The Great Pyramids Of Giza | Art Journal Page

Click here for the YouTube video.

About this page:

A drawing of the pyramids of Giza. We used to get this assignment a lot at school when I was a kid, draw something about Egypt. I always drew the pyramids of Giza. So, when soft pastel were on offer at a local store, I decided to get me a box. I had no idea what to draw and then I saw the pyramids in my head. Even though I have acrylic paint, I still didn’t have the courage to use it with a bruth. The nice thing here with the soft pastels was that I had to apply water using a brush. This page depicts the pyramids, the sun as was depicted by ancient Egyptians, the nile and the key of the nile (some call it the key of life).

Supplies used:

- Pencil

- Ruler

- Felt tip coloring pen

- Permanent markers

- Soft pastels

What I learned from making this page:

It is OK to use pencil to outline your drawing/painting. I used to be scared of using this before in case it showed later on in the final work, but this page is proof that this doesn’t happen. When using felt tip coloring pens, be careful not to get any water near them because they bleed over the rest

Challenges with the video footage/YouTube:

Because I had issues with the soundtracks I had added to other time lapse videos, even though I did use them from the library on iMovie. I had to research the licenses provided by Apple.com and it turns out that you can not use one track in a loop. Meaning that the best option is to overlap a few different tracks and add more sound effects. This seems to have worked with this video, but it is extremely time consuming.

Tile Design | Art Journal Page

Click here for the YouTube video

About this page:

I tried here to do something I had done a long time ago (in highschool) but this turned out soooo much different, and a bit too simple. All I did was divide and divide and divide and then choose lines that I wanted to connect to see what it would turn out like.

Supplies used:

- Pencil

- Felt tip coloring pen

- Ruler

- Compass

- Eraser

What I learned from making this page:

When you are going to divide the page and do detailed work, choose a pen with a thinner tip. Also when using a compass on paper, make sure to add enough padding under the paper so that it doesn't puncture other pages in your book.

Challenges with the video footage/YouTube:

Another silent video, but I know better now about what music to add to my videos :)

Flowers & Butterflies | Art Journal Page

Click here for the YouTube video.

About this page:

Another page inspired by watching out videos about doodling. This one is inspired by a a few videos I saw where they drew the flowers all over the page first and then later on filled in the rest. I think it turned out OK.

Supplies used:

- Felt tip coloring pen

What I learned from making this page:

When doodling tiles for the background and using high contrast color, remember to take a break. I believe I was crossed eyed by the time I was finished. I was also very glad to be finished with these tiles.

Challenges with the video footage/YouTube:

I chose to add music from YouTube, but it turns out that when you use music from YouTube (from the video editing menu at the time of uploading this video) you can not monetize your video for yourself as the music is copyrighted. So the music was removed.

Smiling Faces | Art Journal Page

Click here for the YouTube video.

About this page:

Another page inspired by too many “how to” draw cartoon faces and doodling YouTube videos. You can tell from the video that I was staring at the blank page for about 15 minutes, had no idea what to do. Moving things around and trying different things did help. I wanted to use the CD that I had because I saw someone else, sorry can’t remember the channel, who used a bawl to divide their page for doodling. Since the bawls I have are too big for the size of paper that I have, I opted for the CD. You’ll also see how I used the middle line of my ruler to help as a guide for a continuous exact distance between the lines in the background.

Supplies used:

- Permanent marker (was running dry)

- Felt tip coloring pen

- CD for form

- Ruler

What I learned from making this page:

It is good to use existing forms that you have at hand. Makes it easier to divide the page to put your doodles. It’s OK if eyes are not looking in the direction you intended them to, or even when one of your faces looks as if it’s got a black eye! It’s OK, that is art :D

Challenges with the video footage/YouTube:

This one also had copyright issues with the music, so I ended up removing it completely, instead of re-editing and re-uploading. Live, learn and move on!

Heart & Smiling Eyes | Art Journal Page

Click here for the YouTube video.

About this page:

After watching loads of videos on YouTube about drawing, I seemed to have gotten stuck with cartoon/strips in my head. So when I started this page, I knew that I wanted to do something with eyes. After putting down the eyes the rest just flowed and it turned out to be showing two people in love. I kept it black and white as I liked the contrast in the end result. I felt that coloring would not really add much.

