Alice Hendon, Artangleology

Lately I have been working on postcards. Specifically Hahnemühle postcards. At roughly 4" x 6" they make a nice 'do-able' art surface. Something one could sit down and do in a few minutes.  This particular one is a Nostalgie card which has a smooth surface. I was working wet watercolor onto a dry background, just pushing color around with a wet brush. And . . . I did not like the results at all. What a hot mess! Not one to waste a bit of product I figured out something else to do with this postcard.  I began with this stamp from Studio Light and stamped it twice vertically on the card. Color was added using my Copic markers. Already this hot mess was looking a whole lot improved!  I keep a stash of digital images ready for just such an occasion as this. When I don't feel like painting or drawing, I pull out some digital images I have printed out and color them with Copics. This little marker girl was the perfect addition for this postcard. The words are from A...

Are you always looking for ways to make your art more affordable? That is my exact thought behind Art on a Shoe String. Making the process of art more affordable for you. And for me, too!  Mark and I were at Walmart a few days ago and I was checking out the leftover school supplies. (Don't I always?) Most  are on big-time sale right now. I found something I had never seen before. These half size composition books. Looks like they took a full size composition book and cut it in half. They came in a pack of ten books for a total of $3.00 - that is 30 cents a book. You can't beat that anywhere! Each book has 100 sheets, which means the possibility of 200 work surfaces. Yes, these pages are thin. You can glue two pages together to make them sturdier, but I elected not to do that.  This is the first page in my book. I cut down a painted page from my friend Niki Green to fit a sheet in the book. Niki had already painted and stenciled even more paint all over the paper making it...

  Gotta love Kimberly McGuiness' sense of humor! And you have to love her new sketchbook! This 8.5" square book has 120 pages where you can bring your creativity to life. I was fortunate to beta test this book and I want to show you how I put my copy of Yes This is a Friggin' Sketchbook to use.  This is what the pages look like - a book full of double spreads for you to work your magic on. The floral designs at the outer corners are for you to test your art tool to see how it interacts with the paper. The cream colored pages are smooth and take pen really well. The one concern I had was the weight of the paper. I know from experience that Kimberly has no control over the paper weight. Kindle uses just one kind of paper for this type of book. The book description tells us right up front the pages are a 50 - 61 pound weight, depending on what country your copy is printed in.  I figured the best way to tell what the paper could take was to just jump right in! I went to the ...

  A recent project in swap group Creative Crafty Friends , I am calling these tiered tags. The project called for making strips similar to Tim Holtz' Collage Strips - nostalgic and vintage. And I did make some of those to trade but you know I am not a sepia and grey kind of person. Hahahaha! I did make myself a couple 'sort of' Tim Holtz collage strips but I added some color. Then I wondered how I could use these in my art. How do they translate to what I do? They make great tags. A little long but that's easily fixed. And I needed color. Stacked up little strips of leftover color. Yes! They can be tags on my daily journal pages or in my art journal. Tiered tags! I like it!  The Tim Holtz strips aren't too costly but why spend money if you don't need to? I keep all my scraps and leftover bits from other projects. Actually I have 3 drawers of leftovers and bits and bobs for collage work. Hahaha! Start by pulling out a handful of scraps that are at least two inch...

In my last post I showed you a brand new product from Hahnemühle . So brand new that it is just now hitting stores in the United States. The Watercolor Bookmark Pad is already available in Europe . In this photo you can see the very first piece of art I created with one of these bookmarks.  Made of 100% cotton cold pressed watercolor paper, the glued pad has fifteen bookmarks waiting for you to add your art to. I tried several different projects with a load of different products. I wanted to see what these bookmarks could handle, and they handled everything I threw at them very well.  The bookmarks are approximately 2" x 8", cold pressed surface on one side and a little smoother on the reverse. For this first piece I went with the straight up cold pressed side. Ranger's Distress Oxide and Distress Inks are some of my favorite tools lately. I used that little blending tool and started swirling color onto my paper.  And I added color till the whole side was covered. I di...

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  Hahnemühle just released a super fun product you are going to need! So much fun to be had!  Made with their Expression watercolor paper, the new Bookmark Pad holds fifteen 2" x 8" bookmarks ready for you to add your artistic touches. Today I want to give you an overview of the ways I used the bookmarks to create art and tell you how the paper held up to my experimentation.  Glued at the top, the 140 lb. 100% cotton paper is ready for you to create with, using either the landscape or portrait orientation. When I started to pull the first sheet out to use - the entire pad broke loose from the packaging. But that's ok. It fits right back in to stay safe. The pages are very snug in the glued binding and will not fall loose piece by piece. The cold pressed surface holds watercolor well and also take acrylic as you will see in my examples. These bookmarks are presented as watercolor ready. I am not one to play by the rules, so I tried a bit of everything. Let me show you....

  So much fun this past week art journaling with two of my favorite artists! Or at least with their product. I wish it was in person! Could you imagine getting Chris Ryniak and Marlene together in the same room? And I could just take notes and photos and be amazed at how their brains work! I would love it! Hahahaha! I'm over here geeking out!  Art By Marlene is a Studio Light line carried by Joggles. It is where I literally do most of my art journal shopping. I started this page with Marlene's stencil called Flower Power and three Ranger Distress Ink colors. I used a blending tool to rub the color through the stencil, straight onto my page. Then a little pen work, loose and crazy to finish the flowers. The border of flowered paper at the bottom is from Marlene's Scrap Paper pad. The cloud, sun and little critter are drawings of Chris Ryniak that I colored with my Copic markers. I love his drawings, so fun to color!  On this page I reversed things by placing another p...

  Back around 2014 I started a series of posts I called Art on a Shoe String . Ways to make art without spending a fortune on supplies. Each year I posted when school supplies came out. I haven't done that in the past couple years and it is time for that to change.  At our home, we home schooled for 12 years. School supply shopping was a never ending venture with so many educational items on the market. Eventually our home school career came to an end and I started looking at school supplies in a whole new light.  This picture of the Frankles was taken during one of my AOSS photo trips in 2017. She was my helper that day and even gave me some ideas of her own. Love me some Frankles! That was then, this is now so let's jump right in!  I did my shopping trip at our local Walmart. Most people on my side of the globe have access to a Walmart . All the photos in this post are from there.  School supplies and items from other areas of the store can be used to make art...