My ARTistic Life

Get Inspired & Creative with Art Challenges! (free online class - #4 of 9)

Hooray for the 14 of you that played in the third part of our online class: Get Inspired by Color! So many vibrant, colorful collages to enjoy! You can see most of them in our YahooGroup (Photos section: "Helga's Blog: #3 Weekly Art Challenge").   My kitty, MoMo, volunteered to pick all 3 winners this week (scroll down a bit). Each of the winners get to pick 3 ARTchix sheets of their choice. Hooray!

And now, let's continue expanding our creativity together with a new art challenge! Now is the perfect time to jump into my free online class! Come join the fun! : )

Art Challenge #4 (of 9): Get Inspired by Texture!

Ahhh, it's a wonderful time to take a break and treat yourself to a breathe of fresh air and a nice walk. While you're out for your stroll, gather gifts from nature. Look for unusual textures. I collected leaves, seed pods, berries, branches, feathers and more.

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Before we play with all of our collected items, let's make a simple background in our art journals. I glued down some vintage papers and adhered them to the page with a UHU gluestick. Then, I dipped my paint brush in a bit of white gesso and painted the page randomly. I focused on putting a thin layer of gesso here and there so that you could still see the vintage papers peeking out from the background.

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Now, get out some acrylic paints. I'm feeling a bit Christmas-y these days, so I picked these colors: chocolate brown, red, green and ochre. These are just inexpensive acrylic paints from Michaels. You can use whatever acrylic paints you have on hand.

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Now, make a grid using one of your found items. I drew my grid lines by dipping a leaf stem into brown paint. Fun! Now, play! Try dipping your items into acrylic paint and make imprints of them. See what happens when you dip your items into a few colors and press them on the page. Try painting your leaves and pieces with a foam brush first and then imprint them on the page. Have fun and play, play, play!

You can see above that I placed the item that I made the imprint from next to each section. For example, on the top left, I used that pine needle branch to make the red imprints. Below that is a leaf that I painted with a foam brush and then pressed onto the page at various angles. On the top right, I dipped that green moss into green paint and sponged it on.  Below that is a twig with dried pods...I painted it with green and red and then pressed it around on the page. I had a blast doing this!

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More imprints! It's amazing the variety of textures you can find just outside your door. If you live in the city, I bet you could make an awesome grid filled with imprints of bottlecaps and modern found objects.

Same as above, you can see the item that I made the imprint from next to each section. On the top left is a neat seed pod, love the wing like shapes that it makes. Next to that are some rosehips that I dipped in paint. They sure make a fantastic polka dot background! On the bottom right is a twig covered in moss, I painted it with a foam brush in ochre and red and then pressed them onto the page. Love this repeated shape.

I'm thinking that these imprints would make gorgeous backgrounds for collages and maybe even my Christmas cards this year. We shall see. : )

Art Challenge #4 (or 9) SUMMARY: Get Inspired by Texture! Take a walk and collect leaves, twigs, rocks, berries, etc. (anything that has a neat texture that you want to play with). Then make a grid in your art journal (or on a piece of paper) and make imprints of your found objects.

How To Play in This Art Challenge: Scan your grid that shows all of your imprints and post it online to your blog, flickr account, website or our YahooGroup (Photos section: "Helga's Blog: #4 Weekly Art Challenge").

Next, click on "Comments" at the bottom of this post and leave a note with a link to your gred so I know where to see it online. In addition, please link back to my blog. 

Deadline: Wednesday morning, November 11, 2009. (Note, you've got an extra day for this art challenge!)

Prizes: My cute kitties will randomly pick 3 participants and they will each get to pick 3 free ARTchix sheets of their choice! Hooray!

Winners & Next Art Challenge To Be Announced: Thursday, November 12 (special day next week)

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WINNERS from Last Week's Art Challenge: Get Inspired by Color!

Hooray for the wonderful, creative 14 artists that made great color collages! MoMo picked 3 winners which will each get 3 free ARTchix sheets of their choice. Here's who she picked:

I printed all of the artists' names, cut them out, spread them out on a table and put a treat next to each name. Then MoMo got to pick 3 treats to gobble down! The name that was attached to that treat won! What fun! Congrats to Cheryl, Michele and Gena!

