Day 10, #100dayproject completed!

Day 10, and I am so happy to say that without really trying I have actually completed a 100 day project. I didn’t follow a particular theme or thread, just “I will do something every day for 100 days, and hopefully will post it to Instagram” so what did I do?

#journallingjanuary was hosted by Under The Rowan Trees and was to encourage us to write in a journal daily. I am not a journaller and this was tough so I kept it small and brief, but I achieved 31 days of writing something!

#lettersinmystyle was hosted by @ACornishGeekLetters on Instagram, for this we wrote phrases, in our own lettering style, Emma gave us the daily prompt and the community produced their own pages. I really enjoyed getting to grips with faux calligraphy again, and enjoyed the 28 days.

#artisticspringtime was hosted by me, @donnas_Creative_space on Instagram. I created a challenge to write an artist and song title, each one was (fairly) linked to spring time. Each day was done in faux calligraphy again and I wrote it in my homemade journal. I posted the challenge onto Instagram, posted my pictures daily and generated a hashtag, however it was only picked up by one person. That person doodled something each day and produced a great sheet at the end, 31 days completed.

#30dayjournaltest – I have created another challenge for myself, I have decided to actually break the page of 3 journals I have bought but didn’t want to use (They are super pretty and really didn’t want to be anything more than shelf decoration so it’s tough!). My challenge is to complete one page a day, in one journal, and use the same medium across 3 days for the month of April. 30 days, 10 medium, 3 journals. This will then let me have good material to do a full and proper product review on these journals. They are 3 different company journals at 3 different prices. It will be interesting to see what happens – its been interesting so far! (10 days completed so far).

Today’s Journal test is with the Archer & Olive A5 notebook and Spectrum Noir alcohol markers. I was actually pleasantly surprised by this, Yes I know I’ve just doodled but the page hasn’t failed at all. I remembered to leave a blank page either side to allow for bleed through, and it did, I also remembered to put spare paper underneath to catch the extra bleed. At 9 pm at night I think that’s pretty impressive of me.

April 10th Archer & Olive and Spectrum Noir
April 10th Archer & Olive and Spectrum Noir

#blogalongwitheffy where I am blogging daily uploading my page to a Effys facebook group, and commenting on at least 3 other peoples blogs. There are SO many fantastic blogs I am being introduced too! I am definitely reading abd commenting on most pages posted, I have signed up to so many to follow on so many platforms! (Same 10 days so far)

#lettersinmystyle April challenge, another challenge set by Emma at @acornishgeekletters varying things for the month I plan to dip in and out of, faux calligraphy with themes, this week is BAFTA film quotes. (I may actually have done all 10 pieces so far!)

In addition to the above, I have also made other art in many other varying forms. Check my Instagram feed for a show and tell, it probably doesn’t show it all, but its a good roundup! I am a member of Wanderlust2021, Lifebook2021, I have Lifebook2020 and BookofDays2020 to complete, I am Journal Making from Willa, as well as the ArtBundle purchased for me in January, I have an ongoing subscription to Awesome Art School and The watercolour Academy, I also purchase varying subscription boxes from Kia Creates, ScrawlrBox and Under The Rowan Trees as well as also purchasing the odd new one from other locations!

We have also finished watching Firefly and SnowPiercer this month, so need recommendations of more to watch. Something that is OK for the kids would be good!!

I am SO lucky that I have such a supportive and encouraging husband. We have been 24/7 together for the last year due to the pandemic, and whilst the children were homeschooling I struggled with my day-to-day a lot, and my amazing husband recognised that I needed time to craft. He allowed me the time, space and facility to just BE ME. He isn’t surprised I have completed 100 days, I have in truth been doing art daily for quite a bit longer, but we all recognise that I need this. And you know what – I’m actually getting better at it, I’m feeling more confident in my ability, even if I don’t yet feel “creative”.

I thank the art community for inspiring me daily, but I thank my husband from the bottom of my very soul for being My Man and for allowing me to be His Woman.

Whoop Whoop onto the next 100 days!

Disclaimer: 

All opinions expressed here are my own.
I paid for any products discussed.
I received no payment and I am not affiliated in any way with any brand mentioned herein.

Screech Owl

A Screech Owl is 8 inches tall and has a wingspan of 18 – 24 inches. The Screech Owl mainly eats earthworms, insects, crayfish, tadpoles, frogs, and lizards. They will also eat mice, rats, squirrels, moles and rabbits. Screech Owls live in forestry areas, so if you live near a large group of trees, then the owl that you will most likely hear is the Screech Owl. The Screech Owl live for 14 years in the wild. Just a random fact that I know about Screech owls, is that when they fly, they beat their wings 5 times a second.

Screech Owl

Day 9 Its been a bit of a day..

Day 9, First off, I have to say that today’s announcement by the Palace was very sad. Prince Philip has always been one of my favourite Royals. He was just kind of a nice guy, despite his status in life he seemed a decent, down to earth guy as far as I am concerned. We have obviously been aware for quite some time this day would come, but its still sad. RIP Prince Philip.

Now on to my art – I have completed 3 art pages today.

The first piece was for an art challenge on a blog I looked at because of reading blogs in this blog-along. Thank you Angela and Susan for introducing me to the challenge. I really enjoyed my journal page and I definitely want to do more.

