Ack!

I'm so behind! I completely missed November. :S The rest of my life has been so hectic and crazy lately though that I just haven't been able to post anything new. I have been creating some art (mostly little doodles and sketches), but I haven't had time to scan them or photograph them to upload them. :S

Anyway, I just wanted to pop on here and let the world know I haven't left My Art World. ;)

I've actually been trying to make a few Christmas gifts for some friends, so that's one thing I'm hoping to post later, though I'm not sure when. :S

Anyway, I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. :)

Time to junk your pumpkin!

I'm way behind on posts, but I finally got my pumpkin junked and just submitted it in and wanted to share it with ya'll. ;D



If you want to junk your own pumpkin, you can submit it here. Or you can visit Holli here and check out her awesome art! ;D

Happy Halloween to everyone! :)

*Update* I won second prize in this contest and received a copy of one of Holli's awesome pieces. Yay!

Another new header!

Since fall is coming, I've decided to make another header. ;) Here's the sketch I drew out for it.

And here's the finished project, which I drew in photoshop, over the original sketch. ;)

Not sure I'm completely satisfied with it, but it will be a nice change anyway, so I'm going to try and put it up as the new header for awhile. Hope you guys like it! ;D

A little lumpy dragoon...

Just a little something I did with my tablet. ;) I did one without a very decorative background, and then one with a little bit of decoration. Not sure which one looks best. :/ What do you guys think? ;)

Plain background:

Somewhat Decorative background:

Pumpkin Abstract

This is another pumpkin I did with my tablet. Thought I'd make it a little more abstract and different.

Then I tried tweaking it in photoshop and came up with this one that's a little bit darker and a little more bolder. Not sure which one I like best yet. Probably the first one. ;)

Sweet Pea

Here's another piece I did on my tablet. ;) I like to call her Sweet Pea.

Pumpkin patch fencerow

Phew, have been busy, but I'm finally getting somewhat back into the groove of making art, so thought I would post a new pic for you to celebrate the coming of autumn. ;) I know, it's still a ways off, but I just love autumn! ;D

So, here's a little pumpkin I did. ;) Hope you enjoy it! Drew it with my wacom tablet, which I haven't used in ages either. Definately felt good to have that pen back in my hand once again. :)

An oldie, but a goodie.

I'm sure I've talked about some of the artists that have influenced me before, but there's one I just recently rediscovered. As a child, it used to be the norm for everyone in my school to get folders and backpacks and binders with cutesy little pictures all over them. Or at least is was for girls. And almost every year I would get several folders with art by the same artist; Lisa Frank. I absolutely loved her art. And still do! It's so vibrant and cute, and her characters are so lovely and sweet! My favorites used to be the horses, dogs, and bears that she drew. They always had the most adorable back stories to go with them. If you'd like to see some of the characters or their stories, you can visit them here.

I don't know what made me think of this artist after so long, but I'm so glad I did. I plan to check out her website more thoroughly and see what new characters she's created. Hope you guys check her out, too! Her art really is inspiring. :)

Book Reviews

I figured it was time I did something a little bit different. So I've decided to give a book review of my two favorite books (to do with art and writing, that is)! I just love these two books. They've become fairly essential in my writing and my art.

The first one is called Roland Harvey's Drawing book (Young Designer Series), published by Scholastic. Of all the many art books I've read through and looked at, this one has been the most helpful to me so far. Because I'm the type of person who needs to read and see something to learn it, this book is perfect. Roland Harvey's illustrations are very funny, cute, and clever, as well as informative and helpful. For a beginning illustrator and/or artist, this book is great. He even shows how he works on illustrations for books! If you're a new artist, or are just looking for some helpful tips or ideas, you should definately check it out.

The second book is The Pocket Muse by Monica Wood, published by Writer's Digest Books. This book is simply full of ideas. Literally. Monica lists all kinds of ways to get ideas for stories. There are even pictures that are meant to give you ideas. Very helpful if you're having writer's block. :)

A few sketches

I've been doing some new sketches lately and thought I'd share some with you guys. Hope you like them! :)

(I'm not really sure what this picture is. A flamingo perhaps?)

