Creative Gym - Exercise #8

Hello Mixed Media Friends!
This is always such an exciting moment to meet you for our new Creative Gym Exercise! :)

When you hear: pencils, pens, crayons -what do they make you feel? Excitement or anxiety?

Have you always wanted to draw but somehow never found the courage?

Or maybe you're one of those people who are always seen doodling on a piece of paper? ;)

If so, our next Creative Exercise is just perfect for you!

This month it's Athanasia who suggested a really inspiring theme and a very simple one :)

 DRAWING !

Whether you're already addicted to drawing or a complete beginner - join us this month!
Don't feel obliged or pressured to create a masterpiece, your sketches or simple exercises are most welcome, too! Simply feel the joy of holding a crayon in your hand. :)

I love drawing on my projects! I do it every time I make a layout or a canvas and that's how I got the idea to make a challenge with this theme. In this project I wanted to show you some ideas how to draw on your pages in a very easy way.

I wanted to make sure that my focus is on the drawing work, I decided to use only my permanent black pen, some Lindy's Stamp Gang sprays, 'Blue Grass' from Primary Elements, Copper Mica Powder with the Light Paste, two stamps, some wire and chipboard letters for the tittle. So, no embellishments at all and I like it!

First I did some doodling on the photo and wrote some words on my blouse. I also made a few simple lines on the paper to expand the photo. Then I started stamping with the Peeled Paint stamp on top and over my head (because this is where my thoughts are coming from :

To create my flowers, firstly I made some splashes with the sprays and then I drew the lines with the permanent pen abstractedly, without much thinking. The stalks of the flowers are drawn with the plastic hose of the sprays - that's pretty easy and fun thing to do! Finally I made some doodling with the same pen, not complex things, just some sloppy circles.

I hope I have encouraged you to do some drawing :)

Materials from Mixed Media Place:

The Drawing theme is very close to my heart. I just love drawing and in this project I decided to draw my own fragile soul. You may not believe it but it's a piece that I've been searching for for 10 years to hang up in my liviing room.

My base is a canvas coated with a thin layer of White Gesso. I left it to dry and then let my imagination guide me.

I drew the face with a pencil and then used a thin black pen. In between my hair I hand-written some of my qualities. I added some machine stitching and my crinkly hairdo was ready. :)

Some part of the face and the hair were painted with a paintbrush and... instant coffee.

It's all quite simple really - canvas, gesso, a pen, some thread and coffee. Sometimes you don't need much more to create a project you have in your heart.

Materials from Mixed Media Place:

I don’t consider myself a drawer but more of a doodler. So I started to think what could make a person to grab a pencil more eagerly. Because the biggest thing is the fear of starting...

Usually when you just start to draw and doodle it gets easier and easier by the minute. Even in school our art teacher said to us that the first two-three sketches are just a warm up, but after that it gets easier and the hand starts to do what you want it to do and trace to the paper.

So my advice for the fear of drawing is just to draw. Start little by little and before you know it, you might even enjoy it!:)

But as for my project, I thought about an aid to draw. There are many stencils available even with very detailed patterns. So I grabbed the Bubble Stencil (oh so versatile and my favorite) and drew some circles around an art journal page.

Then I doodled some flowers inside the bubbles with a PITT pen and colored them using watercolor pencils. Lastly I colored the gaps between the flower bubbles black. Ready in no time and lots of great pen practice!

Materials from Mixed Meda Place:

I also thought about another trick to ease the drawing process. For this little card I stamped a few elements on white cardstock, cut them loose and colored and assembled a little cottage out of the pieces. Then I drew the landscape and highlighted the cottage too.

Materials from Mixed Media Place:

When I was a child, I loved drawing. But I was too busy at school and stopped drawing long, long time ago. Last year I decided to start drawing again :) And I started practicing. 

Now I do it when I want to relax :)

Materials from Mixed Media Place:

I love faces ! I struggle to draw a complete face, but I love to draw eyes….they are my favourite thing. Art journal pages are the perfect place to practice and play with improving your drawing skills…draw away to your hearts content. If it looks really bad and you are not happy with it, just collage, paint or stamp over the bits you don’t like, and just keep having fun experimenting with different media.

Here is an art journal page where I have just focussed on drawing eyes.

I always start with guessing my pages. I knew I wanted the eyes to have really big eye lashes…like feathers, so 1. I drew in the shape of the eye and where the darkest areas would be. Use pictures or eyes, mouths, noses, anything really from magazines and just copy them. Next, 2. I painted some colour around the eye area, and using a fine tip waterproof marker and drew in darker outlines. Next 3. using black ink or black acrylic paint fill in the solid ares that are darkest. 4. Using a white ink pen, draw in white eye lashes over the areas just painted black. By using a white pen over the top of or around the edges of black ares can soften as well as give depth to your drawing. 5. using a fine point black pen add more sketchy, feathery eye lashes. 6. Finished eyes staring out from the page.

Use water colour pencils to add face details.

Some stamping around the edges and a collaged, tissue bird.

 A little doodling.

Water colour pencils are fabulous  to use to practice drawing with……they give you control over the areas you want to have in light or shadow.

Materialsfrom Mixed Media Place:

Looking through all the beautiful and very creative projects you sent to our Exercise #7, our Design Team decided to give first place to: 

.... Tiras De Papeles....

We are in love with this piece, be sure to visit Tiras De Papeles blog for more photos.
Congratulations!!! Please, contat us at: store(at)mixedmediaplace.com to claim your prize.

And now it's time to grab your pencils, pens and crayons and simply feel the joy of drawing!

You have time to present your works until June 17th. Simply add a link to your work using the inlinkz tool below.
Our Design Team will then choose their favorite piece and its author will win a discount coupon to be used in our Mixed Media Place Store.

An InLinkz Link-up