For some reason the link doesn't show up for my last post. Go to the following website to see the patterns: www.milliande-printables.com

This websiste offers printable linear patterns you can use for your artwork. My plans for a few of these include mixed media artwork as well as wood burning on frames that I create for my colored pencil drawings.

I have started doing some small landscape sketches in color. These were so enjoyable that I decided to not only frame them but also offer them as greeting cards in two sizes. It has been interesting getting the sizes right to correspond with the envelopes. Thank the Lord for online businesses that offer these things. You can find SO MUCH on the internet! I got suggestions from several people to offer Christmas cards. I have now designed two Southwest Christmas cards that will be offered along with the small landscape sketches. I promise to post photographs of these soon.

Now that I got the hackers out of the way, I can post new info. I have been doing some Mixed Media work....which has been a lot of fun. I love to experiment getting different kinds of textures from ordinary things. I use heavy duty watercolor paper and make samples as I experiment. I also have tried watercolors on canvas board (doesn't work) and done light watercolors on sketch paper (works if you let it dry for 5 or 10 minutes, cover with parchment paper then weight it down. I have fabric covered bricks that I use for this purpose. When I'm ready for a certain look, I can refer to the samples. Recently, I wanted to see which materials work to distress/make photographs look old. I wanted a somewhat "veiled" effect. I took laser printer black & white photographs and using Mod Podge, glued the photos to a watercolor page. Then, I placed wet tea bag material over it and brushed with more Mod Podge. The image started to wrinkle, so I placed parchment over it and weighted it as mentioned above, for 15 minutes. When I returned, it had dried, with a nice crinkled effect over the photo, which you could still see very well. Very pleasing. However, when I used a different experiment, using a used dryer sheet on top instead of the tea bag material, this made for a "too veiled" effect. Looks like the person is being seen from behind a screen door, you can barely determine what the image is. For my watercolor sketches, I found colored pencils that can be used for sketching, then afterward be made into a watercolor using a fine brush along the pencil lines. I did find, though, that even the tiniest brush is too thick for fine lines & went looking for an alternative. I discovered that Ace Hardware has a Hobby Lobby store that carries craft cotton swabs.....they look like tiny little Q-Tips and with water, you can control how thick your watercolor line is.

HACKERS!

Got an email that indicated that hackers had entered this blog. Info has been changed so there shouldn't be an interruption in viewing my pages Sorry if they have inconvenienced anyone trying to view this site. Eli

More pencil sketches