See you next Thursday with the next art challenge and a whole lot more!!! : )

 

 

Paper Doll Winners, Specials and Cuteness

The WINNER of our Paper Doll Swap: Shannon Sawyer!

I loved hosting our Paper Doll Art Swap! I am now officially in love with paper dolls thanks to all of our wonderful swap artists that inspired me beyond belief! I had such a hard time picking the winners but in the end, I picked Shannon Sawyer as our big winner. She wins a $100 shopping spree at ARTchix. Hooray!

Shannon made 12 unique, incredible paper dolls. Each one was in a beautifully decorated pocket. Lovely presentation and the dolls were so cool!

Shannon says: Well first of all I want to say that I thought they would be a breeze to make and I learned very quickly that they are a lot more complicated than I thought.  That is why I have a new found respect for all the artists who make them all the time and make them so well.  The one thing I didn't want for my Art Dolls was for them to be flimsy.  So I decided to trace them on black cardstock and use that as the backing. For some of them I decided to use real looking limbs, so I searched for the appropriate arms and legs in my fashion magazines and then I copied them and reduced them to the appropriate size.  That seemed to work well for me.  For some of the dresses I just took the pre-made dresses from the collage sheets and I then either sprayed them with a color wash and embellished further from there.  Each Art Doll had a theme, like there was the "Crazy Bingo Lady" and there was the "Alternative" ArtDoll and so on.  When mailing them I decided to make little pockets for them so they wouldn't get all bent during the mailing process.

Shannon's fave ARTchix product at the moment: DreamBoxes. I haven't done a whole lot with them up until now, but I have purchased several knowing that I would eventually get to them.  Well I finally am getting to them and what fun they are to alter and dress up.  I'm thinking that I will be giving them out as Christmas gifts. I've made a couple Christmas ones already using the Snowflake Kisses collage sheets and they turned out so great if I do say so myself.  They will make  a great tree ornament (because they are light enough for that).  Or they could be set on a mantle or tabletop during the holidays.  I'm just all about the DreamBoxes right now.

Get Shannon's Paper Doll Stickers!

Order this week and we'll include this awesome sheet of stickers featuring some of Shannon Sawyer's awesome paper dolls! Get them by ordering our Special of the Week OR simply type "SPOIL ME" in the comments section of your order and we'll be sure to tuck them into your order.

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Make Your Own Paper Dolls!

Get this charming paper doll sheet at half price for this week only! Make paper dolls this year and tuck them into your holiday cards...such a nice touch! Go to this special link to purchase them.

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The Fabulous Six Honorable Mentions of our Paper Doll Swap!

PATRICIA CLARKSON! Oh my gosh, how I LOVE Patricia's fun paper dolls! The bunny ears are the BEST!

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BARB DELISLE! Fantastic dancing paper dolls!

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NORMA SKOGLUND! Norma turned her fantastic paper dolls into ornaments by adding a decorative wire loop at the top. Great idea! Love how she added my kitty Bruno to one of her paper dolls (I will treasure this one!)

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GENA BOONE-CURTIS! Love the stylish clothing that she decked her dolls out in!

Gena says: These were very time consuming for me because I really wanted each doll to be a completely different character.  I also wanted to make them with a little fun twist.

Gena's fave ARTchix product at the moment: Hands down it is your wonderful collage sheets.  I have ordered collage sheets from other sites but I am always disappointed in the quality compared to the ARTCHIX sheets.  I really love the new doll heads collage sheet.  I like how ARTCHIX stays up with the trends and always has new products to share!

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NANCY TERRELL! I'm in love with this teapot paper doll and who can resist Mickey Mouse ears?!

Nancy says: My inspiration is my sister, Cindy Rafael. Every time I visit her house, she is working on something fun & artsy. Her paper dolls were amazing and I thought I would give it a try. She hooked me up with ARTchix Studio.

Nancy's fave ARTchix product at the moment: Ruby Red Collage Sheet, Red Swan Wings and anything Christmas

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GERRI HERBST! Gerri made 6 mermaid paper dolls with extra outfits and accessories! Fantastic!

Gerri says: As a child  when asked "What do you want to be when you grow up?", I would  sincerely remark, "A mermaid ". To be able to travel between these two spheres of land  and sea (while fashionably dressed), by interchanging  legs or tails would be the best of both worlds and a dream come true.

