have you heard of Art Geeks.

 Photographs and Art, are like hot tea and a biscuit....

I live my life through photos and art, by merging the two I create journal pages that are uniquely mine.

So Art Geeks... if you haven't you should find out! I have been asked to be a teacher in the online art group Art Geeks, I was very nervous to begin with, but I think with time..I could do alright at teaching art journal pages. We have some very talented teachers in the group, one of them being the lovely Gulfspite who you hear me talk about heaps! There is a blog too, I know alot of my followers are artists, so if there is a moment u have spare, check us out...at the moment I have set up some homework (yes even before my glass has started) to get the artists ready for the little things I'm going to teach in the following months!!

want to make personal art journal pages...come find us at Art Geeks

 enjoy your days my dears I have a cold at the moment, so Im under my alice in wonderland quilt drawing with my art journal and sipping green tea.

xx Courtney

day 11 and 12 - Portraits and Desk Shot

as you can see, I am rather tired looking from my above picture, so I let my portrait slip yesterday, sleep got ahold of me instead. I did play in my journal today though to try and catch up.

a soft girl, trying to master bodies still, and they still get the better of me, but I keep trying anyway as one day they will be drawn with ease and without thinking.

not sure if i like her background though I might try and fix that aspect up later, but overall I like her.

and a quilt long necked girl, I have a think for red heads it seems! I want to do alot of line work in her background but when Im not so tired!

a shot of my copic marker box, and my favorite pencil case, giving to me by my darling besty  It comes with me in all my handbags, filled with my current colour palette. She made it herself, after we picked out fabric together many years ago now, but I love it just the same.

and a page I'm working on, when I'm not drawing faces, sometimes I like the simple pages of my life with photographs, simple painted backgrounds and a little text.
have a lovely evening
xx C

Day 8 - Inky beautiful

Armed with a spray ink, and no idea, this girl emerged she was still and silent, and a pleasure to create.

I gessoed the page, and sprayed a doiley then inked her with a cheap black pen, some pencils.

a touch of watercolour crayons.

also in the mail today, my little moo order came! a book of stickers 

and a handful little mini business cards. 

how has your Tuesday?

xx Courtney

Day 7 - Tag me Lovely!

Day 7 my darlings! and I must say I lost my mojo, I spent the day sewing up a storm to get a few sewing projects worked on, and before I knew it my day was almost over, I tried a portrait in sumi ink, and liked her..till I tried to add colour, then it all went shit-tastic! so I started again. 

I saw some of my blank tags in my odds and ends box, and grabbed one, and started sketching in an inky pen.

little watercolour marker and a touch of white pen, and I thought she was simple enough and cute enough, I will start incorporating her into the page, maybe some text/journalling above her eyes, and she will be a cute addition to my journal.

here is my desk shot, do you see the bunch of tags up the back in the odds box hehe

above shot

I painted this girl a few days ago and never got the share her...so here is my latte skinned beauty.

xx Courtney

Faces In May - Day 5

Afternoon my darlings! its day 5 in the faces of May challenge, and since I enjoyed playing with the monotone of yesterdays girl I thought I'd play with some pink acrylic ink and gesso and see what I came up with! below is my face for the day and what she developed into. Two pics from our day today.

I thought since I, working at my desk everyday this month, I'd do daily desk shots, so you can see how things morph and merge as I create.

on our outings today, I was looking for some new storage for my copics, my old square vase finally had no room left, so a quick trip to ikea, and now they all fit nicely into this one container..with dividers. once I fill that up.. I'll get a couple more!

how is your Saturday shaping up?

xx Courtney

Faces In May - Day 3

We are off and running in the 29 faces in May challenge, and I've got to say, I'm getting really excited about it! I started stockpiling portrait photos that I liked from pintrest as reference points for my drawing. The quirky old man, was one of those photographs. He is my day three, I've been working on him all through my day even during the time I went shopping, having a tea while I was out, I sat and coloured him with my markers.

the woman opposite him was just a girl that developed while I was sitting on the couch, not sure if she will be day 4 or if I will go looking for more photographs to sketch!

a close up of my old man, he is predominately in greys, I used two shades of brown copic marker, and a prismacolour pencil as  highlights around the eyes and the shirt.

and a close up of my blue haired beauty!

how are your faces going?

xx Courtney

JOINING IN! 29 Faces in May

I need a pick me up, something to get excited about, and I saw this on Gulfspire's Blog and thought I'd join her! 29 faces in may, shouldn't be too bad I got two completed just yesterday!

 I think I can give this a good go! anyone else want it pop on over and join in, leave your blog in my comments so I can have a bit of a looksie at your lovely drawings!

xx Courtney

Face for the first of may (since its the second here)

and I did tell you I got two finished didn't I...

well here she is

enjoy your afternoon and do join me, I love looking at your art! 

guess you'll see daily posts from me for the month of may!

xxx Courtney

Happy Monday!

