colouring books... yes or no?

Have you got caught up in the colouring book craze?

Last winter I found Joanne Basford's colouring book Enchanted Garden.   

I originally bought it to attempt to learn her drawing style. 

I love drawing leaves and trees, flowers and mushrooms, so I happily spent hours attempting her designs in my sketch book.  I never put a crayon or marker in that book. 

For me, it was a reference book .

my attempt at drawing from the Secret Garden colouring book

my drawings in Joanna Basford's style

Then along came her book, Enchanted Forest and I ordered it from Amazon but before it arrived I was gifted a copy.    So now I had 2 copies and I gave myself permission to colour in one of them.  I had a much neglected set of Prismacolor colour pencils so I dug them out and sharpened them up.

The whole colouring book craze seemed to explode. 

Soon my Pinterest  started featuring tutorials on how to colour,

how to blend, what pens to use and Facebook groups devoted

to colouring started up.

I bought more colouring books, bought some fine line markers that wouldn't bleed through the pages and my Prismacolor pencils got shorter and shorter. 

I could color in front of the TV and soon had my self a little colouring book nest around my chair. 

Colouring book page

I enjoyed all that colouring but I noticed that I stopped drawing,

stopped painting and stopped journaling. 

  

For me, colouring is easy but drawing isn't. 

Colouring book page

I  need to work at drawing and painting everyday or I forget how. 

So now put my coloured pencils and markers away and packed up my colouring books.

I'm worried that I will never paint again if I continue to colour in my colouring books. 

colouring book page

What do you think? 

Have you jumped on the colouring book band wagon and

if you are a painter or drawer have you found that it sapped your creative energy? 

Or should I not worry about that and just enjoy the fact that I was doing something that I enjoyed.

Leave me a comment about your colouring experience.

Artfully Yours,

Lori

 

Review of 2015 - ArtSpa

2015 was a busy and wonderful year with lots of things accomplished.

What I didn't get do was post many blogs.  You see, we don't have a very good internet connection at our home in the forest.  I write blogs but often can't post them. 

What I think I will do this winter is go through my drafts of blogs and post them now.


September of 2015, my first ArtSpa weekend.

(I plan on at least 2 ArtSpas in 2016, one in June and one in September.)

Here is a little story of my first ArtSpa.

Now that my Studio is set up I am ready to start sharing my beautiful space and that means Art retreats, classes, art shows and workshops. 

I invited some girl friends to join me for a weekend and we had my very first Artfulness retreat. 

I planned projects, set up bedrooms, cooked and prepped for the weekend and then on Friday afternoon everyone started to arrive. 

We jumped right in and got our creative juices flowing with some stamping, water colour painting, stenciling and I introduced the ladies to my Gelli print pad. 

Saturday after a breakfast of fresh muffins, bagels, coffee, fruit and juice we went for a short easy hike. We took our time and really looked. 
















We found lots of berries, flowers and hundreds of mushrooms.  The sun was shining, chickadees were singing and the temperature was perfect.







We took lots of pictures,
picked a few flowers and
then took them and
our sketch books
to the outside table
to practice drawing.

              Nothing fancy, just got the basic shapes down and

recorded a little about what we saw and where we were. 

This is a great way to start any creative session. 

It was a beautiful morning and I had a little trouble getting the ladies to move back inside to the studio.

 We spent the rest of the day painting, stamping, stenciling and laughing.  The ladies had a great time and were pretty pleased with what they accomplished in such a short time.

Supper and visiting in the evening, then off to bed so we could get back to being creative in the morning.  It was a little cooler outside the next day so we went right to the studio and started working on our second canvas. 

We did intuitive painting and then painted the negative space to find the subject inside.  Breaking out of your rut and trying something new stretches your creativeness.
 

It was hard to stop on Sunday and I don't think anyone really wanted to go home.  So we relaxed on the deck and enjoyed each others company for a little while longer. 

Great times!

 

Saying bye to a good year

A new year is about to start and I'm a little sad that 2015 has come to an end.  It was a good year filled with many great family moments, good health and looking back I can see that I got a lot accomplished.

I held my first Art retreat and taught classes in my new studio. 

My web page is finally a reality, boy did I ever put that off for a long time but it's pretty sweet, check it out if you get a chance.  loribradfordsart.com

Now it's time to make a few plans for 2016 and I have a number of things that I want to get accomplished. 

Since we won't have to spend so much time in the summer building our house as it's almost done I think it's time to really get down to work and get some serious painting and teaching done. 

