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Doodling with Stencils: Using Stencils to Improve your Drawing Skills
Have you ever mixed doodling with stencils into your art journal or creative projects? Stencils can be very helpful when practicing improving drawing skills. Starting with a defined shape can be helpful and inspire creativity. Why Use Stencils? Why use stencils to improve your drawing skills? Stencils have defined shapes that can be traced onto a project. From there you can add your own drawing and doodling to add texture and dimension to an image. It’s an easy place to discover your own style and creativity. When we start learning to draw, many of us end up staring at a blank piece of paper. That’s a hard place to be.…
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Using Leaf Rubbings and Ink for Drawing Practice
Do you ever feel like learning to draw is a struggle? Using leaf rubbings and ink for drawing practice can be a fun way to gain confidence with your drawing skills. Finding Inspiration from Nature I have found so much inspiration from nature this fall. My walks in the city have been full of beautiful colors as the leave change as it gets colder. I started the habit of collecting interesting leaves on my walks and was able to even find leaves from trees that are less common in our area, like oaks and maples. Enjoying these beautiful leaves and being inspired by Inktober, I wanted to focus on the…
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Mixed Media Fall Greeting Card
As fall is upon us, I am having so much fun playing with mixed media fall greeting cards. The fall colors are incredible! Beautiful leaves, textures and colors as the trees turn and the weather gets colder. It was the perfect inspiration for this mixed media fall greeting card! Card Inspiration The inspiration for this greeting card is not only the beautiful trees and gorgeous fall weather. This weekend is Thanksgiving in Canada and I love making fall greeting cards during this season. Thanksgiving is a great time to remember the things I am grateful for. I try to have a habit of gratitude throughout the year, but Thanksgiving is…
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Deco Foil all the Things! How to Use Deco Foil
Have you ever tried using Deco Foil or any other type of foil in your projects? Understanding a few fundamentals of how to use Deco Foil can help you get better results. Today we will focus on how to use Deco Foil with Transfer Gel Duo, the Deco Foil Adhesive Pen and with laser prints in this post. To transfer the foil to your project, we will talk about how to use a laminator, iron and dry transfer to get consistent results. What is Deco Foil? Deco Foil transfer sheets are a colored foil that has been formulated to easily be added to projects using a variety of mediums and…
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Quick Coloring Technique Using Distress Crayons
Do you ever struggle with adding color to your images? Coloring images is enjoyable but can take a lot of time and patience. Today I will be demonstrating a quick coloring technique using Distress Crayons for those moments when you want to spend less time coloring and want a very forgiving result. Fighting Against Perfectionism Using a quick coloring technique is a great way of fighting against perfectionism in our creative practice. We can be very critical about how we color and shade images. This technique is a great way of breaking out of perfectionism. I originally showed this technique at the Creative Scrapbooking Carnival last weekend when I was…
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Scribble Sticks Watercolor Technique
Have you ever tried Dina Wakley Scribble Sticks in your creative practice? Today I will show you an easy Scribble Sticks watercolor technique that can be used for a card, in a journal or on a tag. What are Scribble Sticks? Scribble Sticks are a pigment-based stick that writes similarly to a crayon. They are also water soluble, so you can use them for watercolor techniques. As these have a different binder than watercolor paints, the blending effects you can get with these sticks is unique. The benefit of the Scribble Sticks is that they can be added on surfaces that traditional watercolor paints would not work well on. You…
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Printing with Gelli Plate Minis
Are you looking for a new technique for your mixed media practice? Today I will be demonstrating printing with the Gelli plate minis and how these differ from larger Gelli plates. It is always nice to try new things and discovering these little plates has opened many creative doors in my art practice. What are Gelli Plate Minis? Gelli Arts Mini gel printing plates are smaller versions of the Gelli printing plates and come in a variety of shapes. The collection of Gelli plate minis I have are oval, rectangle, and hexagon but they also come in shapes including triangle, circle, octagon, and diamond. The oval, rectangle, and hexagon Gelli…
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Living in the Moment: An Art Journal Painting Tutorial on Denim
Do you ever find yourself surrounded by distraction? Living in the moment is not always easy, but is an important habit to cultivate. By being present in the moment we can find enjoyment and peace in the small and precious moments in our lives. Art journaling can be a useful tool to help us practice living in the moment by writing about what we experience in these moments. Why Living in the Moment? I recently had the opportunity to visit Banff National Park. It was a day to enjoy the outdoors and practice photography. Visiting the park with my husband we both commented on interesting behavior that we saw as…
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Feeling Stuck? 5 Ways for Moving Past Creative Blocks
Have you ever had those moments of feeling completely uninspired? Do you ever struggle with the creative blocks that many of us experience? If so, you are not alone. Creative blocks come and go but they feel impossible to overcome in the moment when you are experiencing a block. How to Move Past a Creative Block Moving past a creative block is not always easy, but there are things that you can do to try to spur creativity and move past these uninspired moments. Here are some ideas of things you can try to move past a creative block. Creative Play Give yourself time for creative play to move past…
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