Gerri's fave ARTchix product at the moment: German Scrap ..... very ornate and shiny, gotta have shine.

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Paper Doll Art Swap is Being Mailed This Friday!

For all of the participants in our fabulous Paper Doll Art Swap, you are in for a real treat! 4 fantastic chixies sheets are coming your way along with gorgeous paper dolls and my favorite m&m's. You can expect yours to arrive in a week or two. Enjoy!

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Weekly Dose of Cuteness: Bruno's Got It in the Bag!

Put a paper bag on the floor in our house and within seconds, you'll find a kitty inside. : )

Get Inspired & Creative with Art Challenges! (free online class - #3 of 9)

A big round of applause for all 25 of you that played in the second part of our online class: Get Inspired by Your Reading Materials! So many cool collages to view! You can see most of them in our YahooGroup (Photos section: "Helga's Blog: #2 Weekly Art Challenge").   My kitty, Bruno, volunteered to pick all 3 winners this week (scroll down a bit). Each of the winners get to pick 3 ARTchix sheets of their choice. Hooray!

And now, let's continue expanding our creativity together with a new art challenge!

Art Challenge #3 (of 9): Get Inspired by Color!

First, go through your magazines, catalogs and/or photos and find one that has a color scheme that you like. I picked this page out of a Marie Claire Idees magazine (love this mag!!!). Love the bright reds and cute kitty!

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Now, pull out supplies in the colors that you see in your photo or magazine page. You may want to give yourself a time limit of 15 minutes or something like that. Otherwise you may find yourself lost in your supplies. lol. I pulled out Cute Kitties, red german scrap, an old letter, fabrics, decorative papers, and velvet leaves.

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Now, where to start? You could just start making a collage out of the supplies that you pulled out. But I decided to start this collage by making my background first. I wanted to challenge myself to keep playing with the round stamp that I used in the last challenge. (An excellent way to expand your creativity is to keep playing with the same thing and see where it takes you.)

So, for this background, I stamped my round circles. And then I used a hole punch to punch circles out of the decorative papers that I had pulled out. I adhered them with a glue stick. And then I painted the red background with Daniel Smith watercolor paints. Love their colors...really nice and vibrant. When I was done, I sprayed a bit of shimming mist across the whole page for fun.

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Play and start moving the items that you pulled out around in a pleasing way. There is no right or wrong so just play and enjoy this creative time.

What I did: I started cutting and adding images. I wanted to bring some elements in from the magazine page (in addition to color) so I added the cats and a letter.

At some point, I decided that I wanted to add white dots across my background. To get them to be more uniform, I layed this Red Mesh on top and then I put white dots in the middle of each section...it was a great help.

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Ta da! Here is my finished collage. As you can see, I ended up making a house shape with 3 kitties inside and check out all of that red, wowza! I had so much fun playing with all of my red supplies that I couldn't resist spelling our "FUN." Tee hee! You'll also find Red Wings (the special of the week), Lucky button, Victorian Roses and see that cool bit of ribbon with nests - if all goes as planned, we'll have it for sale on our site in mid November. I bought some in Vancouver and decided that we all need to get our hands on some! It's really lovely!

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I glued the magazine page into my journal on the left side as my reminder to show what inspired this collage. If you're using a journal, please do this too. : )

Art Challenge #3 (or 9) SUMMARY: Get Inspired by Color! Pick a magazine page, catalog page or photo that has colors that you like. Pull out supplies in those colors and make a collage. Be sure to include circles and dots in any medium you'd like.

*Please SAVE YOUR SCRAPS and hold onto them for a future challenge.*

How To Play in This Art Challenge: Make a collage inspired by colors from a page in a magazine, catalog or photo and include dots and circles. (Please show us the page or photo that inspired your collage too).

Scan them and post them online to your blog, flickr account, website or our YahooGroup (Photos section: "Helga's Blog: #3 Weekly Art Challenge").

Next, click on "Comments" at the bottom of this post and leave a note with a link to your collage so I know where to see it online. In addition, please link back to my blog. 

Deadline: Tuesday morning, November 3, 2009.

