Color Swatches Tutorial

Lately I have a thing for color swatches. It's a guide as to what colors you have in your stash of each art product. If it's a set you're collecting one at a time, this is perfect. Add the new color as you bring them home. Pictured below I colored in a circle for each Crayola pencil crayon I own. (I just bought a mega set of 60 pencils from Walmart.) If you want to know the steps in creating this, read on. :) 

I drew these on old book paper, punched them out, then glued them down in my Documented Life Project art journal. You could add them to any book. Maybe one dedicated to swatches would be cool!

Supplies:

- Book paper torn out of an old book (I tore mine from one of my art journals.)
- pencil crayons (or whatever medium you want swatches of. Examples: oil pastel set, watercolor pan set, watercolor pencils, Golden Acrylic fluid set, etc, etc.)
- 1 1/8" circle punch
- Sharpie marker Ultra-Fine point or any other fine-tipped pen or marker
- medium sized brush (a dollar store brand works fine)
- color wheel
- circle maker (a lid works too.)
- matte medium (I have the Liquitex brand.)
Note: If you're documenting water-based products, you'll want to use a fixative spray instead, as matte medium would make them bleed.
- glue stick
- art journal

Steps:

1. Take your circle maker or lid and draw as many circles as you have colors in your art set with the Sharpie. I drew 60.

2. Scribble another few circles around the first one.

3. Punch out your circles with the punch.

4. Glue them with a glue stick to the page of your choice. Arrange them according to the color wheel if you want. That had been my intention with mine, but I ran out of room, so it's a little disorganized. Make sure you have enough room to expand. I didn't, so they migrated to my other art journal pages, hence the mixing in of a different project I did. lol

5. Taking each pencil, color in each circle. Label color name (my favorite part) underneath the circle. I also added the name of the medium to the top of the page.

6. Take a brush and apply matte medium to the page to seal in the circles. (See Note in the supplies list. )

And you're done! :)

I created pictorial notes while reading The Book Thief, and glued the sketch paper to my art journal.


Happy Creating!
♥♥ Anna ♥♥

Spirograph and Silhouettes

 ♥  The Documented Life Project  ♥

May 11-17, 2014

Mixed colors for each day of the week...
Black zentangling for the header...
Some flippy flaps this time...
Turquoise watercoloring for the circle dates...
Dylusions Ink used as paint for the days of the week strips...

Silhouette flap with sewing complements of my daughter. I stole it from her art stash. She said later it was okay...teehee...
Dotted black and white washi-tape for the flap. I really do need to come up with a different method of creating a flap, really I do...

Another flappy thing...
An index card sized watercolor paper...
One specific thing that spells God's love to me lately...it's the little things I am so grateful for. I like to document them...
Circle watercolor spots, dotted and doodled with my go-to black Sharpie marker and a new white Signo Uni-ball UM 153 pen. Got 12 of them in the mail recently from Amazon for under 15 bucks!...

May 18-24, 2014 

More Dylusions Ink used as paint for the weekly strips...
Spirograph art using my old school set I still have from my childhood...
More turquoise colored circle dates...

Went with black Sharpie marker for the journaling this time...

Well, just a quick update on my ongoing Documented Life Project. I am going strong right now! I would like to change it up a bit more, but we'll see, we'll see. :)

Happy Day to you!
Anna ♥♥♥

Snail Mail Revival

Have you heard of the happy mail movement? Penpalling and snail mail is re-gaining popularity, and artists are totally on board with this, swapping artsy goodies, stationery and letters. I had to do it too!

Working on getting these out to some The Documented Life Projectees. I flit from one thing to the next, never staying on one project long, so that is why this is taking so long, but it will come yet. :)

I found a penpal on Instagram, and this is what I sent to her. My own doodles and watercolor cards, Instagram photos I printed at Prikl, a letter, and some mail tag answers. I forgot to ask her some questions! Boo.

I use these date circles for my DLP, with a cute green striped treat bag as it's home.

This is INCOMING MAIL from a lovely DLPer and Instagrammer, Christine Brasachio from California. Isn't it great?!? 

Many months ago, a friend in the city sent me some lovely hidden messages in the mail, and now I finally returned the favor with some odds and ends in my art stash. :) 

Be Free, Be Beautiful, Be You

is the tag line of this OUTGOING MAIL for some lovelies. Twelve, to be exact. Still another thing waiting to go out. :)

Cute grey envelope decorated with washi tape, confetti made with gelli-prints, yellow twine, all wrapped up in a vintage children's book page. :)

Gelli-prints on index cards, then zentangled with a pen and nib on top of it. Some stamps, an old atlas page, stamped journaling spot, clear envelope housing the confetti...

Another way you can get involved in sending happy mail is swapping art post cards with other art journalers. The three above is what I sent out. They are simply watercolored puddles, doodled with a sharpie pen after. 

Check out these snail mail, happy mail, penpalling resources online:

My Pinterest board:

http://www.pinterest.com/pinkpeonies2/snail-mail-revolution/

The Happy Mail Project: 

http://thehappymailproject.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-max=2013-02-04T07:30:00-08:00&max-results=7&start=7&by-date=false

One of the first sites I came across is great:

http://paperedthoughts.blogspot.com.au/

So much fun to send away goodies. :) Do you snail mail? Make someone's day, like an auntie you don't see very often with some cute stuff in an envelope in the mail. Who doesn't like to get nice letters? 

Happy Day!

Anna

Documenting Your Life

Hi, fellow art journalers! I love the Documented Life Project. It's keeping me very busy and involved, and I'm learning so much! The documentating I do in an artsy way is the heartbeat of this project, and very important to me. :) A quote by Ali Edwards is the very thing that motivates me to do this project (beside the amazing community this group is!). 

I used one of her many journaling prompts. I printed it off her website, and decorated it with my doodles.

The prompts are:

1. What I ate for breakfast, lunch, and supper. 

(Think about it. Wouldn't it be interesting to know what your great-grandparents had to eat one day of their life? Maybe I am just weird, but it's fascinating to me. LOL) 

2. What I observed today. 

3. What I overheard today.

4. What I feel gratitude for today.

5. A favorite moment of the day.

Very meaningful, wouldn't you say? 

So here's a great quote from my documenting guru, Ali Edwards. If you need any inspiration of what kind of details of your life you could cover in your art journal, go to her website. She has so many great ideas. :)

                               

Have a wonderful joy-filled, filled with gratitude kind of day today! Especially fitting, as it's Easter Weekend. 

Anna

:)

Oh, by the way, I want a new name for my blog. Annawhocropsalot is a name that only scrapbookers can relate to, as scrapbookers "crop" together. Any suggestions? 

:) 

Background is a gelli-print I made which I scanned to my computer, and the font is Traveling Typewriter.