How to: I am Brave Art Journal Page - Creative Team Thursday with Sherry Canino

For Jessica's Art Sale Fundraiser for the Southern Poverty Law Center, click here. 

Hi Creative Friends - Sherry Canino here for this week’s creative team post.  This week I’m sharing an art journal page I created, called “I am brave”.  This art journal page came about while I was trying to figure out what my project would be for this week’s post.  I have been in a terrible creative rut and, after talking to some other creative friends, I found that they too were going through the same thing. It did make me feel a bit better and definitely not so alone, but it did not cure my creative slump.

I tried many avenues to find some inspiration,  like looking on Pinterest or checking out other artists' inspiring blogs.  Finally, I just said to heck with it, I’m going to do something that I never do and that is DRAW.  I know crazy, ha-ha.  But seriously, I just don’t draw, mainly because I have always felt I’m not good at it.  So I decided to create (draw) a bird on the edge of a tree branch as a bit of symbolism of myself (trying something new which felt much like being on the scary edge of something).   Using some of Jessica Sporn Designs' beautiful stamps and stencils helped me create this very meaningful art journal page.   I hope that you will join me in this tutorial and that this will inspire you to jump / fly /leap or even walk out of your comfort zone; try something new and different - even a bit scary.  I can tell you that taking that leap cured me of my creative slump and now I can’t stop drawing.

To see how I created this art journal page on YouTube, click here.

After I finished this video I decided the bird needed a crown lol. I know, right? But I felt like it was such a huge thing for me to conquer that the bird deserved a crown for all she had done.  So I just hand drew one on, painted it in with some gold acrylic paint and then added some glitter to it.  I also defined my branches a bit more to stand out with some dark green acrylic paint and used the hydrangea archival ink to edge my page and give it a bit of a frame – Then I felt it was done :)

I used the following stamps & stencils from Jessica Sporn Designs to create this page:

RubberMoon Stamps:
Tree of Life Stamp
Whimsy Butterflies Stamp
Peacock Motif Stamp

StencilGirl Stencils:
Judy's Trees Stencil
Hearts, Flowers, and More Stencil

Thanks so much for allowing me to share this art journal page with you.

XO - Sherry

Sherry Canino, a former accountant, is a self taught mixed media artist and owner of Canino’s Artistic Café. She also works as an art therapist for a local organization.  Her style is whimsical, colorful and inspirational and has been featured in Syracuse Women’s Magazine.  She offers local as well as private art classes in her Liverpool Studio, and art journal or art therapy classes on location for businesses and schools.  Find Sherry on Facebook , Instagram, Etsy and on her blog.

THANK YOU SHERRY!  To see all of the Creative Team posts, click here! 

         Visit Stencil Girl Products and RubberMoon Stamps to see all my designs!

If you haven't already - please connect with me here:

InLinkz.com

Your comments make me so happy and let me know you were here. I read and treasure every comment and will happily answer any questions as soon as I can.

If you are entering a GIVEAWAY, please add your email address in the event I need to contact you.

To avoid SPAM, please write it like this: jessicasporndesigns (at) gmail (dot) com

Thank You!

Five Reasons to Participate in Online Art Challenges, Video and Giveaway

I've been continuing with Mindy Lacefield's #365Faces challenge on Instagram.  Recently, I started creating faces on tags, which have quickly become a collection of "Tag Ladies," or "MotivAngels."

Here are five reasons why I find this practice so rewarding:

1.  Confidence:  The more I paint faces, the more relaxed I feel creating them.  I used to have a lot of anxiety about faces - the proportions, the shading, whether they were realistic or not.  With each face, I embrace more, and let go of more, and the freer I become. 

2.  Honing My Style: Staying on the same subject matter - faces - day after day has given me more confidence in what constitutes my style.  When I look at all my ladies together, I can see "me."

3.  Sparking My Creativity:   I truly don't know where these ladies are coming from.  I collage tags with whatever ephemera, gelli prints, old book pages, etc., are laying around.  No rhyme or reason - just listening to audio books and gluing away.  And then, a figure or face "appears" in the scraps, and off I go.  Plus, I staying within a certain format inspires me to use my Stencil Girl Stencils and Rubbermoon Stamps in different ways.

4.  Inspiration from a community: Like the 29 Faces Challenge that Ayala Art hosts 2x a year, this challenge is part of a community.  Because it's on Instagram, it doesn't carry the blogging component - just paint a face, tag it, and post the picture.  It's easy to search the tag and see everyone else's submissions, and hop over to see more of artists that inspire you.  Just check it out!   

5.  Exposure to artists you might not otherwise know.  We all get stuck in our circles of people whose blogs or Facebook pages we habitually visit.  It's so nice to see that there are other circles out there, that we can pop in and out of.  For example, I've discovered a whole bunch of artists who create amazing faces on tea bags!  

I thought I'd share my process for one of my "Tag Ladies."  

You can also watch "Tag Lady" Fast Forward on YouTube here!  

Do you have any favorites of the "Tag Ladies" in this blog post?  Let me know in the comments, as I'll give one of these tags away!  Check back on Monday to see who it is.  And please leave me your email in your post, so that I can get in touch with you if I need to.

If you haven't already - please connect with me here:

InLinkz.com

Your comments make me so happy and let me know you were here. I read and treasure every comment and will happily answer any questions as soon as I can.

If you are entering a GIVEAWAY, please add your email address in the event I need to contact you.

To avoid SPAM, please write it like this: jessicasporndesigns (at) gmail (dot) com

Thank You!