In My Home

It's been over a year since I've worked on canvas. It's not that I don't like working on canvas or the normal canvas medium, the acrylics. I've been enjoying the art journal format and working on looser drawing in my Fauxbonichi (my daily journal). And this piece is actually a reproduction from one of my daily pages .

I have been wanting to reproduce a few pieces from my daily journal. Why? Partly because I enjoy mixed media art and the daily format usually does not allow for mixed media (and waiting for things to dry). 

I used acrylics, inktense blocks and pencils, tissue paper (for texture), and music sheet. I don't usually use bright colors and I'm not quite sure what made me use them, but I like it. 

And today is my kids' birthday, at least the first two! Yes, my son and my daughter have the same birthday and they aren't twins! 

I can't believe they are 16 and 14! I hope you have a great weekend!

Now that I'm 50...

I am fifty today. Turning 30 was devastating, 40 was liberating, and 50... well, I'm not sure yet. When I tell my kids I'm now old, they just tell me I'm only at the half way point in my life. Interestingly, that made me think of a parabola or a bell curve in which the apex occurs at 50. 

The optimist in me looks and says, "from now on, life is easy." The pessimist in me says, "Everything from now on is in decline." It's silly. Fifty is just a number, I tell myself, but I can't help but wonder which version it will be. I have a gut feeling that 50 is going to be a good year.  

I worked on two pieces of art the last two days. The one above will become a part of my Woman of Wonder series. I used an ad from a magazine as my inspiration.

My purpose was not to copy her but to use her as a reference. As with other pieces from the Wiman of Wisdom series, I created her hair with using zentangle patterns.

I usually don't like to use a pencil but in this case, I had to make sure the zentangle patterns used looked interesting. I used Derwent Inktense to color and Prismacolor colored pencils for details and shading. The quote used describes a bit about me, I think.

For this piece, I didn't need a pencil at all. I knew I needed lots of space for the quote so I decided on half a face and lots of hair. As I get older, I get pickier about the people I interact with. And I think because of that, I've gotten more confident about sharing my thoughts, my art. So thank you, for your support and encouragement. ❤️