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Hello everyone!

I have some wonderful & exciting news! Tamara Laporte from  Willowing Arts has written a 2nd book! It’s called ‘Ever After: Create Fairy Tale-Inspired Mixed-Media Art Projects to  Develop Your Personal Artistic Style’ and I get to give away a  copy!

Let me tell you a bit more about Tam’s new book in case you haven’t heard about it yet!

Let the wisdom and enchantment of timeless fables and fiction help you achieve your creative goals! From celebrated mixed-media artist and author of “Create Your Life Book” Tamara Laporte, Ever After is a rich collection of step-by-step mixed-media art lessons inspired by fairy tales, folk tales, and classic fiction.

Based on one of Tamara’s popular series of online classes, Ever After addresses the most
frequently asked question she receives from her students: “How do I develop my own creative style?”

In addition to the beautiful art lessons created especially for this book by Tamara and eight other noted mixed-media artists, each chapter offers creative exercises that invite readers to explore stories, their symbolism, and a specific aspect of style development as they work toward and
ultimately achieve their artistic goals.

• The Story of You. Explore the experiences, feelings, and ideas that stir your passion, and
how to adapt and change motifs and other visual elements to make them your own.

• Inspiration: How to Find It, How to Use It. Examine how to stay open to inspiration,
incorporate it into your art practice, and integrate it into your artwork.

• Comfort Zones & Productivity. Learn strategies for working through your fear and
dedicating time to your artmaking.

• Dealing with Challenges & Deepening Your Voice. Find guidance for starting a
mindfulness practice to help you deal with harsh feedback, and for allowing yourself the joy of continually evolving your story, your message, and your style.

Ever After will teach you to tell your own unique stories through artmaking so that your wish—to become the artist you’ve always wanted to be—is sure to come true!

Guest Teachers Includes lessons and tips from these renowned mixed-media artists:

• Kara Bullock
• Lucy Chen
• Danita Art (Me!!!!)
• Andrea Gomoll
• Annie Hamman
• Mariëlle Stolp
• Effy Wild
• Micki Wilde

Fairy Tales, Fables & Fiction Featured stories include:
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
• Bambi
• Beauty & the Beast
• Goldilocks & the Three Bears
• Mulan
• Peter Pan
• Sleeping Beauty
• The Little Mermaid

The book is now out (yay!) and can be ordered from Amazon (Click here)

Now then, onto the give-away and blog hop! 😃 I can give away 1 copy of Tam’s book to 1 lucky winner, yay! 😃 And if you follow the blog hop (see below for links) you can up your

chances of winning by entering all the other give-aways also! 🙂

to enter the give-away:

1. Share this give-away on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram
2. Sign up to my newsletter (click here)
3. Leave a comment below letting us know why you would love to get a copy of Tam’s book!

I will announce the winner on August 27th 2019.

Here is the list of the other people on Tam’s Book Launch Blog Hop – they too will be giving away a copy of Tam’s book so go check them out and enter their give-aways! 🙂
Have a great time following the blog hop! 🙂

Tamara Laporte https://www.willowing.org/blog/

Andrea Gomoll http://www.andrea-gomoll.de/blog/

Carla Sonheim https://carlasonheim.wordpress.com/

Danita Art http://blog.danitaart.com

Effy Wild http://effywild.com/

Kara Bullock https://karabullockart.com/blog/

Lucy Chen https://www.lucychenfineart.com/blog

Marielle Stolp https://mariellestolp.wordpress.com/blog/

Mick Wilde https://thesecrethermit.blogspot.com/

Toni Burt https://www.toniburt.com.au/blog/

Jane Davenport https://janedavenport.com/blog/

Marieke Blokland https://www.bloknote.nl/tag/blog/

Cinnamon Cooney https://theartsherpa.com/blog

Pamela Vosseller https://pamela-vosseller.squarespace.com/subscriber-studio-blog

Galia Alena https://www.artismagic.online/musings

Annie Hamman https://www.anniehamman.com/blog

Good luck!!!!

In search of new ideas.

Lately I’ve been in search of new ideas, new horizons and places to expand by artistic self, and in the process I’ve been experimenting a lot.

But also on that exploration, I’m going back to my early roots. It’s always a source of comfort to be back where one started.

Remembering my skills.

So… My sewing machine was busy doing lots of things for a project I’m working on (I’ll tell you very soon about it) when I decided to give free motion stitching embroidery a go after a looooong time without doing it.

I took some of my Japanese handmade paper that one of my beloved friends and fans sent me as a gift and I set out make art. Starting with a sketch, I trace the outlines on vintage papers, and I use my sewing machine to sew layers of paper to create a beautiful image.

Once the sewing is done… it’s time to paint! Adding watercolor details to these vintage looking images is super fun, and I sure enjoyed bringing the initial free motion stitching sketch into full life with colors.

Done!

And I loved the results! It’s always so satisfying to see my ideas come to fruition just as they were in my mind. I love the texture of watercolor over the paper, and how leaving loose strands on the illustration make theme live and dynamic.

I am getting A LOT of positive feedback on these new works! I love working with this technique, you can create a lot of different effects with it and it’s easy to learn. It has a very special place in my heart, because it was one of the first classes that I taught.

That made me wonder if you would be interested in a class to teach you how to make them?

 

 

Inspiration arrives when you least expect it.I love it when inspiration finds me on the least expected places. This time I was found by it while I was browsing trough a collection of vintage pictures that begged me to turn them into watercolor paintings.

The importance of playing with your materials.

I used to save all my good materials for a time when it was worth it using, and in the process, I let a lot of great materials go to waste just because I did not want to risk using them in something that would not be epic.

And in the process, I learned that the best time to use your materials is NOW. I used my best watercolors to create a couple of images inspired by the voices of ghosts from a distant past.

Inspiration can find you anywhere.
You better be ready.

I was looking to be found by inspiration on my studio (Which, according to my family, has an uncanny resemblance to goofing off) and I started looking at vintage images. They have always fascinated me, little snippets of lives in a distant past. It’s like hearing the voices of ghosts telling me about their days, their friends, lovers and more.

That’s when my inspiration goddess hit me. I got my watercolors, my brushes and I started to work. I wanted to play with that idea, and watercolor was going to be the perfect medium for it.

I set out to draw them with just shapes instead of copying their faces. The pictures I was looking at come from 100 years ago or more, so the life stories from every person in them are now diluted in time, blurry between legend and facts and I wanted to reflect that on the paintings.

Success! I love them!

And it worked! I loved the way they look, and how with a little paint blotches and stains I was able to keep their expressions.

And you liked them too! I got a lot of comments on my Instagram and Facebook telling me how you love them, and how they remind you of your own history.

Both paintings are now available on my official website (And my Etsy shop if you prefer it) and ready to be taken home by you. I will be definitively making more.

Now, go find your own inspiration!

I hope you liked my new paintings. They were fun to make and I love sharing a bit of the process with you, I gives a little backstory to each painting so you know more about it when you take it home.

And I too hope that sharing a little of the process helps you find your own inspiration to create beautiful things!

If you need some help with that, why don’t you join me and 17 more amazing artists on Ever After?

It’s an online collaborative class sponsored by the Amazing Tam Laporte from Willowing Arts.

We will use Fairy Tales as prompts for developing your own artistic style, learn new techniques and unleash you inner creative self. The class is already on session now and my own lessons will come on September. Take a look! You’ll love it. I promise.