On Line Challenge Update

Have you been participating in any challenges in the New Year?  I find challenges a great way to jumpstart my creativity.  Last year, I leaped into Nathalie Kalbach's Creative Jumpstart with gusto, had a blast, and learned a ton.

This year, with my friend struggling in the hospital, I decided to keep it to Instagram Challenges.  Since they are free, I wouldn't feel so bad if I didn't keep up with them.

I've been keeping up with Tori Weyer's daily drawing prompts, and If Draw a Week's weekly prompts.  These have been great ways to keep me sketching and painting on a small scale.

Here are some of my posts - you can see all of them on my Instagram feed, where my handle is @jessica_sporn.

I'd love to know what you've been up to - so please share links in your comments!

         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.

Mucking Around in My Art Journal

Remember that series I started in 2016 - "Mucking Around in my Art Journal?"  That's where I play around with no fixed idea of what I'm doing, and now end point in sight.  Well, inspired by Marjie Kemper's new Facebook Group, #halfhourofart, I'm back at it.  Here's the first installment for 2017!

This is the first spread in a brand new journal (Global Arts Watercolor).  I wanted to cheer myself up while waiting for my friend Lynne to come out of her coma.  (You can read all about that here.)  So I decided to give myself 1/2 hour with happy, warm colors, without any idea of where I was going.  

I used the Hearts Flowers and More stencil to texture the background;  

Gwen LeFleur's Heraldry stencils for December Stencil Club gave me the angel wings I was looking for, along with some of the other motifs.  

The silhouettes are from a magazine page I had pulled out and saved.   

And the bottom border is part of my Whimsy Crown stamp from Rubbermoon.  

Here's a fast forward video (about 7 minutes) of my 1/2 hour process.

I spent another 1/2 hour the following day finishing the other side of the spread... But you'll have to wait until the next "mucking around" installment to see it!

You can also see this video, and lots of other demos and tutorials, on my YouTube channel.

Thanks for stopping by!

         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!

Using Stencils to Spark Your Inspiration

This is an oldie but goodie - from January 2014.  It has some good tips in it - I hope you think so too.

Often, when I don't have a lot of inspiration, I pick a pattern stencil and just start using it on a blank page or a page with leftovers from another project.  I'll pick several different colors of paint that compliment one another (close to each other on the color wheel),  and start pouncing with a cosmetic sponge.   

Here's a tip for how to remember which colors are friendly enough to be mixed when wet.  If you think of the ROY G BIV acronym for the rainbow - ROY (Red Orange Yellow) colors are friendly, and BIV (Blue Indigo and Violet) colors are friendly, G (green) is a little picky - friendly only with the colors on either side -- Yellow and Blue.

For this page, I used Michelle Ward's Marrakech Mix Stencil from Stencil Girl.  I love how there is a "mix" of large and small openings.  Once a layer is dry, I turn the stencil and use another color until there are no white spots on my page.   Then I'll go back in with white paint or gesso, and lighten it up a bit.  Here's how I ended up.








At this point, the page will sometimes suggest something to me.  What it said here was "live simply and gently."  So, I took out black paint and a skinny brush and started sketching.  (I like to sketch with paint because there's just NO WAY to be too precious about it - it's going to be messy, and that's OK!)

On the bottom, I used Pam Carriker's Zig Zag Stamp.  And I sketched in a girl surrounded by animals and a tree.  

More painting.  I'm using matte fluid acrylics, which are very translucent.  I love how the stenciled background shows through, giving lots of depth and texture.

I wanted her skirt to be made in part by feathers.  I have a cool feather stamp that I used on white tissue paper.  I then adhered it to her skirt with matte medium.

I love how the original painting and texture shows through the tissue paper, which melts into the page.  I did the same thing with a french text stamp - used it on tissue paper and adhered it to the page.


I wanted leaves on the trees, so I pulled out my "Judy's Trees" stencil from Stencil Girl, and stenciled some leaves onto tissue paper using green and brown paint.

Then I cut the leaves up and adhered them onto the page. This way, I wasn't stuck to the original arrangement, but could place the leaves the way I wanted for this particular journal page.

I also used the curly branches of one of the other trees on the stencil around the bottom of the page to suggest tree roots and grass.  Can you see them?

My daughter pointed out that the lady's legs were too short - so I lengthened them.  This caused me to add additional texture and pattern to her dress, which I really like.  I added words, and here she is!

And to think she emerged from a mostly blank journal page and Michelle Ward's stencil!

"Live Gently" is available for sale as a print, tote bag, pillow and phone cover on Society 6!





In case you didn't see it previously, I wanted to post a video of how I painted this portrait. 


I often "clean" my work table by gluing whatever is on it into my journal.  That will sometimes "suggest" to me what the page should become.

The page started out as a collage of stenciled tissue paper using my Medallions stencil from Stencil Girl.  Some of that pattern shows through her face.  I finished her off using June Pfaff Daley's starfish stencil, which became a flower in her hair. 

You can see her as a print and more here!



You can also watch Fast Forward Face Painting with Jessica Sporn on You Tube here. 

Have you found any of this helpful?  Let me know in the comments, which 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.

         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!

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!