{creative soul}

Mojo Monday: My Favorite Place...

Happy Monday! I thought for today's Mojo Monday post, I would share some pictures from my new studio! I just moved in a little over a month ago and it's become one of my favorite places to be. It is very small, only about 150 square feet but having a place to go to each day outside of the home, has really helped me focus on my business and my art.

It is in a little section of Plymouth called "Old Village" which dates back to the early 1800s and it's right next to the train tracks. I just love being here with the natural light and hearing the train whistle blowing as it goes by! Also, there is a beautiful park about a half mile from my studio so I can go walking on my lunch hour—if the boss lets me! :)

I tried to move in on the cheap so rather than heading to Ikea for new furniture (which was my first instinct) I ended up spray painting some furniture that was in our garage and basement. My computer desk used to be John's parent's old dining room table and the table underneath my Kelly Rae Robert's print was my Aunt Dorothy's old table... I just love it! My one splurge was my painting table, which I got at my favorite store in Ann Arbor —Found. It is an old wallpapering folding table! It wobbles a bit as I paint but I don't mind it...

I have been slowly filling it with food (which is important!), plants (which I'm sure to kill) and different kinds of inspiration...

I hope you enjoyed this little tour of my little studio! Happy Monday!

xo
N

 

Mojo Monday: Mood Boards!

Good Monday morning to you!! It is a beautiful fall morning here — cool & crisp and wonderful! No matter how bad a night's sleep I get, (which seems to be happening more and more as I approach a "certain age" —ahem!) I always feel happy when I drive Ellie to school then come into my new studio. There is something fresh and wonderful about it.

The drive to school is so much fun because even though the girl's are crabby because it's early and I'm crabby because of the traffic, I love hearing them chat about school, horses, etc! Then, when I come into my studio, I love opening the door and seeing everything being right where I left it night before and that my dogs haven't chewed my artwork again! LOL!  That alone can lift your spirits, right? ;-)

This morning as I sat down in front of computer with my latte (bad habit!) and wondered what to blog about, I thought MOOD BOARDS!!! I have, of late, become a sort of Mood Board Junkie!

Now, I've always used these for my design work and for my paper designing but I called them "inspiration pieces". I used to cut out pictures from magazines and post them in a journal and called it my "personal discovery journal" (you'd be surprised at how the images in that journal have manifested in my life over the years!), and, of course, I now have a giant inspiration board in my office on which I hang artwork, photos and quotes that speak to me. Here's a picture of it...

 

I first heard of the term "Mood Board" in an online class I am taking on Surface Pattern Design. Artists are given Mood Boards to help inspire them visually in color and theme and hone in on a design or collection. An interior designer can use them when decorating a space and writers also use mood boards when developing a storyline.

According to Wikipedia, "A mood board is a type of collage that may consist of images, text, and samples of objects in a composition of the choice of the mood board creator. Designers and others use mood boards to develop their design concepts and to communicate to other members of the design team."

Mood boards can be done digitally of course, in fact, Pinterest, is basically a changing, organic, digital and highly addictive mood board (don't get me started on Pinterest or I may never finish this post!) :-) but they can also be created using physical items.

Here's a mood board  which is essentially a photo of a physical mood board that someone created —brilliant! I just love the color here..

Next, is a digitally created mood board for interior design for a child's nursery...

And here is one for a Rustic Kitchen

They can range from the eclectic...

To the more traditional...

Here is a mood board just for Fall that I love...

And, if you are on Pinterest, visit my Mood Board board! :)

Here is a snapshot of it...

Okay, now I dare you not to go out and create a Mood Board, in whatever format you want! Excuse me while I go visit a certain website that starts with a P and ryhmes with "Interest". Tee hee...

Happy Creating!
xo
N

Mojo Monday: Nature Sketchbook

Hello! Happy Monday to you... it is a gorgeous fall day here in Michigan and I'm very blessed to have a park near my studio where I can walk, jog or bike. Right now, the leaves are just beginning to change and even though it's warm & sunny here there is a little crispness to the air, which I just love!

Today, I am working on an online class and one of the assignments was to sketch with pen, pencil or whatever medium you wish, items that you find in nature. I decided to head out on my walk to collect whatever caught my fancy. I love flowers, but I was looking for more wispy, twigs and leaves. First, I started off from my office and headed out to Hines Park. The evidence of fall was all around me...

On my walk I found a lot of goodies! Once I got back to the studio, I sorted through them and picked out my favorites.

Next, I sketched them using a combination of marker and graphite. I really enjoyed this process. I'm not sure where it will lead, but it helped me to view nature in a different way and I came up with some great motifs that I may use in a scrapbook paper or other surface pattern design down the road.

