{Inspiration Board} Aquamarine + Kraft + Red

I love the colors of the sea...aqua, jade ,turquoise, emerald, and blue-greens of every hue, shade, tint, or tone.  I love to pair these colors with kraft and a splash of red. This aquamarine mood board is a melange of all my favorite things, or several of them anyway!

 

I found the "book" and "cake" flashcards at one of my favorite stores, Hodgepodge, in Clarksville, TN. Kimberly Santiago, the author of Collage Playground, has a little nook there called Creative Corner. She stocks it with parcels of vintage ephemera, art supplies, project kits, and bits and pieces of all kinds. It's tiny, but packed with artful goodness!

 

 



 

 

I snagged a few of these survey maps for collage and bookbinding!

 

 

So many elements of this inspiration board have special meaning for me. The FRAGILE box and the labels belonged to my great-grandparents. I made the map garland from a tattered antique store find, and the board itself is the handwork of my sweet husband!

I found the rusty key at Candlelight Antiques in Elkmont, AL and the little packet of Oregon Coast photos at a tiny store in southern Indiana whose name escapes me! I loved the rusty patina of the old key, and the "50" tag serves to remind me of a goal I want to reach before I enter that decade of my life. I am completely smitten with the Oregon coast, so these little photos are a lovely reminder of the blissful time my family spent on that gorgeous shore last fall.

 

 

Maps, vintage sheet music, collaged tags, vintage sewing pattern paper, vintage cabinet card frames, book paper, images of shells from an old book, kraft paper, birds, bling, shipping tags, a handwritten note, an old star-shaped cookie cutter, flashcards...I crammed this board full of inspiring, meaningful, and beautiful-to-my-eye goodness! I made this board as a homework assignment for the amazing Pages& Paint online workshop I took earlier this summer, and it's sparked many ideas for my artwork and given me great pleasure. I hope you've enjoyed my little tour of the ideas and objects behind this board as much as I've enjoyed sharing it with you! Make art, be happy!

{Sketchbook Sunday} Retro Blooms

Cut, paste, scribble, paint: I loved it kindergarten, and I still love it decades later! A quiet Sunday afternoon is the perfect time to play in my sketchbook, and today I was inspired by the retro fabric pictured above. The mod-vintage color palette is so fresh and trendy right now, and I love the bright blues paired with a muted olive green.

This is the sketchbook I've been using for the phenomenal Paint & Pages class I raved about in this post. I've often pondered the difference between a sketchbook and an art journal, and I've concluded that for me a sketchbook is a place to quickly record those fleeting ideas that are so easily lost in the noise of everyday life. I find that my art journals are more about experimenting with those ideas and trying out various media and techniques. I love the freewheeling vibe of scribbling my ideas on paper, using washi tape to stash in inspirational photos, writing down quotes I want to remember, and creating color palettes to try. A sketchbook is portable, requires nothing more than a pencil, and is endlessly versatile. Sketchbooks are magical!

These watercolored blooms may look like the work of a  kindergartener, but I'm ridiculously proud of them! For so long I've lamented the fact that I can't draw, but my sketchbook work in Pages & Paint is changing all that. I felt so genuinely inspired by Sarah's words to our class that "it doesn't have to be perfect"  and so uplifted by the generous, supportive community of my fellow students, that I decided to just go for it and toss the results out there for the world to see! After all, I'm always telling my daughter that she can do anything if she simply tries. I have absolute faith in her, but I need to develop that same belief in myself. Anyway, I'll be sharing a peek into my sketchbook now and then, and I hope I'll just get better and better. If not, I'll have lots of fun along the way, and I hope you'll find something here that inspires you to dive right into one of your dreams! A heartfelt thanks to Sarah Ahearn Bellemare, Michelle Madden Smith, and to all those who joined me on this amazing journey to creative freedom.