Willowing Arts: Mastering Mixed Media 2025 (#31-37) & A Few Random Things

These are (finally!!!) the last lessons from Willowing Arts: Mastering Mixed Media 2025.  It's a good thing I finally got around to them since Mastering Mixed Media 2026 begins on May 1!!!

Watercolor, colored pencils, white pen

Portrait & background with red, ocher, black, & white, collage papers

Markmaking with leftover paint & colored pencils, Gesso out background

Water color: orange & blue, Colored pencils: orange, red, blue

Pages: collaged paper strip folded concertina style, quotes
Cover: decorated paper over cardboard

Ink pen & watercolor

And a random few other mixed media pieces:

From Sketchbook Revival 2026

A quick sketch painting to gather ideas for a triptych oil painting.

Valentines for my Home Away From Home girls (College students from church that we've "adopted" for their years in our city.

A lesson from on-line teacher Kim Dellow

A lesson from on-line teacher Karen Campbell

Our church ladies' group had a painting night.

After our Greece trip, I made some postcards to use as thank you notes.

A tiny booklet I mailed to a dear one who was having a difficult couple of weeks.

Willowing Arts: A Year of Magic & Fairy Tales (March)

If there's no deadline, is it still late? Only 24 days into April, I've finished my lessons from Willowing Arts: A Year of Magic & Fairy Tales lessons from March!

I love learning to use all these different mediums to create pages in my art journals.  If they aren't for sale and they aren't to decorate my walls and they aren't for gifts and they aren't for a grade... Then what's the point?  I guess, just doing them and being creative is the point. 

Enjoy the ten from this month!

Acrylics: brown with red, yellow, blue, & white

Acrylic inks, paint pens, collaged papers, gesso

Collage papers, Watercolor, Craft Paint, Pens

Colored pencil, Watercolor

Collage, inks, splatter, craft paint, pen

Craft paint, stenciling, colored pencil

Watercolor, collage paper, stickers, Watercolor crayons

Watercolor, acrylic inks, powdered mica

Collage paper, stickers, magazine clippings, acrylic, powdered mica

Collage paper, Sharpie

Clouds

I go back and forth when I look at this painting.
What am I supposed to look at? 

Is it a painting of a sunset or sunrise? a painting of a sun kissed landscape? skyscape of clouds? Is it okay that it's kind of all three? 

I want to keep looking at it, so I think it's okay.

My Weekly-ish Challenge was "Clouds." That seemed easy enough... until it wasn't.  Clouds? I live in the trees!  I don't really see whole clouds! I looked and didn't have any good reference photos for clouds. Nothing on any of the free reference photo sites intrigued me. Then I remembered that I had an ancient painting book...

You can tell by the price tag! Woolworths... $2.95!  It's from 1985, and it's still good!

I picked one of the lessons, started there, then went off on my own. 

*** Note to self... if using the word "ancient"  when referring to 1985, remember that you got married that year... pick another word!

Click Clouds if you'd like to purchase this little painting.

Book Making

I've been traveling down the rabbit hole of book making lately and have had such a good time with it.

Cut some cardboard... fold some paper... use some glue... then do art inside!

This one's about 6"x 6" so each page spread is about 6"x 12". It turns out to be a place for 10 little art projects to live together.

These two are about 3"x 6 and opens to 3"x 12", just 4 pages long.

Perfect to stick in an envelope and mail as a get-well card or thinking-of-you card.

To get the pictures and encouraging quotes, I used mess-up pages from when I'd make the little year quote books.(See HERE, HERE, and HERE.)

This one is about 3"x 6" and opens like a regular book to about 6"x 6". 

Just 4 fun little pages about the birds who live here around our home.

This kind is folded from one piece of paper and ends up with 4 pages about 3"x 4"

This one I left opened up. it hangs like a mobile in my art room. 

These aren't books... just cards about 4"x 5"

It's been so much fun to work on these little projects.

Now, I really need to get back to oil painting before I forget how!

I Like... (3/26)

Thank you to Leeanne of Not Afraid of Color for reminding me to notice things I like. 
Click on HER BLOG to see what positive things others like. 

 I like seeing hawks... just not in my backyard stressing the chickens out.

 I like... No... i really don't...

I like getting pots ready to start this year's garden... 
and discovering who used them during the off season.

I like my workspace.

I like snow... but that's not snow... It's hail!!

I like my brand new little twig of a PINK dogwood tree!
She stands just off our back porch where an old wild dogwood lived its last years.
I cannot wait to see her bloom!  
What shall I name her?

I like watching the seeds become little plants in our 
greenhouse... (a.k.a. upstairs bathroom).

I like putting a little pop of color in this otherwise brown/tan post.

LeeAnne's  conversation starter topics this month:

Do you make anything special for Easter dinner? Do you use special
recipes or tableware? Not really. After our church Easter egg hunt, our 6 little ones will come over for our own Easter egg hunt. They're ages 3-7 and would much rather have chicken tenders and mac & cheese than anything else.  Do you order chocolate bunnies to give out or
keep? I don't order chocolate ones, but I do have a cute little bunny for each one to take home.  Do you bite the ears off first? If it's one of those little foil covered chocolate bunnies with the marshmallow inside, yes! Ears first then all the rest! 

Do you like spring? Why?  What makes you feel Spring has sprung around your house? I love spring! The daffodils are finished blooming... the irises are thinking it's almost their turn... the hens are laying more eggs... the birds chirp all day... the windchimes make their own music... the garden has a few early shoots... all things gray and brown turn green!

What is your favorite daily routine? describe it to us... for example wake early when others are asleep for the peace? Make list?  I my word... I could go on and on about this one... I'll just say that lists are huge in my life.  Maybe it's all those years of making and living by lesson plans in the classroom that make me the most comfortable when I have a checklist to go through the day with.

For National telephone day,  what is your relationship with phones?  I like my phone. I'm so grateful for the ability to communicate in different ways... and take photos... and ask Google... and my calendar is there... and my checklists!  Always have it with you?  Yes. Check it at intervals or whenever I hear a notification ping or use it mainly for calls? Yes. Remember when there was one phone for the family hanging on the wall?   And the cord would always be tangled!  Remember party lines?  Yep. One ring at a time meant it was for us.  Double rings at a time meant it was for the Edwards. .Do you use a phone as a computer even though the screen is so small?  When I'm out and need to, but I much prefer the laptop.  Fav apps on the phone?  WhatsApp... Sonic... Chick-fil-A

Do you do spring cleaning? All over or just clear out the yard of debris for example, just do a thorough dust collection, or purging of clothing no longer wanted?  Naaa... I try to just keep up with it throughout the year.