LifeBook 2014 - Week 20 - Honouring Your Inner World

This lesson was taught by Serena Bridgeman. When I first saw this lesson come up last year I knew I wanted to give it a try. I really like Serena's style and the beautiful painting she came up with. Her final piece looked more like a female buddha head. I ended up giving mine a geisha style hair instead of the traditional buddha look. I really enjoyed this lesson and loved the way it came out.

Here is the final piece followed by progress pictures:

2015 New Fall Titles Ad Design

This is an ad I designed for the company I work for that appeared in the September 2014 Issue of School Library Journal. We do these ads every year to announce our upcoming new titles for the new year. 

Designed for Rourke Educational Media; September 2014 Issue of School Library Journal

Teaching My First Painting Party!

My friends have been bugging me to teach a painting class for them. I kept telling them to let me know when they wanted to do it. Then one day one of my friends called me up and asked if I would really do it. I said I would definitely try. I am one of those people that doesn't like being the center of attention and I am not a good public speaker. I usually get super nervous doing these types of things. 

We started off brainstorming an idea and wanted it to be somewhat Halloween themed. We finally came up with the idea of doing an owl. Here is the sketch I came up with:

Then I took that sketch and tried to figure out the easiest way possible to paint it. This was my sample painting for everybody to follow.

The day came for us to get together at my cousin's house and paint our owls. Here I am starting to teach everybody.

Everybody hard at work painting their own owls. We even had the kids in the background following along.

Here is everybody's finished pieces. I love how they all came out different and everybody put their own spin on it.

Everybody did great and had a blast!  I think I did ok teaching. It was definitely a great learning experience. They did ask to do it again at the end, so we will see what comes of it.

September Adventures

First I want to apologize for being so quiet on the blog this month. I took a couple new things on and got super busy, see below for more of an explanation.

The Halloween candy buying starts early in my house. I already filled this cauldron twice now. 

I found this little guy on my door step one morning as I was leaving for work. A few weeks later he must have worked his way up and was hanging out on the top of the screen door. As I opened the door to leave he fell and brushed my arm.

For the Blood Moon a friend and I went to a meditation circle to celebrate the Full Moon. They asked us to bring our crystals to add to the big crystal grid they made. I love these kind of meditations, the energy in the room is amazing!

Our computers are super slow at work, we are hoping to upgrade them soon. So while I wait on the computer I have had time to doodle. I have also used this time to do studies of the portrait drawings I am working on.

I was able to work on another one of my LifeBook 2014 lessons this month. Here is a sneak peak of that. I will be posting on that soon.

One of the extra projects I have taken on, is I joined a class on clay explorations at a new studio that opened up in the area. I have really been enjoying working with clay. You might see more of this in the future. I will do a full blog post on this guy once he his complete.

The other thing that took me some time to work on. My friends talked me into doing a painting class with them. Here is the sketch and painting that I came up with for the class. Again more on this to come.

I have so many ideas for projects in my head, it is just being able to come up with the time to work on them all. Also for October I signed up for the #CreativeSprint, they send you a creative prompt to follow everyday for the month of October. If you would like to follow along I am sharing the photos everyday on Instagram under @creativelytara.

100 Portrait Drawings #1–6

I know I mentioned this project in my Monthly August Adventures. I thought I would elaborate a little on the project and give a little more information on my intentions. I was originally going to wait and start this with the new year, but it kept popping up in my head, so I thought I would just go ahead and start it.

My plan for this project is to complete 100 Portrait Drawings within a year. I am using different types of pencils including a little bit of a black and a white color pencil. I am also using a white gelly roll gel pen for the little pops of highlights. The paper I am using are 4x6 unruled index cards. I have wanted to improve my drawings of faces and thought that this was the best practice. I am already noticing a slight improvement on my drawings from 1 to 6. I am going to try and do a blog post about them once a month to show my progress. If you want to see them as they are finished come follow me on my Instagram you can find me there @creativelytara.

Portrait #1: is a self portrait from last years Halloween picture.

Portrait #2: Morticia Addams

Portrait #3: Wednesday Addams

Portrait #4: Lily Munster

Portrait #5: Elvira

Portrait #6: The Bride of Frankenstein

Keep on the look out for more. I think I am going to try a man and do Frankenstein himself next. We will see when I finish it.

August Adventures

August was one crazy stressful month. I don't have much to say as an introduction so I am just going to get to the photos.

We found that we have a gopher tortoise living in our backyard. These gopher tortoises are a threatened species here in Florida. We found that he dug his burrow right under our fence line. He was munching on the grass and posed so pretty when I took this picture. Then I got to close and he ran off. Surprisingly these guys are faster than you think.

So the remodeling of our master bedroom and bathroom was started the first week of this month. This is one of the biggest most expensive projects I have done yet. I was so stressed out the whole time. Here are some photos I had shared on my instagram. I still plan on writing a complete blog post on the process. I haven't taken pictures of it finished yet because there are a few small details we are still working on, like new lighting that I can't seem to decide on.

This is the new flooring. It is a porcelain tile that looks like petrified wood. It is so pretty!

Here is a picture of the inside of the shower.

We decided to freshen up the pain on the walls.

I only took a couple of my sky photos this month. We usually get the really pretty skies in the fall.

Here are a couple of sketches I did for my LifeBook lessons. The first one I actually completed the painting and you can find that here.

This is a sketch for the next lesson. I started the painting and need to get back to work on it, so I can finish it soon.

This is a 4 panel piece I am working on for my master bedroom to go over our bed. I started with painting the backgrounds to represent the changing of the seasons. I think I want to tone down the colors a bit and grunge them out more.

Another project I am going to try and keep up with is practicing drawing faces. I really wanted to make this a daily project but I am slow at drawing. I decided to make my goal at completing 2 a week. My goal is to try and complete 100 of them within a year. My first one is a selfie and the second is my version of Morticia Addams. Since it is getting closer to Halloween the next few are going to be themed that way. I hope to accomplish finding some sense of my own style in my drawings and paintings from completing this project. Follow me on my Instagram to see them as I complete them.

Well that time of year is upon us, and it is my favorite!

My sister wants me to paint this skull for her. I have an idea for it but it is going to take some time and planning to get it right.

Here is my very first Halloween purchase of the year! Michaels has some really great home decor this year. I also went to the annual Halloween Preview Party at Yankee Candle but I haven't taken a picture of those purchases yet.

I think that is about it for this month. I am looking forward to more Halloween projects in the coming months.

Tri-fold Mailer Brochure Designs

Last year about this time, the company I work for moved me to design and assist in marketing. This new responsibility requires me to help come up with new marketing materials and design them. We came up with the idea to do these little 5x5 tri-fold brochure mailers. They were a great way to get our name out there and tease a bit about a couple of the programs we provide for elementary classroom use.