Let's All Share One Tutorial

It is so much fun to learn something new.  And it is just as rewarding to teach others what YOU have learned. Most of my crafting, decorating, cooking and painting ideas and efforts have been taken from what others have already done; when the person has explained the process so others might take advantage of that knowledge it is even more fun.

The Challenge that Inspiration Avenue is presenting you this week is to share a video, or any "How-To-Do-It" method as it relates to just about any creative effort.  One of my favorite sites on the web is How TO Do Things (just about any and every thing is covered there with clear directions).  Also eHow is a good resource.  Any and all tutorials are welcome.

Here are a few tutorials to put the Challenge wheels in action:

Grosgrain Ribbon Tutorial on Vimeo by Jasmin and Gigi of the KnitmoreGirls:


Visual Featurette- Grosgrain Ribbon Tutorial

This tutorial shows how to make a watercolor chart.  Ian McKendrick did it so well!

source

Have you ever tried to paint on silk?  Betty the Wood Fairy shows a tutorial here:

complete tutorial on Betty's blog: http://betty-thewoodfairy.blogspot.com/2011/09/tutorial.html

Perhaps you might like to sew a double sided flannel baby blanket?  Look here for a tutorial from Nancy's Arts & Crafts. Two sided blankets make for easy play on the floor with baby, or as a nursing cover.

Maybe you or a friend has need for a comfy bra insert due to a mastectomy.  This tutorial is quite renown and is a free pattern from Crystal Palace Yarns.

 

Not quite so glamorous, but a constant annoyance to many of us, is when the "toilet runs".  Don't laugh. Don't get mad.  Instead go to this tutorial to learn how YOU can fix that flapper!

After the Challenge of the week is over, I plan on putting a listing of ALL shared tutorials on my blog sidebar.  The more the merrier!

Be sure to go over to Inspiration Avenue and share your tutorial and link up with Inspiration Avenue via Mr. Linky so we can all benefit from what you have found to be of interest.

National Poetry Month and a Creative Challenge

On Inspiration Avenue, and in conjunction with National Poetry Month, we have a weekly challenge.

April is National Poetry Month and in honor of that... a challenge to revolve around poetry, but also include other forms of the written word, a favorite quote, or novel, or perhaps merely a special word. What inspires you, and how does it make you feel? Pour out those feelings artistically! Whether in oils, collage, watercolor, mixed media, photography, digital art... anything goes, just express it!

Iris are fun to paint, and inspire me.  So I decided to find a poem about iris and then paint one or two.  Here is a poem about iris written by Edith Buckner Edwards in 1961:

Iris, most beautiful flower,
Symbol of life, love, and light;
Found by the brook, and the meadow,
Or lofty, on arable height.
You come in such glorious colors,
In hues, the rainbow surpass;
The chart of color portrays you,
In petal, or veins, of your class.
You bloom with the first in Winter,
With the last, in the Fall, you still show;
You steal the full beauty of Springtime,
With your fragrance and sharp color glow.
Your form and beauty of flower,
An artist's desire of full worth;
So Iris, we love you and crown you,
MOST BEAUTIFUL FLOWER ON EARTH!

Inspired by iris, I got out the silk paints and spread them and all the paraphenalia that goes along with painting on silk, and began this painting with iris as the theme.  It took about a week to complete.  It is ready to frame in a convenient size of 16" x 20".  This is my answer to the Inspiration Avenue weekly challenge.

Artist Bloggers and Urban Sketchers

In looking at artists' works on the internet, I came across Urban Sketchers and some beautiful pictures.  You might find some of the artists' work exceptionally appealing.

Urban Sketchers is a web site that features artwork from over 100 invited artists from 30 different countries.  Imaginative, delightful images are found there; it is an absorbing site and a feast for the eyes.

Above is a watercolor from Caroline who lives in Brittany.  Her blog is An English Artist in Brittany, where she shows some of her watercolors.  She says about this piece:

This beautiful 'maison de maitre' at Dinard was built in the late eighteen-hundreds and is called 'Les Roches Brunes'. It was bequeathed to the town and exhibitions are now held here.

 Here is a sketch by Rob entitled Budenfest found here, painted at a train station in Germany on September 10, 2011.

And below is another sketch by Rob from May, 2011, found here on Urban Sketchers where he writes:

It's been a very dry and warm spring in southern Germany this year. I've been zipping around on my little 50 cc scooter with my sketchbook, looking for little scenes like this to enjoy and draw. I pulled off the road at this spot near the village of Hertingen, watching a tractor plowing up the dry soil and enjoying a field of buttercups before me. Warm. Dry. Wonderful! 

Liz on Sketching Architecture featured this picture on Sept. 10, 2011 where she said...

I love the fluidity and forcefulness, the bold 3-dimensionality, adventurous complexity and all the fun games that are played with curved vs flat surfaces and all the crazy decoration. Today while tidying up my study/studio I came across a print out of a photo I took in Rome last year of a building that I didn't have the energy to sketch at the time.

Judy from the Netherlands sketched this on September 9, 2011.  She can be found at her blog where her sketch was featured here where she said...

The room is filled with the colours of the cyclamen. The flowers are totally odourless but when I let their colour "bleed" into the background, I always feel that I am painting flower fragrance.

Below is a scanned copy of my watercolor worksheet.  If you are not familiar with this "painting tool" mixture of colors on a grid, it is merely the original color of a certain named color down the left hand side of the page with its associated color painted to the right of the name.  Across the top, in the same order, are those same colors.  By mixing the colors, one on top of the other (after each color dab has thoroughly dried), the resulting hues are the combination of the two colors listed on the chart, going from left to right and top to bottom.  In using this worksheet, one never needs to wonder exactly what shade will result in the mixing of colors.

This is one of my watercolors from 2001 painted from a photo I took before a luncheon meal outside Volterra, Italy:

This is one of my watercolors from a vacation in Greece in 2001:

(size 11" x 14")

And thus concludes a blog foray into sketch art from various climes and times.