Prizes: My cute kitties will randomly pick 3 participants and they will each get to pick 3 free ARTchix sheets of their choice! Hooray!

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WINNERS from Last Week's Art Challenge: Get Inspired by Your Reading Materials!

Hooray for the wonderful, creative 25 artists that made cool collages out of their favorite magazine! Bruno picked 3 winners which will each get 3 free ARTchix sheets of their choice. Here's who he picked:

I printed all of the artists' names, cut them out, spread them out on a table and put a treat next to each name. Then Bruno got to pick 3 treats to scarf down! The name that was attached to that treat won! What fun! Congrats to Joy, Sabine and Carol!

Happy Halloween & Specials!

ARTchix Special of the Week: Glorious Red Paper Wings!

Oh, I just love these gorgeous red paper wings! They're such a nice color of red and they go with everything! Get them now and you can start on your holiday cards! Go to this special link to purchase them.

If you get these wings, you'll automatically receive our fun bonus gift of the week: my kitty stickers. Hooray!

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After making my collage above, I had some leftover red wings so I played around with them by adding paint and glitter, etc.

Far left column (top to bottom): I made polka dots with a Souffle pen. Below that, I rubbed a bit of sandpaper on them...looks neat because the silver base shines through. Below that is a some violet alcohol ink dabbed on (really love this!) and at the bottom is just a touch of white acrylic paint (love how you can see the details of these lovely wings by adding a bit of paint).

Next column (top to bottom): I added several different colors of watercolor crayons for a neat rainbow wing effect. Below that, I tried adding violet Twinkling H20s and a bit of glitter. And on the bottom, I added some tiny mica flakes around the edges. Wish you could see these in person because the scan doesn't do them justice. They look extra cool in person!

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ARTchix Bonus Gift of the Week: Kitty Stickers!

Get these fun stickers featuring kitty art by me! Get them by ordering our special OR simply type "SPOIL ME" in the comments section of your order and we'll be sure to tuck them into your order.

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Weekly Dose of Cuteness: Stella the Happy, Red Dog

Doesn't my Stelly Belly look so cute? Love how she matches the lovely Autumn leaves.

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More Cuteness: Introducing Buffy the Witch!

Pam McKenzie sent me this adorable photo of her darling Buffy dressed up as a witch! Soooooo cute....just had to share! : )

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Happy Halloween!

A big Happy Halloween to all of you! These charming Halloween-inspired paper dolls are by (left to right): Shannon Sawyer, Sanna Burgess and Cindy Rafael. Love them, they're fantastic! See you next week when I will be announcing the winners of our incredibly inspiring Paper Dolls Swap!

Get Inspired & Creative with Art Challenges! (free online class - #2 of 9)

A big round of applause for all 25 of you that played in the first part of our online class: Get Inspired by Pattern (and make a grid filled with circles and dots). It was great to see all of the unique and fun ways we can make dots and circles. Some of my favorites were postage cancellation rubber stamps and imprints of medicine bottle lids and Cheerios. My kitties have randomly chosen 3 winners (scroll down a bit) that will each get free ARTchix sheets of their choice. Hooray!

And now, let's continue expanding our creativity together with a new art challenge!

Art Challenge #2 (of 9): Get Inspired by Your Reading Materials! (And that's mainly magazines for me!)

How to start: Pull out one of your favorite magazines. I bought this September issue of Vogue awhile ago and finally made the time to go through it. Tear out images that inspire you. I pulled out this cool photo of trees, some cute pieces of clothing....anything and everything that caught my eye.

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Next, cut out and rip up your images you were inspired by. Then, try moving them around on a piece of watercolor paper (in your art journal if you have one) and get them in positions that look good to you. Remember, you're just playing...don't get too caught up on making something perfect. This entire art challenge is all about fun, playing and expanding your creativity.

You may notice that some of the images I cut out...others I tore into rectangles. I think it's nice to have a variety so try to cut some things out and tear others. Also, try to have little and big images for variety too. 

Glue everything down with a gluestick. I like UHU gluesticks.

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Now, pull out your circle and dots grid that you made in the first challenge. Pick one of your sections and add that pattern to your collage. Jazz it up a bit if you'd like, change the colors, etc. 