I'm planning 2 art retreats, one in June and the other in September.  Watch the web page for the details just as soon as I can get thing organized for that.  I have a number of classes that I teach and if you are interested in coming to my studio for lessons or want me to come teach a class in your town then email me and we can get something going. 

Car Art

We are heading back to our home in Saskatchewan from our home in Brownsville so I'm trying to write this with my tablet in the truck while driving.

I surround myself self with things to do so I dont get too bored.

We have driven this trip over a dozen times so looking at the scenery just doesn't cut it anymore.

Instead I pack reading, drawing, painting and even a few computer games.

Drawing zendoodles is pretty impossible, the road is too bumpy but I can messy draw and messy paint.  I came up with the name car art to discribe what I do.

I have a wonderful little Koi watercolour set and a water brush. Add a Strathmore watercolor journal and I'm set.

No mistakes, no worries how things turn out. Just put down colours, let my mind wonder as we make our way back north.

Ornation Creation

About a year ago I stumbled on to the Facebook page of Ben Kwok who started Ornation Creation.   Ben is a talented and generous artist.  He draws outlines or templates of animals, birds or buildings and posts them for the rest of us to fill in with our doodles or to paint or colour. 

I watched his site for a long time admiring all the wonderful creations people were posting and now have finally done a few myself.

Heart Your Art

A month or so ago I entered my name in a contest for a set of Inktense.  I Won!  WooHoo they picked me and I was so thrilled. 



The set arrived in the mail and it looks so amazing all lined up in it's tin container that I am having a hard time taking them out and using them.  The possibilities inside that tin are endless!  There are so many pieces of art just waiting to be made. 

Thank You Natalie at Heart Your Art.

I thought I would share the web page with you all and let you know that there is another contest running right now for a set of Gelatos.  Enter, You may be as lucky as I was.



http://heartyourart.com/

And the winner of the Inktense Set is….

February 28, 2015 by Natalie 1 Comment

I can’t work out if this post is my most or least favourite one to write – I’m super happy because we’re announcing the winner of our Inktense competition; but at the same time I’m super sad because we only have one to give away, and we know how many people are itching to get their hands on these babies!
Never mind – there will be another new competition next month, so if you didn’t win, there are plenty more chances
So……..
The winner, drawn by random.org from over 200 entries, is lori.bradford – Congratulations!   As soon as we hear from you with your address, we’ll be sending out your pack.   We can’t wait to see what you do with them, and hope you love them as much as we do
In the meantime, please keep sharing. If you have examples of how you’ve used these products (or any really!), we’d love to hear about it!
With love.
Natalie
Creative Heartist @ Heart Your Art

Comments

1. Lori Bradford says

   March 2, 2015 at 3:28 am

   Thank you for picking me! Thank you for supporting Art and Artists. I look forward to creating some wonderful Artfulness with my New Inktense set and I am planning on sharing them with my friends and students. Again, Thanks, Lori.

Natalie asked if I would do an Artist interview and I agreed.  I thought I would share my questions and answers with you here as well. 

 

Thanks so much for helping out with our artist interview :)

The questions are below, if you are ok to complete and send back.

Would be great to also get 2-3 good quality images of your gorgeous art work that we could include with the post.

Thanks again,

Nat

(PS - no hurry!)

1.   Which one word or phrase would you pick to sum up your artistic style?

 Colorful.  I work in all kinds of styles while I'm looking for my own artist voice  I use many different mediums and try all kinds of different art forms but the one constant is the bright colors in my work. 

I remember going to a watercolour class and the instructor told us to take out our burnt umber and sienna.  I didn't have those colours, my paints were crimson, turquoise and green gold.

 

2.                  What is the one thing that keeps you going as an artist?

 
I don’t think I could stop even if I wanted to.  Being creative has been the one constant in my life.  It is my therapy, my relaxation, my happy place.  I try to do it every day even if it's just a doodle of my morning coffee cup.

 

3.                  What do you think is the single biggest reason people give up on their artistic dreams?

I get sad just thinking of having to give up on any dreams, especially artistic ones.  I guess for some, life gets in the way but I have always managed to arrange my life to incorporate my creative dreams.

My  dream is pretty simple, have an inspiring space to create in and share my ideas with as many people as I can.

 The only way I'm going to stop reaching for my goal is if I run out of time but I'm only 54 so have half my life ahead of me. ;-)

 

4.                  Describe your happiest artistic memory?

 I have very happy memories of working with my mom and daughters in my craft shop way back in the 80's. That was a special time for me.

