Elfsisters' Art Adventure - One Elfsister has been MIA

Before I say anything else I have to apologize for not blogging for...a month! oopsie... I made a decision that I needed to step back from things for awhile and life confirmed it :P I'll be blogging more about that in the next day or two (hopefully) but for now...let's get on with the fun!

I know that says June - but we are keeping the Lord of the Rings challenge for July because neither Meri nor myself really had a chance to work on it last month! So if you like to draw, paint, or do any sort of craft and would like to join in, our challenge this month is to make things that are Lord of the Rings related! So far I've drawn a total of one scary picture of Gollum (copied off a stock photo):

Creepy no? But I think pretty good considering I've never drawn anything like this before!

We've kind of been in limbo on this one because Meri and I are mailing our books back and forth right now. So no assignments this week! Hopefully she'll have her book back by next week and we can move forward on that :) I'll show pictures of what she did to my book (although its on her blog already :P) and what I did to HER book (ok, what I'm going to do) next week :) For this week - the "make a cup from this page!" 

I decorated the page with crayon, although in retrospect marker would have been more fun because then it would have run when wet. Oh well... I made pretty blue water lines (hehehe) and colored the instructions in my favorite color (purple!) and Meri's (green!). 

Then, I made it into a funnel! The hand towel in the background is what I had out to let it dry on afterwards :) 

Going in for a drink...

And drinking!

Mo kept teasing me that I'm going to get crayon poisoning, but I did that yesterday (yes, I'm behind) and I feel fine so no harm no foul!

See you next week :) Don't forget to check out Meri's blog: http://merigreenleaf.blogspot.com/

Elfsisters' Art Adventure - Knots and Knumbers - Week 4

Yes, yes, yes, I know "numbers" does not have a "k" on the front but you know what? I've never understood why "knot" has a silent k so I just had to play with the words in the title today! Now to get started ...

I had a lot of fun with this assignment! I don't quite have all the numbers done, but I had a lot of fun with what I did do! As you may notice it says "Starting Here" and I didn't exactly start with the number 1. No, of course not, I started with 42! As any good Hitch Hiker knows, the number 42 is the answer to "the Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything." Now we're not sure what the question actually is, so the answer doesn't help us much, but that still means it's a very cool number!

Since I didn't start with number 1 I didn't go in order for the rest of them. In fact I would just jump around and fill in numbers as I went :D I always thought it would be fun to have a book where none of the numbers were right, now I do.

See my pretty scribble? Sometimes I messed things up. When I messed up the first one I felt a bit depressed. My pretty book was messed up! Then I realized the ridiculousness of that thought. The whole point IS to wreck this journal after all! I tend to be very down on myself about my artistic attempts because I see everything I do wrong - which is a lot. Sometimes its because I don't know what I'm doing yet, and sometimes its just because hey, I make mistakes! This reminded me, vividly, that it's ok that I make those mistakes. It's not the end of the world, and I WILL get better.

One last thing, in case your confused, those are Elvish characters :) Meri and I have been learning to write in Tolkien's Elvish so I put that in as well as English!

I have another project in progress, but this I finished! I used the design I showed in my last post and it took a lot of erasing, but I eventually got something! The ink smeared, the lines aren't flowing the way I'd like, but a month ago I wouldn't have been able to do even this much, so I'm very happy! I may try to do another rendition, a better one, if I have the time this week. However, my other project, my secret one, comes first!

To find out this week's assignments and drop off your link make sure you go visit Meri's blog. 

Of Giveaway Plans and Wolves

I'm going to take a few weeks off from the giveaways. I know - it's sad! But I've just had a lot going on in my life and I want to make sure I'm giving the artists the attention they deserve, and I just don't have that attention right now. Hopefully it'll only be two or three weeks and then I'll be diving back in! If your interested in being featured when I start up again just let me know in the comments :)

Celtic Wolf Knot Wood Carving

I went to Artfire to find a random item to feature today - found this - and fell in love! It's so perfect for the other things that are going on in my life right now! I searched for "wolf" because I have a story world forming in my head that involves wolves, and we are doing the Celtic Art focus this month in our Elf Sisters' Art Adventures , so it combines both! I'm going to have to see if I can draw it, I'm guessing the answer to that is a resounding no but I figure it doesn't hurt to try! That's what the art adventure is all about right? 

Speaking of which - I do have a celtic art pattern in process for bead weaving but I just haven't had the brains to finish it :P Hopefully I'll do that soon and you'll get to see it.... next month? 

Elfisisters' Art Adventure Wk2 - I Revisit my Childhood!

Before I get started with showing off all of my fun stuff for this week, I just want to remind you that we have a group on Flickr! So make sure you go join, upload your pics, and join in the discussion!

I have more that I want to do to these two pages, but it's a secret! Muwhahaha. You'll see soon :) For now I just took my trusty purple pen, filled in the letters with zig-zag lines, added some flowers, blurred the word "destroy," boxed in the authors name, circled the "A perigree book" and added "Woot!" cuz I am excited! Aren't you?

I didn't do much to this page, I wasn't feeling inspired. I did fill in the "warning" so that it's a solid purple. But this page wasn't assigned so I guess that doesn't matter :P I may come back and scribble on it at some point...