I hope you enjoyed this process and that you might choose to use it in your own work. Taking pictures really helps too, esp. since some of these may dry and out and change their look later on (which may lead to a cool and totally different motif!)

Hugs!
N

Soulful Fall Digital Collage Tutorial

Hello there! Hope that wherever you are today you are having a great day! I am in my new office space, (which I just love!) trying to get caught up on my blogging. I have a fun tutorial for you today on creating a painted fall collage, using my new Autumn Canvas backgrounds. I also have a little freebie for you so you can follow along.

First, open the Autumn Canvas background called nrj-autumncanvas8.jpg in Photoshop.

Next open the word strips and cut and paste them in whatever position you want to see them.

I found this beautiful heart-shaped leaf the other day and just fell in love with it. Isn't it amazing!? I HEART FALL! :))) (let's open it up and place it in our collage!)

I really like the way the leaf looks but I'd like it to be more orange. Let's add a color overlay....

Using the color picker tool (the one that looks like an eye-dropper), select the reddish color in the top left of the painted background.

Then create a new layer above the leaf layer and fill it with this color. Next, using Cmd+G (or Ctrl+G on PC) to create a clipping mask as shown. Use a Layer Blend of Soft Light and play with the Levels, until you are happy with the color.

There! Love that....it just brightens up the leaf and it also helps to balance the color a bit.

Now, let's get distressing! Open up the painting brushes that came in the folder.

Selecting a white color and the brush of your choice, create a New Layer above all the other layers in our collage. Open up your Brush window,  and choose the following before we begin to paint...Size and Angle Jitter at 50% and we want the brush to flip on both it's X and Y axis.

Begin painting all around to "paint over" our collage piece. Don't worry, we are going to "wipe away" the paint in a bit!

Now, let's use the same brush, in black paint, on a Layer Mask, to wipe away the paint. When I collage in real life, I use a baby wipe to do this! :)

On the white paint layer, create Layer Mask (by clicking on the little tool on the bottom of the Layer palette that looks like a little camera).

When we paint with black on a white layer mask, we are "erasing" away bits of the paint....

Use the same brush settings as before (they should already be chosen, unless you switch brushes)... paint in black on the layer mask until you like the results. If you erase away too much of the white paint, don't worry. Use the X as you paint to switch back and forth between white and black paint. Again, remember BLACK=ERASES the white paint, showing our collage, WHITE= lets the white paint layer come through.

Work on this until it's beginning to look and feel like a real painted collage and you are happy with the results. This is what I came up with.

I think it looks good - but I wanted to put a bit of a drop shadow on the word strips and leaf layers to make it look more realistic.

Here it is... all finished!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. I'd love to see your creations, just email me at [email protected]

Hugs!
N.

 

Mojo Monday: The Coffee Bean!

Good Monday Morning to you! I hope wherever you are, it is a bright, beautiful day! Here in Michigan, it is cool, crisp and the leaves are beginning to change color. It's hands-down my favorite time of the year. I always feel re-inspired and energized by the brisk temperature and the changing of the season.

This year is especially energizing for me, as I've moved into a little studio space in Old Village, which is part of my hometown of Plymouth, Michigan, but has it's own unique charm. Most of the buildings in Old Villiage are from the early 1800's (this will be a future Mojo Monday post!) . Anyway, Plymouth has a cute little downtown and on it's main street, Penniman, it has a lovely coffeeshop, The Coffee Bean. The Bean is in a big old white house, with creaking wooden floors and comfy furniture.

Penniman Street

{The Bean}

The charm of this place cannot be overstated. Out front are little wrought iron chairs on a big porch, and in front of the door, is a chalkboard where people can leave each other little love notes, like this one...

Don't you love it already!?!

Once inside, the aroma of Pumpkin Spice Latte's and Cranberry Scones (my two favorites) envelope you... Donna, the sweet manager, takes her time with each drink, lovingly making each one as if you were a special friend who came over to her house for coffee. I think that is why I love this place so much...their motto is "friends don't let friends drink Starbucks!" LOL!

 Donna

Today's trivia question was "What is the First Day of Autumn Called?" I got it right! The Autumnal Equinox... :) I felt pretty proud.

Here are just a few of the reasons I love this place so much! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do and perhaps it will spark some creativity in you somehow?

Hugs!
N

Mojo Monday: A Gypsy Soul Adventure!

THE GYPSY SOULS...