Next I went on to do my daily challenge of my journal test. This time it is my Scribble & Dot A5 dot grid notebook and the Ecoline Watercolour Brush pens. Once again I have been pleasantly surprised by this book, the paper held up well to the watercolour pens. I layered them heavily, covered all of the paper and there was very little in the way of damage to the paper. In terms of image quality, the image falls down where I didn’t let the pen dry before layering with another colour and you get the classic watercolour feathering.

Lastly its the latest classroom piece for Wanderlust 2021. This week its the turn of Kate Crane as the tutor. The class theme is Silhouette and today we are going to be creating a spread using background paper made using gel prints or brayer printed colours of our choice, appropriate level of stencil and doodles to add layers and texture, then add a tree with detail, some journalling ( I didn’t do that bit) and then paper cut some windows. It’s quite funny that my journal page above was a sort of “stained glass” piece and the piece in Wanderlust is similar. I really enjoyed making this piece today, and now I have a lot of collage fodder to play and doodle with as I made several background pages whilst doing the class!

Wanderlust Dual Page spread
Wanderlust Dual Page spread

Disclaimer: 

All opinions expressed here are my own.
I paid for any products discussed.
I received no payment and I am not affiliated in any way with any brand mentioned herein.

Day 8, An arty kind of day

Its Thursday 8th April and day 8 of the blog, I must admit its tough thinking what to write about everyday! So today it’s a little about the art I’ve completed today.

Firstly I have my own challenge for April where I am testing three journals with different mediums, one per day every day of the month. Day 8 is in the Mindful Giraffe notebook, and the test is the Ecoline Watercolour Brush Pens. I like the pens, I haven’t used them much but they are juicy and play well together as a watercolour pen, the question is how will the journal take it – especially as yesterdays was the Archer and Olive notebook that really didn’t like them too much. I found a tutorial online by Kim Dellow, who I have previously seen in a classroom somewhere (Maybe Life Book 2020, I can’t actually remember). Anyway I decided to go for it and do what I can with the pens, and just accept what the paper would do.

Ecoline Brush Pen Mindful Giraffe Notebook April 8th
Ecoline Brush Pen Mindful Giraffe Notebook April 8th

Well I am genuinely surprised! I used the pens as a pen, watered it down with a brush and even attempted some water drips and the pages gave me no issues at all! Of course there is a little buckling, that goes without saying, but the page held up well, no pilling at all, the pens went on easily, blended with each other, and dried nicely while allowing layering.

So onwards to the next art.

This time it was to do a pen test with new pens I received from Pen Pusher. Kuretake Zig Fudebiyori metallic brush markers in Gold, Silver and Black. I decided to test on black and white sheets. They are lovely and work well on both pages. I decided to also add some Gelly Roll pen doodles.

April 8th Pen Test
April 8th Pen Test

I decided to test them again, this time using Acrylograph pens. I know I’ve talked about them before but the pen just does nothing for me! They need to be shaken well before use, pumped to get the flow going and despite the little I used them I had to keep shaking and pumping the pens so the nibs are now frayed and scratchy, they are an expensive mistake. So the ZIG pens, awesome – the Acrylograph not so much.

April 8th Pen Test ZIG Metallic and Acrylograpgh
April 8th Pen Test ZIG Metallic and Acrylograpgh

After this I decided to go back to the free, time limited, subscriber course from Willa,.I only have a couple of days left to watch before I lose access (or buy the course when it goes out for the general public).

Colour Play - Finished
Mixed Media Colour Play

This was a fun piece of play using the “mother method” of colour work. Take a single colour, then slowly blend with black or white to get different tones, then add 1 other colour to the mix so everything is linked and is based off the mother colour. Then when done you doodle to your hearts content! I used black micron, white signo broad and ZIG silver and black pens,

After this, our son wanted to publish his latest page. He is so enjoying being a part of this and he is especially loving the comments people are leaving for him – I thank you all for helping! Owls are such a big thing in his life! He is also learning valuable technical and social media lessons that will help in his education.

Then it was tea time, I had remembered to sort the slow cook today, a family favourite Rogan Josh, although to say it was spicy was an understatement! We are all now enjoying the TV and letting our taste buds settle down. Nathan Fillion in Firefly is always good entertainment!

Disclaimer: 

All opinions expressed here are my own.
I paid for any products discussed.
I received no payment and I am not affiliated in any way with any brand mentioned herein.

Great Grey Owl

Thank you to everyone who told me what they’re favourite owl was. The Great Grey Owl was the winner this time. If your favourite owl didn’t come through this time, then don’t worry I will be discussing most owls eventually.

Great Grey Owls can grow up to 2 feet (60.9 cm) tall and with a wingspan of 4.5 – 5 feet. They are mainly grey, but with browns and white mixed in with it. They mostly eat voles but they will also eat pocket gophers, squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks and weasels as well as frogs, toads and insects. They live in the forests of Scandinavia and North America. In captivity, the Great Grey Owl can live for up to 40 years.

Thank you again to everyone who told me their favourite owls to help me do this set of facts! Keep an eye out for the next page which will be coming soon. I hope that you enjoyed this as much as the Barn Owl facts.