I picked a pattern from my grid that included a circular rubber stamp. So, I stamped it in my collage here. I noticed there was a neat symbol that appeared in a key in my collage so I decided to add it into my circle pattern. First I drew it in pencil, then colored everything in with watercolor crayon. This is what it looks like before I blend the watercolor crayons with water and a brush.

If you did not participate in our first challenge, don't worry, you can jump in here. You can do this art challenge and just add dots and circles to your collage, no worries.

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Next, I blended in my watercolor crayons....see how much better my background pattern looks, lol. Remember to always blend your lightest colors with water first...and your darkest colors last.

Then I added circles and dots with watercolor crayons and my handy dandy plastic circle template. I also added little polka dots with a Souffle pen. Get creative, add dots and circles in a variety of ways.

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Here's a picture with all of the supplies I used to create this collage. A Vogue magazine, circle templates, circle rubber stamp and Ancient Page (good because it doesn't run when you add watercolors), watercolor brush, watercolor crayons, pencil, Souffle pens, 2 kinds of scissors (one for big cuts and the grey handle scissors are great for more detailed cutting), UHU gluestick.

Art Challenge #2 (or 9) SUMMARY: Get Inspired by Your Reading Materials! Grab one of your favorite magazines and tear out images and ideas that you're drawn to and that inspire you in some way. Cut and rip them up and glue them down to make a collage. Add circles and dots in any medium you'd like.

*Please SAVE YOUR SCRAPS and put them in a zip lock baggie for a future challenge.*

How To Play in This Art Challenge: Make a collage using images from one of your favorite magazines and add dots and circles in a variety of ways.

Then scan it and post it online to your blog, flickr account, website or our YahooGroup (Photos section: "Helga's Blog: Weekly Art Challenge #2").

Next, click on "Comments" at the bottom of this post and leave a note with a link to your art challenge grid so I know where to see it online. In addition, please link back to my blog. 

Deadline: Tuesday morning, October 27, 2009.

Prizes: My cute kitties will randomly pick 3 participants and they will each get to pick 3 free ARTchix sheets of their choice! Hooray!

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WINNERS from Last Week's Art Challenge: Get Inspired by Pattern!

Hooray for the wonderful, creative 25 artists that made grids filled with circles and dots! My kitties picked 3 winners which will each get 3 free ARTchix sheets of their choice. Here's how they picked the winners:

I printed all of the artists' names, cut them out, spread them out on a table and put a treat next to each name. Then one by one, the kitties came up and got to eat one treat. The name that was attached to that treat won! Bruno was first up and picked Glenda! Then Inca picked Carol! And lastly, MoMo picked Cat! Too fun!

Cuteness & Specials!

Weekly Dose of Cuteness: Inca Becomes My New Art Critic

So, I'm arting away at my desk and up jumps Inca. She plops herself right on top of my supplies and proceeds to meow and yawn. I think she wants to be my new art critic. lol.

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ARTchix Special of the Week: Black Tiny Dot Borders

For this week, get these awesome, thick, black, paper borders with tiny dots for half price! (See detail on the left.) One package gives you TONS to play with! They're perfect for framing your favorite images and more. Go to this special link to purchase them!

I asked Jackie McColl to show us some great ways to alter these borders. So, being the wonderful over-achiever that she is, she made this fun collage! The black "poles" are strips of the dot border jazzed up in these different ways (from left to right): silver glitter, green Staz On ink, red nail polish, gold shimmering mist spray, green crackle paint, white watercolor crayon and acrylic fabric paint in glittering crystal. What fun!

In her Halloween-y collage, you'll also find: Copper Renaissance Border, Gothic Arches, Antique Doll Head, Witch Style, Dreamy Paper Dolls and Tell Me More.

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ARTchix Bonus Gift of the Week: Halloween Buttons!

Great news! For this week only, when you order our blog special above or type "SPOIL ME" when placing your order, we will add these fabulous Halloween buttons to your order! Now you can celebrate your Halloween spirit in style!

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Inspired by Cindy McMath

Since we're in the countdown to Halloween...just had to share this cool, creepy collage by Cindy McMath! It features one of our Antique Doll Heads.

Get Inspired & Creative with Art Challenges! (free online class)

Let's Try Something New:
An Online Class on Inspiration and Creativity with Art Challenges!

