PPF: Faces in the World

I just finished participating in a really terrific art round robin, hosted by Martha of Ayala Art called "Faces in the World." She arranged those of us who signed up into groups of three. We each started a face on a 4x6 piece of paper and then sent it to another member of the group, who added to the face and then sent it to the third member, who completed the face and sent it home!  The face above is the one I completed and which started out looking like this:

And which arrived to me looking like this:

As for my face, I sent this water color blob face out:

And she transformed:

Finally, the third face in the group started with this:

I added this:

And she eventually became this:

By the way, this face had a sister, who started out as a mirror image of the pencil sketch, and she ended up looking like this:

Thanks Martha for hosting this really fun swap. And thanks to Beth and Joy, my very talented team mates!
I'm sharing all this loveliness with Paint Party Friday! Go check out more painterly goodness at this link.

Faces 7-10

Still playing around with the Paper 45 app and making faces for Ayala's 29 Faces challenge. I'm sure I won't get all the way to 29, perhaps closer to a dozen if I'm lucky.

Just more quirky watercolor faces with stories to tell.  "Ben likes turtlenecks."

I hope these made you smile!
Tomorrow, I'm off to watch my boy and his soccer team play in the quarter final match of the California Central Coast Section Tournament.  Good thoughts, well wishes and lucky charms gratefully accepted! I'll be back tomorrow with the results.

PPF: Faces 4, 5 and 6

Ayala is sponsoring her 29 Faces Challenge this month, so I thought I would post Faces 4, 5 and 6 today as part of Paint Party Friday. All of them are made on my ipad, using the Paper 53 app.  Each one is a distinct character, I think.

My first face today is Maura. She tries to hide her age but worries that she isn't succeeding. 
Next, meet Charlie.  You can tell what his story is just by looking at him!

Finally, here's Sybil. She's a bit of a free spirit, but mainly innocent.
You can check out other faces at this link and painterly fun at Paint Party Friday (here).

Faces 1-3: Illustrations

Ayala is sponsoring 29 Faces, a challenge to create 29 faces in any artistic format during February. Here are my first three:

I sketched and painted all three of these on my Ipad, using the Paper 53 app. I'm becoming a little more confident with it. I like this series of faces because they seem like they could be three characters in a book. I've always been fascinated by artists who do illustrations, and I've often thought that my water color blob faces work because they do seem to have so much character.  Do you think these three have a story to tell?

PPF: Faces 18-21 (and stamp give away winner)

It's the first Paint Party Friday of March, and I'm posting the last of my faces from the 29 21 Faces Challenge run in February by Ayala.  I really like this one - I think she'll be a recurring figure in my art journals.  The journaling is a letter to my daughter, inspired by the song "I won't give up on us" by Jason Mraz. (Don't know who Jason Mraz is? Check out my friend Carrie's blog, and you'll become a fan).  By the way, thanks so much for all your good wishes last week on parenting a teenage daughter.

Things definitely are getting better with her, although since she's so much on my mind, she keeps popping up in my art journaling. This page is called "learning to fly," and I enjoyed incorporating some rubons and drawing on a piece of patterned paper.
But not all my faces are serious. Here's a quirky pair that I made using the water color technique I learned in the 101 Faces class. Except that I used acrylic paint instead.  It was a little more difficult to get a result I liked.  But of the ten face blobs I started with, these two managed to capture my imagination:

I call them Guido and Sluggo.  I'm sure they have a story to tell.
Finally, my last face for the month.  

It's an art journal page. Acrylic paint with rub ons. Not sure where the inspiration came from, but I ended up liking the strength and confidence in it.
Although I only managed 21 faces, instead of 29, I'm really glad I participated in the challenge and really appreciate the inspiration given by Ayala, as well as the opportunity to meet some new blog friends. And I'll definitely keep drawing faces in my art journals and other places. If you want to check out some of the other 29 Faces artists, check out this link.
And, the other paint party participants are here.
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Finally, congratulations to Beverly of BEGlorious on winning my March Stamp Give Away!  Beverly, email me with your mailing address. If you would like to win some new or gently used stamps, check in on April 1 for the next set.

art journal/art diary (and faces 16 and 17)

It's been a while since I used my art journal as an art diary to just record some of the daily stuff going on around the house, but I made these pages recently doing just that.  The main page is about the fact that Henry is doing a bunch of college tours this week. The kids have the week off school for what is normally called "ski week," but since there's been so little snow, we didn't go skiing.  I made this page about the lack of rain and snow this year:

Henry's not sure what he wants to do in college (or afterwards), but he does not he's not a math and science guy.  I made the following page to recognize that revelation:

The last two pages incorporate faces #16 and #17 from the 29 21 Faces Challenge I'm doing.  I kindof like the whimsical nature of the last one - he's the mad scientist which Henry will never be! LOL! 

Rethinking 29 Faces

I've been participating in Ayala's 29 Faces Challenge, but I was starting to get stressed because I was falling behind.  So, I gave myself permission to create 21 Faces instead of 29 and I felt so much better. In my more relaxed state, I created faces #12, 13, 14 and 15.  I started with these two faces because I wanted to focus on lips and eyes. I think the key to lips may be that there needs to be shading and highlights. And I think I need to work on making my eyes bigger.

Then, I moved on to trying to incorporate faces into art journal pages, and I came up with this page using a watercolor face:

Finally, I created the page up top,which was my favorite. It feels really good to be art journaling again, and I'm really happy to find a way to start incorporating my faces on my pages.

