What I do

I was just thinking, I haven't explained much about my work. If you look at my cabin picture, you might notice it's a little bit of a 3-d like picture. Well, what I do is what I prefer to call "Scrapbooking". I cut out a picture (such as the trees and cabin and snowbanks) from fairly thick paper (so it doesn't curl too much) and paint it to look like whatever I want. I hardly ever make pieces from my sketches, which I think both helps and hinders me. It helps me stay creative, but it hurts me when I'm not in a particularly creative mood, yet I still want to create something. Plus, I hardly ever can create the picture I want from my sketches. They never seem to come out anything alike.
I also will paint the background, since paint creates a nice, clean background picture (unlike my former medium of markers and colored pencils). Then, once everything is dry, I use just regular school glue (usually Elmers) and glue down everything where I think it looks best. Usually by now I have a picture in my head of what I plan to create.
Once I have everything glued down, I usually sign the picture and that's about it, unless I feel that I can do more with it later, at which point I will save it and finish it at another time. However, I've come to find that the paper still curls once the paint is dry, so I will usually press my work between some thick books, or find a way to make the picture stay flat again. So far, this hasn't been too much of a problem. I hope it never will be.
The reason I refer to this as my "Scrapbooking" technique, is because it reminds me of how people create scrapbook pages. (That and the fact that I also used scrapbook sheets as some of the backgrounds for my work.) There are raised pictures on quite a few of my new works and they have things glued to them, rather than painted or drawn directly on them. Plus, I have found that I like the mixed media look and have put other things on my work as well, such as buttons and string. It's all quite exciting finding out that there is more than one world of art out there. Now I know that I can create so many more things and actually achieve the look and style that I crave. The winter cabin picture below is a great example of that. I love that picture because it is 3-d ish and looks exactly how I would imagine my art to look like. It has that 'cartoonish' feel to it. I just love that! :)
If you have any questions or suggestions about what I do, feel free to leave me a comment. I enjoy the feedback and help! :) And if you haven't tried any new art techniques, I definately think it's something you should do. Even if you're not good at another medium, it helps you learn some techniques you can use in the one you like and you'd be surprised at some of the things you can create. On top of all that, it's just plain fun! :D