I recently taught a fantastic class on art challenges and inspiration at Art and Soul (scroll down and you can find lots more about my trip). I enjoyed the class so much that I started thinking...hmmm...wouldn't this be a fun class to teach online? So, let's do it!!! I'm excited!

Over the next 9 weeks, I'm going to teach you how to expand your creativity through fun art challenges. With all of the art challenges I'm going to hit you with....the key is to get into the process and not focus on the end result too much. In these art challenges, you're not trying to create amazing art...you're just trying to get in touch with your creativity. For this reason, I will not be picking winners for these art challenges. Instead, my kitties will! Each week, my cute kitties will randomly pick 3 winners and those 3 winners will get to pick 3 free ARTchix sheets of their choice. Cool, eh?

So, let's begin!!!

Art Challenge #1 (of 9): Get inspired by Pattern!

First, dig out your supplies:
We're going to focus on circles and dots as our pattern to explore. So, dig out a big sheet of watercolor paper (or even better: a spiral notebook with 9" x 12" watercolor pages), your favorite pens, pencils, paints, etc. and all the circles you can find.

I pulled out my watercolor crayons because I can't live without them, watercolor pencils, Sharpie markers, hole punches, circle template, round rubber stamps and Ancient Page (I like how its waterproof...good when combining with watercolors), page protectors, decorative polka dot papers, etc.

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Next, draw your grid lines (I used a watercolor crayon). And then start playing with all of the supplies you pulled out. Don't think too much. Just play. Don't worry about making it pretty and having the colors coordinate, etc. Just have fun making circles and dots.

Here's what I did:
In the top left, I made the dots with nailpolish on top of a watercolor wash. Below that are circles I made using a Sharpie and my handy dandy circle template.

Below that is a piece of green polka dot scrapbooking paper that I randomly colored in a few of the dots with blue crayon.

Middle column, top: More drawing with a Sharpie and watercolor wash. Below that is gold german flowers that I circled with watercolor pencils. I want to try circling more objects to make patterns...will be fun.

Bottom of the middle column is dots made using sequin waste. I used acrylic paint and a makeup sponge and used the sequin waste as a stencil. Fun!

Top right is a rubber stamp that I colored in with crayons. And the other 2 on the right column are more Sharpie drawing with watercolor washes.

Again, the key with all of this is to just have fun playing with dots and circles. Put on some fun music and play, play, play.

About the process:
Warning: once you do this art challenge...you may become obsessed with polka dots and you'll start seeing them everywhere you go. This is a good thing! Don't question it...continue to stretch your creativity thinking of how to make cool polka dot patterns and go for it whenever you can.

Keep in mind, you can work on filling up your grid all in one sitting. Or you can wake up each morning this week and set a time limit of a favorite song or two and then fill in 1-2 sections every day. Your choice....whatever is most comfortable for you.

How To Play in This Art Challenge: Make a grid and fill it with dots and circles.

Then scan it and post it online to your blog, flickr account, website or our YahooGroup (Photos section: "Helga's Blog: Weekly Art Challenge").

Next, click on "Comments" at the bottom of this post and leave a note with a link to your art challenge grid so I know where to see it online and if you can, please let us know what your favorite way to create dots and circles was. (Let's learn from eachother too!) In addition, please link back to my blog. 

Deadline: Tuesday morning, October 20, 2009.

Prizes: My cute kitties will randomly pick 3 participants and they will each get to pick 3 free ARTchix sheets of their choice! Hooray!

Art and Soul Fun!!!

My Trip to Art & Soul in Portland:
Fun, Art Trades, My Classes, Specials of the Week & Cuteness!

In early October, I went to Art and Soul in Portland with my Mom. I had sooo much fun! It was delightful to be surrounded by such a wonderful group of creative, supportive women. If you ever have an opportunity to go to an event like this, DO IT! It's a blast!

I got to laugh and hang out with fabulous women! Here I am with Mija Marie (left) and Christine Hendry (right).

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I traded for oodles of fun goodies! Here are some of the great trades that I received: pretty ATCs, lovely decorative papers, little goodie bags and more. Everyone that had trades to share wore hot pink pins (as shown in the center)....great idea!