I had an amazing experience this weekend! I got to attend, and to teach at, a Gypsy Soul Art Retreat at Three Cedars Farm in Salem, Michigan. Gypsy Soul Art Retreats is the brainchild of Kristy Robinett, a nationally known psychic, author & soul coach and Mary Butkovich Byberg, an award-winning, published artist and super funny lady! It was a day to kick back, eat some delicious food, meet new friends and create!

We started the day early at Three Cedars Farm setting up in the barn where we were holding the event. It was a gorgeous Michigan fall day - cool, crisp & sunny! You could smell the cider and fresh cinnamon donuts (my favorite food of all!) Around noon, the 50 participants began to filter in and there was a buzz of excitement for the day.

Chuck, Kristy & Mary

We began with a guided meditation and discussion on creating art and intuition. We picked one word to guide us through the year... my word was FAITH. This year I'd like to have more Faith — in my heavenly father, in others and most of all in myself and my path. Later, we painted rocks with our word on them.

Then we handed out magazines and cut out pictures for a Looking Glass Necklace that Mary taught us to make. They were so much fun!

Next, I taught Soul Song, an art journaling/painted canvas/collage project. The creativity and imagination of the women was incredible. I was truly moved by their acceptance of this project and the different and beautiful ways they journaled from their hearts and painted their canvases.

We went on a hayride and had a delicious lunch of pulled pork sandwiches, a romaine salad with butternut squash, figs, chickpeas and cherries in a champagne vinaigrette. It was SO yummy! We topped it off with cupcakes from Just Baked, a local cupcake chain.

After lunch we talked about dreams and then created a vision board (I forgot to take a picture of mine, but of course it had to do with food, of course! LOL!)

We topped the day off with a bonfire and, as the sun set, Kristy and Chuck told some spooky ghost stories around the fire. We wrote down on a piece of paper what we wanted to be rid of in our lives and then threw the paper into the bonfire where it burned away unwanted things!

Mary & Me

The Sparkle Girls!

I adored the women that I met and really connected with them on a soul level. Many were artists, jewelers, and teachers. Some were from an online class that Kristy taught called, Step Out & Sparkle and it was great meeting them in real life!

I left the retreat exhausted, happy, exhilarated and my heart was truly full!

xo
N

Mojo Monday : Artist Spotlight on Yaz Raja!

Happy Monday! I hope wherever you are today that you are enjoying yourself! It has finally cooled off here and is raining a bit. I love it!

For today's MOJO MONDAY post, I wanted to share a new favorite artist with you.. Yaz Raja. Yaz is a surface pattern designer living in the U.K. I found Yaz's work through Pinterest. I fell in love with her painterly, illustrated artwork. It just makes my heart sing! It's colorful, whimsical, yet elegant at the same time.

Once I found Yaz's artwork, I sent an email off to her to find out what kinds of medium she worked in and she was so sweet to email me back right away. Yaz works mostly in watercolor and gouache paints and I've found that most artists that I resonate with work in gouache. Mary Blair and Anne Keenan-Higgins also work in this medium. It is a cross between a watercolor and acrylic and I'm hoping to add more of it to my growing art supplies!

Here is a snapshot of Yaz's work as well as a link to her store at Society6. I want to order everything in her shoppe!

 

I would love to have these throw pillows with her beautiful florals for my sunroom!

I also love a series she has on her blog called "Pattern A Day". Here are just a few of the beautiful patterns she creates! The colors are amazing!

Hope you enjoyed this spotlight today!

HUGS!
N

 

 

Mojo Monday : Artist Date to Found Gallery in Ann Arbor!

Good Monday to you! Lately I have been in a creative slump! For some reason I've been having a hard time getting down to my basement to paint and create. I think a lot of it has to do with the warmer temperatures and wanting to get out and ride my bike and garden and play outside, but also I think that school is coming to a close and we have been busy preparing for Ellie to graduate 8th grade and move on to high school! Where has the time gone!!??!

So today was a good day to get out of the house and go on an "Artist's Date"! An excursion to explore and take in all the eye-candy that is out there, in hopes of sparking my creativity. My absolute favorite place to go on an Artist's Date is Found Gallery, in Ann Arbor. This store, run by a sweetheart of a woman named Mary, is full of beautiful handmade artwork from Michigan and Chicago, unique jewelry, antiques and my favorite part of the shop is the ephemera, which I often use in my work. Mary scouts the globe for flea markets and estate sales and brings all her treasures into the store for sale. I love to sit on the floor and go through all the bins of old postcards, books, games, photos, etc.!! Then of course, head to Zingerman's Deli for my Turkey sandwich. :)

I thought I would share my favorite place with you, in photos...I know you will fall in love with it right along with me. ENJOY!!!

