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Wet on Wet Watercolor Technique
This week’s project is an easy watercolor card using a wet on wet watercolor technique. I have been watercolor painting more lately as part of my personal self-care routine. Setting up your space for watercolor painting is so easy. All you need is watercolor paints, water and a watercolor sketchbook or a pad of watercolor paper. The easy set up gives you more time to paint when you don’t have unlimited time. Lately, I’ve only had about a half hour a day for painting, but I can do a lot in that time when I am painting with watercolors. Part of building a healthy self-care habit is making a…
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How to Use Watercolor Paint
This week I wanted to share with you how to use watercolor paint. I first attempted watercolor painting a few years ago and found I really enjoyed it. It can be fun and relaxing, but also challenging. Watercolor Painting and Self-Care Watercolor painting is one of my favorite activities when I am working on my personal self care. It does not require many materials. The paint can be re-wetted so I can work on a painting for a short period of time without worrying about wasting materials. It is a paint that requires minimal clean up. Watercolor is an ideal activity when I have only a few minutes for self-care…
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4 Ideas for Using Gelli Printing in Your Projects
Today I want to share with you 4 ideas for using Gelli printing in your projects. Last week I wrote an article and provided tutorials about how to make Gelli prints. As a follow up to those tutorials, I want to give you some practical ideas for using Gelli printing in your projects. Creative Ways to use Gelli Prints It is not always easy finding creative ways to use Gelli prints in your projects. When I first started Gelli printing, I would end up with a stack of great prints that I had no idea how to use in other projects. I generally just pasted them onto journal pages and…
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How to Use Distress Embossing Glazes
Today I wanted to share with you how to use Distress Embossing Glazes. The Tim Holtz Distress Embossing Glazes are a new product from Ranger for 2020. When I saw the original demo for this product, I had so many ideas on how I could use this in my own journaling and in my own projects. I have spent the last 2 weeks since I received the Distress Embossing Glazes in the mail testing them to understand how I could apply them. There is something very freeing in taking the time to test something new. It forces me not to put on any constraints on how I think these products…
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3 Ways To Use Tombow Markers
As I was thinking about which art technique I would like to share with you this week as part of my Creative Foundation Series, 3 ways to Tombow markers in an unconventional way came to mind. What are Tombow Dual Brush Pens? If you are unfamiliar with Tombow Dual Brush pens, they are a great tool to use in art and papercrafts. They come in 108 colors and are useful for coloring, illustration, sketching and brush lettering. I often use them for these purposes, but also use them in some more unconventional ways. This week I will be sharing 3 ways that I use these markers in a more…
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How to Paint Watercolor Backgrounds
Have you ever wanted to paint watercolor backgrounds but didn’t know where to start? Do you feel intimidated about trying watercolor painting techniques? In this week’s Creative Foundations video I will be showing you how to effectively paint watercolor backgrounds. Watercolor as a Self-Care Activity Watercolor painting is an excellent self-care activity. It is a great foundational technique to use on cards and in journals. I often start cards and journal pages with a watercolor painting. Watercolor makes a great base layer. Not only is it quick and easy to do, the effect is very pleasing to the eye. Watercolor painting is very relaxing and meditative which helps foster self-care. The…
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Creative Foundations: How to Blend Ink
Building a self-care habit is not that easy, especially a creative one. Taking the time for rest and restoration can be difficult. Our pace of life often doesn’t allow us to be able to take the time to slow down and make time for creativity. Creative Foundations With that in mind, I’m starting a new video series called Creative Foundations. In this series I will be exploring a variety of simple art techniques that are foundational to starting an artistic self-care habit. What is useful about these techniques is that they can build on each other. When used together, they end up being the foundation for creative mixed media art.…
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Goal Setting: Creativity as a Prompt
A few weeks have gone by since most of us were setting goals or New Year’s Resolutions for 2020. Has it been a struggle to stay on target with your goal? Or are you still feeling really motivated and passionate about your resolutions? Personally, I’m finding some of my goals and habits easy to manage and others more difficult. I tend to procrastinate so it’s taking extra effort to ensure that I stay on track. So the question I have for you today is how do we keep moving forward to stick to our goals for this year? A Creative Way of Keeping Goals Visible An important part of trying…
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Practicing Self-Care during the Holiday Season
Practicing self-care during the holiday season can be a bit of a challenge. It is a season filled with additional commitments. This can mean finding moments to relax and be mindful can be rare. It made me think of the self-care habits that I have in place over the holiday season that bring rest and restoration. Self-Care through Handmade Holiday Cards One of my self-care practices over the holiday season is making holiday cards. Not only do people love handmade cards, it can be an outlet for slowing things down and finding mindfulness. I find using a loose medium like watercolor is very relaxing. Working with my hands and concentrating…
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Welcome to Hop-A-Long Studio
Over the last few years I’ve come to understand how pivotal art and creativity has been to my own self- care. Having spent most of my working life in a corporate environment, I have always found it hard to “turn off” at the end of the day. How did I deal with the pressure and stress of the workplace? I found artistic and creative expression through mediums such as mixed media painting, art journaling and photography. They have been especially helpful to be able to express my feelings, to understand them and to move past them. In 2018 I hit a crossroad. I was on the road to serious burn…
The Art of Self-Care
