekend I experimented with a new project involving recycling/upcycling pictures from old magazines and using some mixed media techniques. Although this project is still a work in progress and I don't want to give away too much until I've completed a bit more and know if it will turn out well, I'll go ahead and give you a little sneak peek...

This one is my favorite so far, and I have some plans for it:

Until this weekend I had not done any semblance of mixed media art in years. But I now remember how fun it is, so I guess that means I'll just expand my art "to do" list even more.

I hope everyone survived Monday, and have a great week!