ATC #227 - The Cat Died Nobly

From his comments stating the importance of curiosity to education.

Marbled background (using shaving cream and alcohol inks), collage image, ink. Given up trying to write nicely.
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Go make art!

Process not Product

When I make a painting or collage, I find that if I worry about the end product, I rarely produce something I like. But if I just enjoy the process and just keep working on ideas and "what-ifs", I usually end up with something I really like; something that is nowhere near what I might have imagined the finished product to be.

I made this image (text is digital) as a reminder of one of the things I learned in the class I mentioned before, Learning How to Learn, where one of the things mentioned was to focus on the process (studying) not the product (the finished homework). It does help to reduce the anxiety that fuels procrastination.

The background is a detail of one of my favorite paintings I made a few years back. This is something I played with quite a bit, adding a number of layers of sheer and transparent colors and textures. Then on the advice of my teacher Chris Cozen, I added that lifesaving essential color, Naphthol Red Light.
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Go make art!

Make some Art Everyday!

It's been a long time since I posted an ATC. I have not done much art lately in spite of the fact that I am unemployed - both things contributing to depression. So I have decided to continue the 365 theme with some art every day. I am taking a bunch of classes online, and one of them is via Coursera.com, called Learning How to Learn. It has been very interesting, but I'm not going to go into it here, though I do recommend the class. For the final project, I was inspired to do some "art journaling". Here is a page I'd like to share. This quote reminds me daily that I am trying to learn new habits.

Painted background, rub-ons.
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Go make art!

ATC #205 - Warm Seas

More painting experiments. I believe this background card was from a class with Chris Cozen where we were practicing blending. The colors reminded me of a tropical sea. I added the bubbles. This is in the top 10 of my favorite ATCs I've made.
Painted paper, ink, collage.
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Go make art!

ATC #204 - Abstract #2

Here is the other card from the painted paper left over from some experiments.
Painted paper, embellishment.
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Go make art!

ATC #203 - Abstract #1

I made a couple of cards from the remains of some old painted papers from one of Chris Cozen's painting experiments classes. Couldn't bear to cover them with more than the origami mesh.
Painted paper, embellishment.
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Go make art!

ATC #189 - A Painting

This is from a painting I did in one of Chris Cozen's classes. I took a photo of it and stuck in onto an ATC which had some background painted on it.
Acrylic, photo.
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Go make art!

Day 79 - Bonsai Jade Plant

Yesterday we had a sketchcrawl at the house of one of the members of the group. She had this Jade plant (a succulent) that she kept as a bonsai tree. It was lovely; I especially liked the way that the leaves at the ends of the branches formed cute little rosettes. The day was somewhat overcast still at the time I drew this, so there was very little shadow definition. I made up the color of the pot (I think it actually was a very pale muted green) but I tried to get the tray color approximately right.
Watercolor.
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Go make art!

Day 77 - Embrace Imperfection

This started out as a reject from a series of ATCs I made a couple of years ago. I started out with one large (9" x 12") sheet of paper, painted all over it somewhat randomly, collaged, stamped, painted and stamped again. Then I cut it up for ATCs. The text in the background made it impossible to read the message (ironically) on this one, so I didn't use it in my series. I found it recently and decided to recycle it into a new ATC for this project.
Painted and collaged papers, postage stamp, inks, embellishments.
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Go make art!

Day 69 - Unknown Layers

Another acrylic painting from the backgrounds I started last weekend. Like yesterday's painting, I'm not satisfied that it is finished (colors not blended well, colors too bright), but there's no more time so that makes it done.
Acrylics.
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Go make art!

Day 68 - Dawn Seeps In

Played around some more on the cards I painted with backgrounds last weekend. If this were a real painting, I wouldn't call it done because the blending isn't smooth, but I don't think I'll have any more time to work on this today so I'm calling this one done.
Acrylics.
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Go make art!

Day 67 - Organic Mutation

Another one based on the stuff I learned last weekend. I had time this afternoon to do a little bit of work on it to define the shapes, then added some Zentangle® doodles.
Acrylic paints and ink.
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Go make art!

Day 64 - Bird Observing Chaos

Someday I will learn to leave well enough alone. Today's painting workshop was so busy I didn't work on an ATC at all. I have about 20 ATC cards that I smooshed paint on yesterday, so I picked one and with my gel pens I started to pull out some shapes from the paint. But I just couldn't stop with the doodling! If I weren't so tired I would start over but I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open already. So here is the mess I am inflicting on my project for today. If you haven't already, look at yesterday's ATC, it is pretty nice if I do say so myself.
Acrylic paints and gel pens.
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Go make art!

Day 63 - Nature's Rythm

Today I took a painting class with my favorite teacher Chris Cozen. As the day progressed, I used what I learned on some ATC blanks.
Acrylic and ink.
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Go make art!

Day 31 - Run with the Wind

One of the women in my painting class had made sponge stamps by cutting up compressed sponges & she suggested I should stamp some ATCs to save myself time. So she loaned me one of hers shaped like a running horse. I think she did a great job cutting up the sponge & I had fun stamping with it. I'm going to look for some of those compressed sponges to play with. Here is the first ATC from that series; I just added detail with my Micron pen. Too bad my handwriting is so awful!

Go make art!