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I got to spend a wonderful day with Belinda Schneider and we traded decorated hearts. Here is the 2 sided heart that Belinda made for me. I LOVE it! It features my spoil me chick...love how she made a hat with flowers and flourishes! And anything with pompoms gets me excited! Love all of her fabric play on the left side too...a hat made out of bits of fabric is such a cool idea! I totally want to try this now!

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This is the double sided heart that I made for Belinda. One side shows Paris all in pink...one of my favorite places (and also a place that we had fun shopping together) ...and the other side shows the Bahamas (another one of my favorite places....I hope we get to have art time there together someday). 

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Next, I taught a class on Beautiful DreamBoxes! My talented and wonderful students were: Linda Starrett, Laurie Engstrom, Catherine Mein, Jan, Angela Zacharek, Dena Wagner and Rebecca Heiser. I gave them all a DreamBox with Doors and an Inchie DreamBox to play with. Just look at what they made....

This incredible dreambox is meant to hang on the wall. I LOVE the Paris theme, the awesome turquoise and pink color combo and all of the vintage glitter! I spy Heart of Paris, Black Embellishments, Mini Paris Charm, Mini Eiffel Tower Charm and Copper French Borders.

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Don't you just love this mermaid themed dreambox?? It's sooo pretty! I especially love the bright colors and the little round mirrors! I believe the pink polka dots were made with pink nailpolish. Did you know that nailpolish is an excellent way to paint our dreamboxes?

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Another gorgeous dreambox!!! Love the fun bird theme! I spy Polka Dot Bird, Round Photo Charm, Gold Small Flower Border, Gold Baroque Border, Sepia Birds, Black Embellishments and the cool branches are from our DreamBox Kit.

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Even more gorgeous dreamboxes! The one on the left features a hanging optometrist lens. So cool! You can hang anything in our dreamboxes by making a hole with an awl and then adding wire, thread or ribbon. I spy Feather Your Nest post, When Dreams Take Flight and Chocolate Scallopped Borders on the doors (great idea!).

The lovely red dreambox on the right features a photo of Jan's mother. Isn't she lovely? Hearts surround her as well as a bit of Black Embellishment that's been painted silver with a bit of silver paint.

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My fabulous students also made gorgeous dreamboxes using our awesome Inchie DreamBoxes (which is also this week's Blog Special!)! Aren't they amazing???!!!

I spy Angel Wings (painted silver), Transparency Butterfly Wings, Chocolate Scallopped Borders, Pink Mini Dot Borders, Red Baroque Borders, Red Renaissance Borders, Turquoise Metal Roses, Royal Inchie Birds, Small Brass Wings, Gold Small Flower Border.

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Great news! The ARTchix Special of the Week is our Inchie Dreamboxes! Get yours at a discounted price for this week only! They make the most awesome gifts!!! Stock up now and make them for your loved ones this holiday season!

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Look at the gorgeous goodies that I bought at Art and Soul! As you can see MoMo is here for your Weekly Dose of Cuteness and she approves! I bought decorative papers, cool sequins, velvet leaves and rick rack, vintage tickets and more. What a haul!

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I'd love to share some of my fun purchases with you! So, this week, our Bonus Gift of the Week is an Art and Soul Goodie Bag. You'll receive a small sampling of some of my favorite purchases from Art and Soul: vintage tickets, decorative papers, a piece of mica, little sequins and more. Offer good only while supplies last so get yours while you can. : )

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Winners from Our Last Art Challenge: Little Big Combo!

Before I left for Art and Soul, I challenged everyone to make an ATC or 4" square collage and combine it with an inchie. It's really fun to challenge yourself to play in different sizes and shapes. We had lots of fabulous entries but in the end, I picked these 3 fabulous winners:

Sharon Borsavage! Love this pretty collage! It features some pretty decorative papers that were in a previous bonus gift. How cool is that?! Love how the little inchie says "be glamorous."

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Michelle Remy! Love this Halloween ATC with the little inchie that says "Boo"! 

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Heidi (Cyber2tor)! Help, can you please email me with your full name? I love this collage with the gentleman riding the bird, too cool! Love how the inchie is framed with a bit of Black Lace Border and the glasses are made out of it too....awesome idea!

Congratulations Sharon, Michelle and Heidi! You each win 3 free ARTchix sheets of your choice! : )