Supplies used:

- Permanent marker (was empty half way thru)

- Felt tip coloring pen

What I learned from making this page:

The permanent marker is always great to use, but when it ran out I didn’t want to stop and decided to use a felt tip pen as that was all I had in black. This also meant that coloring this page was not going to work as the lines made with the black felt tip pen would bleed if I used felt tipe colors, which was all I had at that time.

Challenges with the video footage/YouTube:

Originally I had edited the video and used the same music that I was listening to while making the page, but when I uploaded it to YouTube I ended up with copyright issues and then decided to remove the music all together.

Flower & Leaves | Art Journal Page

YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQll5PWJeQE (here you only see the black and white page, i colored it off camera)

Inspiration for this page:

This being my 2nd drawing, but my first one to actually recorded. It felt strange at first as I had no idea what to do.  You can easily see from the video that I started by dividing the page, this is a tip I learned from watching other doodlers on YouTube. The rest of the doodle just started flowing after I did the first few lines and the flower.

Supplies used:

- Permanent markers

- Felt tip coloring pens

What was challenging to use and how I worked around that:

I found that the best way to start, when you have no idea what to do, is to just do one thing and the rest will follow, or flow in this case.

Flowers | Art Journal Page

Inspiration for this page:

This was the first thing for me to draw after so many years. I stuck with the basic forms I felt most comfortable with, in this case it was just a flower. I doodled different forms that seemed to just flow!

Supplies used:

- Permanent markers

- Felt tip coloring pens

What worked:

- Permanent markers are best when making doodles that you plan to color in later on, this way the initial drawing lines do not smudge into the colors.

- Coloring pens (water based) work perfectly for coloring in drawings that were made with permanent markers.

My Artistic Background!

As a child:
Ever since I was a kid I loved drawing and coloring. Mum used to tell me that all she needed to do to keep me busy and happy as a child was to give me paper and pens (colored if available). She also told me that I used to be good with stick figures from an early age, but I can't remember any of that.

As a Teenager:
My mum used to make very nice clothes for me as a kid and I loved watching her and trying to learn how she did it all. Mum eventually taught me how to use the sewing machine and also how to transfer patterns from burda magazines. I also learned how to make curtains, pillow cases, fancy fruit shaped pillows...etc. Mum also taught me how to knit, crochet and embroidery. I knitted a few scarves for myself, and did a few cross stitch projects using patterns from old magazines, was a lot of fun, you forget about the whole world when you are counting stitches :) In high-school we got a really good art teacher - Yes, we used to take an art class at school. I remember shading lessons and how I loved drawing and shading all those bottles. We also did view prospecting, buildings and tunnels...etc. But the best project I loved was when we learned how to use our geometry supplies to make art. I enjoyed this so much that I did two designs instead of just one. One was an arabesque style Islamic tile design and the other was Ancient Egyptian lotus flower tile. I loved it so much and was so happy doing it that it turned out so good that the teacher didn't believe that I did it myself and didn't copy it. All I did was divide the page and divide the page and a piece of art was created. I still hit myself on the head for not keeping those, but maybe someday I'll recreate them again.  I also went to study accounting in university because I thought if I went to study fine arts that it would be like cheating on my education because it is not something I can make a living with. Ah well, live and learn is what I can say!

In my twenties:
I didn't get much of a chance to express my artistic side in my twenties, but I did manage to express my creative side by doing DIY projects at home. Hanging up shelves, organizing books and other nick nacks on them. Putting closets together, rearranging the furniture.
I did get to develop a talent for organizing filing systems, which I seemed to do wherever I got to work. Wherever I went, I left a good filing system behind.I also got a kick out of designing the labels for those files, great days!

In my thirties:
Well, I'm now (September 2013) in my 39th year and I'm still moving furniture around the house. However, over the last year, I have been doing this a bit less because I have been watching art journaling videos on YouTube and I've been making my own art journal pages. Since I still have less than 6 months in my thirties, I'll stop here and fill this out when I am 40 :)

Why This Blog!

Since I started making some art I have noticed that I learn a lot as I make each piece. I've also received quite a number of questions about the stuff I use and what does and what doesn't work for me. I thought about putting this all in the description part of YouTube, but then thought that it might be a bit too much information under each video and that not everyone will want to go directly to YouTube.

In this blog I’ll be writing information about each art project that I do, what I use, how it worked for me and what challenges I face.

Since the main purpose of blogging is to share information, please feel free to leave a comment with your suggestions or questions.