Hello hello, Its another monday I hope you weekends were eventful and full of colour and art journal fun!, I've worked in my journal, in what I call my in-between time. Those moments when you cant commit hours just back to ur desk for 10 mins here and there, I did take my journal in the car, but alas fell asleep instead lol.
So here are two before and afters for you... As you know I am in the Painted faces class by Gulfsprite and I was working on my homework, first is a double page spread I shared with you last week I think..so it went from this...

to this, more colour, working on the face randomly at night when I couldnt sleep...she went from drag queen (oh it was terrible, she got more manly the tireder I got!) to this little quirky girl, I rather like...this was one of the templates Christy gave us if we didnt want to draw our own girl.

opposite page is just some photos, washii tape, painted flowers and a little journalling just simple and brightly coloured. Oh there are also some lovely atlas stars that I got in the mail last week.

and my next before was this girl, remember her, she was one of my homeworks for the painted faces class, I decided to draw my own girl, so I got my colour erase pencil out and went to town, she went from looking like this

to this acrylic painted gal, I actually photocopied her, because I like the sketch aswell, so I copied her and painted over the copy, as I want to try out a few shading palettes to her, so I just taped her into the journal when I was finished with her.

and thats me done! hope you enjoyed the post, I'll be back soon with some more of my portrait work, and a canvas I started today for a gift.
xx Courtney

Thank Goodness its Friday

It's finally Friday, it has been a long time since I wished for a Friday, with the school runs now, catching the back back and forward it tires a girl out...so I long for the Friday afternoon where I can just slouch! today, while it rained I just taped things into my journal, and did some work on the naughty corner face. Slowly with each layer I put down, I'm rather liking her. I pick her up every few hours add another colour, shading, high lights.


I think I need to unround her eyes... give them a more natural look instead of making them so rounded. To combat my hair hate, mum said to put a bandanaesk thing on her, to make her features pop... and it worked.


I also started drawing a little whimsy girl over the crazy pink I put down a few days ago, she turned out rather nice, just simple little creative steps to try and keep myself motivated to blog everyday again and be happy with my art.
so what are you working on in your art journals?

todays simple DIY journal find is hereComposition Art Journal By lilblueboo.com

xx Courtney

back to common ground

It seems that I have the memory span of a goldfish, Monday came and went, and I didn't even think about the Monday Mantra! I've been in a bit of an art funk, not sure what happened, I think I was trying to cram so much into my brain, learning new things, looking at all the courses I've been in, and want to do, I got overloaded and just fizzled out...so I'm embracing this.

I sat at my art desk, staring at the journals I've started and gotten bogged down in, it seems there were pages in all my journals that didnt seem to hit the mark with me, so I just stopped arting. I just sat there going through pages I'd already completed...my way of re reading. So I went back to basics and just went to something familiar...faces... she isnt finished but here is my progress so far.

its a double spread, so tomorrow I might sit down and try and get the pages finished, and maybe then I will be over my little funk, ready to take anything on again.

a shocking photo, but alas here is the newest member of the nook...little raven.
I had to nab this photo whilst she was still enough to capture on the ipad. Tomorrow I'll use my cannon and hopefully have a better shot of my little black beauty.

xx Courtney

Creative Space Thursday - Trust the Mess

for once I'm on point with getting my art snapped for a creative space post! usually I remember its thursday by the time it's almost all over with, I started a little bit of art last night, trying to get back on the wagon now that I'm on meds again, it seems such an effort to art! which was one of the things I worried about...but my man is making sure he keeps my fire alive even when I am stuck in limbo.

I was sat at my desk last night starting at my journal for what seemed like eternity, then I just picked up my aqua brush opened my watercolours and started laying colour down...when in doubt just put colour onto your page and go from there.
I knew I wanted to make something as my last message to Jane from my art course.
The most amazing thing was those three words, trust the mess, everything is a learning process and everything cant be fixed or simply covered up.

I fell in love with my prisma pencils again, using them in a way I never had before.

Jane made me face my copic fear, finally using the markers and bending them to my will not theirs. I loosened up and let go of being perfect, or trying to art like others and just created for the pure love it it.

I learnt to accept that not every thing I create in my journal is going to be shaded beautifully, or drawn perfectly, that each day I put pen to paper I'm growing as an artist.

I also love that my palette has grown to colours I would normally never use, and now they are spilling onto my pages like liquid rainbows... simple little things that may not seem much to many...but give me so much hope for what is to come in my artistic journey.

this woman, has changed me on the inside.
that's enough from me for today
enjoy the other creative spaces over at Our Creative Space

I shall try make some more art tonight...something will get done, if the boy has anything to say about it lol.
xxox Courtney