Sometimes I don't follow instructions very well. So when it said "write your name in white" I wasn't satisfied with it! So I colored over the white crayon with pencil so you could see it :P I filled in my address, but I scribbled over it in purple cuz I don't want to share it with every random person on the internet! Oh, and when I was done following the instructions I covered the page with a light rubbing from a purple pencil :D Didn't do anything to the face page, hmmm, I should go back and do that at some point...

I think this was my favorite! I filled in "instructions" with some purple zig-zag lines, then I started coloring. I don't remember the last time I pulled crayons out! There's something soothing about it though isn't there? I have a bag of crayons so I just randomly pulled them out one by one until the bag was empty, refilled it, and started all over! I "messed up" at the top and colored the end of "Carry" and the beginning of "this" with the same color, so I made that my thing for this page. I used the same crayon to end one word and start the next :)

Yay! The spine is cracked! I have to admit I did this one I was little sometimes to books that were too stiff while I was reading them. I never cracked books this bad, but I still did it, which makes me a bad girl :P

I lost a few days to migraines this last week, so instead of trying to learn some thing with Celtic Art I decided that I would color! And I'm so glad I did! I love how this turned out :D I used purples to represent me and greens for Meri :) I promise I'll be a good girl this week and actually do some drawing myself.

What did you do this week? Head over to Meri's Blog to drop off your links and join the party!

Elfsisters' Art Adventure - Getting Started - Wk1

Don't forget to enter this weeks giveaway!

Welcome to week 1 of the Elfsisters' Art Adventure! I'll give you a quick run down of what's going on in a moment, but you can read a longer explanation here on my blog or here on Meri's blog. Basically we're two crazy elf sisters who love to take crazy adventures and we're inviting you to come along :) We have two parts, Wreck This Journal, and a monthly art challenge. Feel free to join us for one or both of these adventures! 

Before I start sharing - feel free to grab the banner above - or my banners below to use on your own blog :)

This week we're just getting started - so no journal pages - just a picture of me with my new journal! I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am to do this journal! And, of course, wreck it totally! We're going to start off with some beginning things. Normally we'll do one page in a week, but we're going to do a couple just to kinda kick us off:

1. This Book Belongs To Page - fill out your info following the instructions - and fill free to have fun! Color all around it, scribble over it, just follow the instructions, do whatever you want! Just take a picture when your done.

2. Flip the page and read the instructions! Again - feel free to do whatever you want to this page - I know what I'm going to do! You'll see next week :) 

3. Flip two more pages and you'll see it says, "Crack the Spine." This is an important step for future projects! Whatever you do - take a picture! 

I've always loved all things Celtic, and I'm excited to have a chance to play around with it! Feel free to do whatever you want to with your focus on Celtic art, as for me, I'd love to learn to draw Celtic knots. Now have I mentioned I can't draw? Brace yourself for the proof...

I tried free handing these, I tried using a ruler, and I never really figured out what I was doing :P I realized that while the book I have has great patterns, it doesn't really tell you anything about learning to draw them for the person who doesn't know how to draw! I have since found a couple links that I think will be a lot of help, and you can see them here in a discussion I start on our Flickr Page. Feel free to join our Flickr Group, upload your pictures, and join in on the discussion! 

Now for the wrap up! Drop your links to your posts in the linky below. I know we're just getting started, but feel free to post a picture of you holding your journal if you have it already, and if your doing the Celtic Art challenge then post what you've done so far or about what your planning on doing! Make sure you check out Meri's blog - she'll be hosting the adventure next week! 

Edit 5/5

If you are interested in doing the Wreck This Journal w/out the "official" journal that's fine! I can e-mail you this week's journal pages in full (it's a bit long to put in here) and all future journal page assignments will be spelled out in full in the blog posts. Just let me know in the comments if you want this week e-mailed to you and make sure to leave me an e-mail address to send it to!

Elfsisters' Art Adventure Starting Next Week

I'm here to announce that my Elfsister and I are starting an Art Adventure - and we want you to join in the fun!

Each Wednesday we will be blogging about our adventures, and inviting you to join along by hosting blog link parties! These are a great way to bring more readers to your blog, and I think the adventures that we are going all will be good for all of us artistically, and did I mention fun? Lots of fun to be had!

We're going to be under taking two main adventures - the first is Wreck This Journal:

I've been wanting to do one of these for a long time - and Meri got me the journal! It should be here in the next few days - which is massively exciting! For our Elfsisters' Art Adventure we are going to do one page a week and take turns picking which page we do. One page may not be a lot, but we both have jewelry shops to keep going, and that gives us a chance to fit it in with our busy lives!

Meri's already started the book, but she's only done a few pages and figures that she can always add to them. This one is my favorite - I'm really excited to do it!

The second part of our adventures is going to be a monthly drawing/painting art challenge. Meri is letting me pick the first one - so May is dedicated to Celtic Art! I've always wanted to learn to draw Celtic knot work, but you don't have to do knot work - do whatever you want to that relates to Celtic art!

Doing two adventures, Wreck this Journal and the Monthly challenge - means that anyone can enter! You can do both challenges (we will), or you can choose just one. Either way, the point is that you have fun and that we grow all grow in our artistic lives!

Celtic Knot at Elfwood.com

So how can you join in the fun? Follow my blog, Meri's blog (http://merigreenleaf.blogspot.com/), and come join our new Flickr group! (http://www.flickr.com/groups/elfsistersartadventure/) If you want to do Wreck This Journal you can get it on sale at Amazon (only $7.77!) And you can always start your Celtic Art Adventure now :)