T(o see a close up of any photo, just click on the thumbnail.)

 


 
  

Hugs!!!

Create your own brushes using your iPad!

I am in love with the Paper53 app on my iPad. I love to "draw" while laying in bed. It's not as satisfying as feeling the paint on my hands, but it is close second and it gives me unlimited possibilities to practice my art without wasting paper, paint or canvas. I really like the interface of Paper53 and the watercolored look and just recently they added a color mixer so the color possibilities are endless.

But one of my favorite things to do with Paper53 is to create lettering using the calligraphy tool in black. I use my stylus (or finger) to doodle words or graphic that I want to turn into brushes in Photoshop.

In the app, you create multiple "journals" to house your creations and when you are done you can email a .pdf file to yourself that you can in turn import into Photoshop....

After you email your journal.pdf, you go into Photoshop and import. >File > Open and find your .pdf file.

Let's import each page from our journal as an Image... so select the button that says Images and then select all the images from your journal. Click OK.

Once you have all these files opened in Photoshop, let's save them off as .jpgs for importing into Illustrator. If you don't have Illustrator, don't worry you can just create your brushes from the imported files.

However, I noticed that tracing them through Illustrator renders a crisper and larger image. If you want to use your imports, change the DPI (dots per inch) to 600 at the time you import.

If you have Illustrator, let's open the jpg files that we saved off from Photoshop in that program and trace them.

Bring up the Image Trace Window and select the Black and White Logo Preset and Black & White for the Mode. Click Trace.

Then click Expand to convert our design to paths.

Next select >Object >Ungroup and delete the white background...

Finally, select an area of your artwork that has a white fill, then choose >Object >Select> Same Fill & Stroke and hit the Delete button. This gets rid of any white fills in your art.

You can now save this off as an .ai file for later use or you can Select All and then Copy & Paste it back into Photoshop. From here you can use it as is, or create your brush set for later use, by selecting >Edit >Define Brushset.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and I'd love to see your brushes that you created using this technique!

I also created this little freebie for you to use... it is in .png format. You can download it here. This is part of a larger set of brushes coming to the shoppe soon!

Have a great day!
N

 

Mojo Monday: Creating your own foam stamps!

Happy Monday to you! I hope you are having a great day wherever you are. Today it is sunny here and although its only in the 30's I swear I can smell Spring, which makes it a very happy Monday for this girl! :)

I have been having such a blast lately creating my own stamps! I love to use the Speedball, with rubber (I just buy the cheap rubber blocks from Dick Blicks) but I also love making my own foam stamps. Want to join me?! To do this you will need:

• woodburner
• craft foam (I just buy the 99 cent sheets at Michaels) in WHITE & BLACK
• mask for odor (it gets stinky)
• safety glasses
• glue gun
• scissors or exacto knife
• tracing paper (optional)
• pencil (optional)

You can either draw (or trace) your image onto the tracing paper or you can just burn into the foam freestyle as if you are drawing directly on the foam. I did a combination of both. To trace, using a soft pencil and draw on the tracing paper then flip it over and rub it onto the foam to transfer the image. If you are writing words you will need to write them backwards when burning directly onto the foam freestyle. If you use tracing paper, you will be fine, because when you transfer it onto the foam it will be backwards.

Once you have your image transferred to the WHITE foam, use your woodburning tool to trace the image. Please get a mask made for odor and also wear glasses, as it can get really stinky and smokey. Don't be like me and burn these in your enclosed in basement :-( Work in a well ventilated area! Make sure you press down consistently but not too hard because you will get little dots in the foam. But don't worry too much because once you stamp with it, it is kind of perfect in it's IMPERFECTION and that's okay.

When you have all your images burned into the craft foam, cut them out with either scissors or an exacto knife. Mount them to the BLACK foam with a glue gun and then cut out the black foam. This gives you a nice raised backing to your stamps and will give you more even transfer when stamping. I use acrylic paint when I stamp with foam. I just rub it on with my fingers and I use a Mr. Clean magic eraser to clean them up.

I wish I could make a video to show you this process but I don't have that set up. :( I learned this technique from Mindy Lacefield in her Neat Stuff course - she has a great video on making foam stamps!

Here are few closeups of my stamps and how I used them in my art journaling...

I love making my own stamps because I can create whatever my mind thinks up and I can tailor it to certain marks or images that I use over and over again in my art journals.

I've taken all these stamps (yes, I may have an addiction! LOL!) and created digital brushes for you! I am calling them Nan's Stamps (really, orginal, eh!?) and they will be available in my shoppe on Friday! :)

Hugs!
N