Good Thoughts

Hello, fellow bugs!

I know, I know, I promised I would be posting more. I’ve decided to stop making promises to you guys that I can’t keep because then I just feel bad when life doesn’t work out the way I planned. Instead, my new promise to you is that I will just post whenever I can, however often that may be, because that I can definitely agree to.

However, looking around at other fellow bloggers’ blogs, I’m realizing that many people are more consistent with when they post – for example, they always post on a certain day of the week, or they always post on the first of the month, or something along those lines. Well, I would like to come up with an organized plan like that because that is something I would more likely be able to stick to. Rather than just “I’ll post soon”, saying “I’ll post on Friday” is more promising in the inner workings of my crazy mind. However, because this has transformed into an art blog, I’m not sure how to go about doing that because I can’t guarantee that I will have new art to post on a weekly basis. I also can’t guarantee that I’ll have time to type out as much as I would like to if I did it on a weekly basis because, well, getting a college degree while simultaneously working a part time job, training for a triathlon, and MAKING the art that I would later post is a bit time-consuming. So for now I’m brainstorming with the idea, but I’ll keep you guys updated on what I decide.

Anyway, on to the featured art of the day!

So I did this one a few weeks ago over break, but I decided to talk about it today because I am unable to do this style of art while in college and I miss it. It turns out that there isn’t a very easy way to transport liquid ink sprays from one state to another, so I decided it was best to keep them at home for the semester and play with them again when I return this summer. And plus, I won’t pretend like I don’t have enough other art supplies to keep me busy until then…. no judgements allowed.

So as you’ve probably picked up on by now, especially if you’ve read my previous posts, this is done with dylusions ink sprays, which are super cool. I did this one when I was still figuring out how they worked, so I used a loose-leaf piece of card stock rather than in my journal. For those of you creative bugs out there, I’m sure you understand the fear of putting a new medium in a journal for the first time. Crazy things start to happen in your mind, such as “If I mess it up it will ruin the whole journal!”, “I have a perfect vision in my head and I don’t know how to make it reality!”, or even “If this isn’t what I want it to be the entire world could explode!!”. Okay, maybe that last one was a bit over the top. But if you’re anything like me, that might as well be what you’re thinking because you’re terrified out of your mind to actually put color onto the page in front of you. My roommate has heard me have to mentally prepare myself for this process on a number of occasions. She’s a trooper, that one. Dealing with her crazy roommate and whatnot.

Anyway, the colors don’t blend quite as smoothly as they would on another type of paper, but they still blended pretty well for one of my first attempts. I sprayed the page first, picked up extra color with paper towel, sprayed again, and continued this process until it looked like the masterpiece I was hoping for. Next I stamped the borders, and next was a super fun part; the zendoodles. I took my black micron .5 pen (possibly the coolest pen in existence) and zendoodled the hills along the bottom. Next I stamped and colored the leaves on the side and the bright happy sunshine. Coming to the end now, I stamped the houses on a separate sheet of paper, colored them with my zig markers (okay, technically my mom’s zig markers. But for the purposes of this post I’m going to pretend that they are rightfully mine), cut them out, and pasted them on there. Lastly of course, I added my quote with, you guessed it, my black micron .5 pen.

So a side note I would just like to throw out here – this was the first time I used Elmer’s Craft Bond Extra-Resistence glue stick. This stuff works wonders but it literally took us 30 minutes to figure out how to open the stupid little thing. And by “us” I mean my mother, my father, and myself as a team. The cap is impossible to get off. Even now, after I’ve used it multiple times, I still don’t have the magic touch. If anyone else has had this issue and knows the secret trick, please share it and save me an extra 30 minutes of frustration towards an inanimate object each time I use glue in my art. It would be much appreciated by both me, and the people around me who are tired of hearing me yell at my glue stick. Shoutout to my roommate again for dealing with my insanity.

So, the quote may be a little strange. I didn’t have a quote in mind when I started this project and after I had done everything else on the piece I decided to just scroll through my pinned quotes on pinterest (which trust me, is a lot) until I found one that spoke to me. I liked this one so I used it, although my boyfriend thought it was weird. But he’s weird. So we can’t trust his judgement. (Love you sweetie!)

Well, lastly I have one other thing to throw into this post. I recently found a site called bloglovin that I’m still trying to figure out and understand, but if I understand correctly, I can link this blog to it and get followers over there as well. It’s kind of like just another giant collection of super cool blogs, which I am definitely interested in being a part of;

Follow my blog with Bloglovin’

Not completely sure how this works yet so I guess we will find out as I go. But here’s to hoping I put the correct link on my page. If you are happy following me on here and don’t want to check out bloglovin, feel free to ignore this link! Though if you really enjoy reading assorted blogs, I highly recommend you check it out! You just have to click on the link above or even find my bloglovin link on the left side of my page!

Well, happy 3-day-weekend, bugs! Make good choices!

Love,

Laney-bug ❤

Medium used: Black micron .5 pen, zig markers, delusions ink sprays, dylusions stamps, black archival ink, card stock