Faces 9, 10, 11 and Some Reflection

I'm somewhere between a third and half way through the 29 faces challenge, and I've learned a few things. Let me know if any resonate with you.
1. I can draw a basic face now. It doesn't scare me, and I could confidently add a face to an art journaling page or card or mail art envelope if I wanted to.
2. I'm getting the hang of eyes, but mouths still elude me.
3. Using more than one media or color creates a more satisfying end result.  Even if I start with oil pastels (Sybil) or acrylics (overworked), it helps A LOT to add pen, pencil or marker to add definition.
4. I'm getting to the point where I want to create more than just the face - adding bodies, clothes and the scene will probably be the focus for the next part of this project.
5. I'm not sure I've found my "style." I really like the water color faces (like I did yesterday) but I don't see those working into my larger mixed media pieces. The faces from today seem more likely to be useful in that regard. Although I could see the water color faces on cards.
6. It's hard for me to stick with a project past the two week mark.
7. Joining a blog challenge is a great way to meet all kinds of new blog friends! I've discovered some wonderful new blogs and artists through the challenge.  I'm off to visit some of them now. If you want to see them, check out the tags at this post.
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OLW Weekly Check-In:
This week, I cleaned out the laundry room, which also meant I organized the china buffet and display case. Tossed out two big bags of garbage and came up with one more bag of stuff to donate.

Soccer Faces/Soccer Stories

My faces #7 and #8 for the 29 faces challenge turned into soccer players - one has a Diego Maradona feel and the other a bit of Roy Keane going on.  They seemed good artwork to blog a few stories from my son's high school season. Long time blog readers will remember that the boys had an amazing season last year, going on a championship run that was truly special and will be remembered all their lives.  This year has been a different story. Nine of our players graduated, and we moved up to a higher division fielding a much weaker team.  They're currently 3-7-2, with two games left to play. We're fighting against relegation. 
But, in the midst of that, there's been rays of hope as well:
1.  They boys haven't given up. They keep trying and, in the last three games, have gone 2-0-1. I think they will finish the season with their heads held high.
2. For the first time in recent memory, none of the boys were removed from the team for poor academic records. The grade cut-off is not that demanding, but the soccer players typically come from disadvantaged backgrounds and we usually lose one or two to poor grades. This year, every single one has managed to stick with the team, and we have many players focused on going to college.
3. We had a wonderful ceremony for our first Friday night home match where we unveiled a sign for last year's championship, as well as the newly purchased and installed signs marking the school's 13 previous championships.  We had at least one player from each of those championship years in attendance at the ceremony.
4. Last Friday night, we had a crowd of almost 200 fans for "Youth Soccer Night."
5. On a personal note, DS Henry has been attending college I.D. camps and showing well.  He has at least one college that is very interested in having him play for them. When a different college complimented his skills but suggested he should focus on non-Division 1 schools, he said he might print that email out, use it as motivation and then send it to the coach after he makes a Division 1 team!
It turns out that there are many measures of success I guess, and even without a shiny championship patch for this season, it seems the boys have done pretty well.  Wouldn't you agree?

Paint Party Friday: Hopes and Dreams on Prayer Flags

I'm posting to Paint Party Friday on Thursday because Friday is the 10th, and I plan to participate in Shimelle's Ten on the Tenth meme. I'll link up on Friday, though, so you should find this on the right day. Thanks to everyone for their comments on last Friday's painting and input about prayer flags. I did more research, and you can read my post about it here (in case you didn't see it already).  Today's painting (art journal page) is drawn with oil pastels and painted with water colors (twinks). There's more prayer flags and houses and my face for Day 6 of the 29 faces challenge. 
The art journal page started with my Day 5 sketch, which incorporated an idea from Gina of Daydream Believer about how to incorporate faces into my art journaling. She suggested writing in long, flowing hair, and I came up with this:

I like way it morphed into a full blown art journal page. I find myself doing that more and more often lately - starting with a sketch and then building from there. Do you do that much?
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For more of 29 faces, go to this link.
For more of paint party friday, check this out.

Prayer Flags and Butterflies and face 4 of 29

Thanks for all the wonderful comments and feedback on my art journal page featuring prayer flags. To provide a bit more information, check out this link which describes their origin in Tibet or the wikipedia entry.  I learned that there is a "prayer flag project" run by artists, which you can read about here and also a "peace flag project," check it out here.  Both of these look like wonderful, artistic ventures which are based on the idea of prayer flags but which encourage artists to create their own designs rather than stick to the traditional ones.  I'm a bit of a traditionalists, so I'm not sure how I feel about that. But I'm going to think about it for a while.
And, in the meantime, I'm definitely going to participate in Deb's very cool "Butterfly Project" gathering. Check it out here.
What do you think about artists re-interpreting ancient traditions?
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Today's art is my Day 4 Face for the 29 Faces Challenge. See more faces here.

29 Faces, Part 1

Ayala is hosting a February challenge called "29 Faces," which encourages participants to draw one face a day for the month of February.  I have found that the more I draw faces, the better they get, so I wanted to join along.  Also, I'm still working on finishing up the assignments from the 101 Faces class I started in January. It's a perfect combination.  I'll share the faces in groups, rather than daily, and today's the first trio. The one up top is done with pastels and has a definite Frida Kahlo inspiration.

This second one didn't scan very well, but it's a simple, sweet pencil drawing of Clara (and that pink streak is not there in real life!).  And finally, an art journal page:

It's an acrylic face and the journaling reflects the fact that I'm still not sure how to incorporate faces into my art journal pages.  For more faces, check out the linky here.
These faces are all very different - do you have a favorite?