Just a few weeks ago a lady approached me and said she had taken one of my classes and wanted to tell me that it changed her life, she said that she never would have believed that she had any talent for painting and drawing but she found it in my class and has not stopped since.  Now that was a happy memory and made me tear up as she hugged and thanked me.  What could be better than that?

5.                  What is the one piece of art-related advice would you like to send to your ten-year-old self?

 Don't be afraid to fail, not even a few times.  Keep practicing, work at it and never give up.  I guess that is more than one piece of advice to 10 year old me, but I sure could have used all of that back then.

 

6.                  If you could visit inside the head and heart of one artist, living or dead, who would it be? (and why?)

Emily Carr.  She was a Canadian woman painter at the turn of the last century.    She became famous for her paintings of the native villages and totem poles of the west coast of Canada often travelling by boat to the remote Queen Charlotte Islands.  She was a independent woman in a time when that was considered very improper.

A few years ago I took myself to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada to visit her museum and see her paintings.

 

7.                  If you could pick one activity that you think all artists should place on their bucket list, what would it be?

 I think it's important to make connections with other artists so my bucket list includes travelling as much as I can to either see their paintings if the artists are dead or meeting as many artists as I can while we are all still here.  When I can't travel I use the internet and visit blogs, web pages and videos.

 

8.                  What is the one art supply you couldn’t live without?

I like to have lots of good black ink pens.  Waterproof and preferably refillable.  There is always one in my purse or pocket and by my chair, on the kitchen table, containers full of them on my studio table.  I did mention that I like lots of pens.

 

9.                  If you could keep only one work of art that you created, which one would it be?

The first thing that came into my head was the next one.  I love the piece as I'm working on it and for a short time after but as soon as I start the next one that becomes my favorite. 

 

 

10.              Pick one location: City, Forest, Beach, Desert, or Mountains. Why?

That's tough for me because I love both the forest and the beach and have arranged my life so I can live in both at different times of the year.  I live in northern Saskatchewan, Canada in the spring and summer months where my partner and I have 120 acres of forest and share it with all kinds of wild flowers, birds and animals. 

When fall and winter comes we head to the deep south most tip of Texas, only minutes away from the beaches of South Padre Island.

 You asked for one though so I guess I would pick forest.  There is nothing like the smell of pine and poplar trees, it's perfect for inspiring creativity.

 

 

 

Go check out Heart Your Art, they are a great support to artists and the chance to win some awesome art supplies is pretty fantastic as well.

Lori

 

Canoes

Heritage Lake in Saskatchewan, Canada. North East of Prince Albert.

 I was floating around on the internet one day and came across some paintings of canoes that were just fascinating to me.  I thought I had written the name of the artist down, I probably did, on a scrap of paper that immediately got lost in the pile on my office desk.  I couldn't find the name, but I remembered the art.  The pictures were so impressive that I couldn't get them out of my head and I kept looking for the artist.  I remembered it was a lady and she was Canadian but nothing else.

Serenity Camp at Heritage Lake were I hang out for a few days every summer with some amazing women.

I love the power of Google.  A few searches later I found her.  Veronica Funk is her name and the canoe painting was from a series she did called Sacred Vessels.  Im going to post a link to her web site and blog here so you can have a look at them if you like.    http://www.veronicafunk.com/

Like some of us do when we see art that we like, we try making it ourselves.  We study it and attempt to make something similar.

 The first time I tried drawing the canoe my friend told me it was a really strange way to draw a chicken!  I guess it did kind of look chickenish and we both had a good laugh when I told her what it was supposed to actually be. 

Here it is, in my journal. I guess the circle at the top made my friend think it was an eye. 

I tried again, a different canoe shape this time and this is what that looked like.

This time I painted on a piece of recycled cardboard.  I liked the odd shape of it and the little quote on the side were random lines that I cut out of an old paperback. 

It says "And there where water lapped at his fatigue he waded out into the water".  Nonsense words or a message about a friend's son who had committed suicide the week that I painted this?  I try not to think about those things to hard. 

Next came a bigger painting.  A canvas this time, I was getting braver I guess. 

 

I started adding layer after layer of paint and marks. Laid down some stencils and used lots of ink as well as acrylic paint. Then I drew the shape of the canoe and painted out the negative space with more layers of acrylics.  I hand carved feather, leaf and bear paw stamps and added those to the pictures as well.  I love the little blue feathers painted on the bow. 

There are still a couple ideas floating around in my head so I think I will add a few more canoes to my fleet.