New Site, New Folk Bag and Other News

My new website has been published and the blog has moved to the new address.
Check it out: www.peonyandparakeet.com

The location of the new blog:
www.peonyandparakeet.com/blog

And a new blog post is up!
Go to the new blog to see it:
New Site, New Folk Bag and Other News

This Is How I Doodle

I doodled a little ornament in Photoshop and recorded how I created it. It took 10 minutes from start to finish but the video is shorter. I increased the speed to make it easier to watch.

Nefarious

Here's my take for the current Art Journal Caravan's challenge. The inspiration word was nefarious which means wicked or criminal.

I wanted to make the image shiny and beautiful but still add some tension there too. There's a shadow for every light and sometimes it is difficult to keep the good and the bad far from each other.

Mixed Media Collage, Some Phases

Here's how this evening's creative time began: random alcohol ink spots on a paper.

Some layers were drawn on the computer and printed as layers. And some doodling by pens is a necessity for me to get really started!

I have recently been pretty obsessed about the composition. I used to aim for balance only but now I have began to want more. 

Here's the finished collage which I intend to include in a new art journal.

Digital Flow State

Here's a digital art journal page that I made for Art Journal Caravan's weekly challenge. The theme was "Machination".

I wanted to make a page with interesting asymmetric composition with both geometric and free shapes. As always I started with a plain white background and started adding my own digitalised elements and photos. While creating the page I thought about how powerful the nature is. It truly is the biggest machine of all and the greatest source of imagination!

Many people say they work with computers and do not want to create anything with them in their free time. So did I. But within time I have noticed that it is more the question of if you really can get into the flow state on a computer or not. For me, the big thing was to get to know the program very well (I use mostly Adobe Photoshop). After that I have been able to forget the tool and concentrate on creating.

Photo Album Art Journaling

I have tried to find easy ways to do art journal pages when I only have little time for it. I had a couple of small empty photo albums so I thought why not! People already scrapbook by inserting photos and journal cards to photo pockets so there's not much difference to that!

These are all 4 by 6 inches pages!I do still art journal in bigger size too. Here's a new page for my "pretty art journal". I think it goes fairly well with the page I made earlier.

And here are some greeting cards that I have made recently. The world really is full of color and that inspires me every day!

Getting Creative With Gel Printing Plate

I have been playing with some new toys. Gelli Arts gel printing plate and an electronic die cutter Silhouette Cameo. I made background papers by using die cut shapes and several layers of paint.

This one could work as a pattern itself:

The next one is a bit brighter:

The last one is a collage that has monoprinted papers in the background.While making this I realized that my love for fiber arts really shows in many of my collages. I think is like embroidered lace. But that was not what I was thinking about when making this. I thought about the creativity we all have and that we should cherish. It's always there waiting. Just let loose!