(This is a dog I started on and never seemed to finish.)

Happy Fourth of July!

Sorry this is late in the day, but I just wanted to say Happy 4th to everyone! :)

My first homemade gift...kind of

This is my very first homemade gift that I'm giving away to someone outside of my family. I'm not exactly 100% finished with it, since I need to seal the back of the picture, but other than that, I think it's ready to go. It's for a friend whose daughter just had a baby. As you can tell from the picture, his name is Alexander. However, his nickname is going to be Zander. His grandmother wasn't sure though that everyone would understand how they got that name from the other, so I did my own little take on how they could tell. And of course, I decided to put my 'wanna-be-children's-illustrator' twist on it and make it a picture that also says "From A to Z", too. :) So, Here's the final outcome:

Do you see the Apple and Zebra to go along with the theme as well? :) I can't wait to give it to them. I've been working on it for a long while now, just to get it right. It's even got a 3-d like quality, too, because I made the eyelashes stick out by cutting a bunch of little slits on a piece of paper and pulling them out. I really enjoyed making this piece. I really hope the couple likes it. :) Oh, it's made by cut paper by the way. :)

Create something.

Sorry I haven't posted for awhile. I've been busy. :) I haven't gotten to create very much real art lately, however I have found another way to be creative. I've said it before, that I love facebook. Well, I love some of the applications on there as well. One is the (Fluff)friends application. It's just so cute! Plus, I just recently discovered that they have their own form of art (Fluff art) where you can get feedback on your work, as well as meet some new friends, get stuff for your fluff, and even win some neat little prizes (only valuable in fluff land, of course. ;)

So, I've been creating a few pieces of my own and here's a couple I've come up with. Hope you like them. If you haven't checked this application out, you definately should. It forces you to think outside the box, since you can only make art with the 'stuff' already there. For the collage lovers out there, this is definately something you would like I think. For me, it makes me think more about my art, which has made my art better.

Here's a hoot owl I created, cartoon style:

And here's one that's more collage-like:

Also, I've got some real art to share, hopefully later this week. It's a gift I made for a friend who's having/had a baby. :) Be sure to check back! :)

It's been hectic...

It's been quite a hectic few weeks for me, but things are starting to slow down right now, so I thought I would post a little something to let you know I hadn't fallen off the face of the Earth. :) I haven't had time to create any new art, but here's a neat little website that shows you what color blue you are. I've always loved the color blue, so I thought I would share my own color with you guys and let you see what color you are. :)


Here's mine:

You Are Indigo

Of all the shades of blue, you are the most funky, unique, and independent.Expressing yourself and taking a leap of faith has always been easy for you.

A little birdie...again...

I love drawing little birdies. I don't know what my infatuation with birds is all about lately, but I love drawing them all funky and cute. :) Here's another one I did the other day. :) Hope everyone's having a good weekend!

I'm Back!

Sorry I haven't posted anything recently. I've been pretty busy with other things and haven't got to create much art lately. However, I did come up with a few new things last night. Hope you enjoy them! :)

Happy Mother's Day!

Just a little something to let all those great mother's out there know they're appreciated. :)

*And if you were wondering, I had strep throat the other day. :S Thankfully I'm feeling much better now. :)

A bit under the weather....

I woke up this morning feeling AWFUL. So, instead of posting the cute little art that I made the other day (which I couldn't do anyway since I haven't gotten those pictures ready yet), I figured I'd draw up something instead and post it, to go along with my not feeling very well. Hope everyone else is doing well.

Scrapbooking lollapalooza!

Hey everyone! I've gotten back into my 'scrapbooking', which you can see that I've already started doing some of that here and here and here, and have purchased several new sheet templates (whole booklet worths actually) as well as some new tags and chipboard pieces and buttons and...well, anything I can find that I think I can make something neat out of. :) So, what have I made so far? Glad you asked! Below you'll see some of the new things I made from last night. I should have been sleeping, but once I start creating something, I just can't seem to stop!

Here's a cupcake I made. The tag says "Bliss". I wanted to put the letters for YUM on it, but I figured this would do better for now. (Oh, and I didn't make the cherries. That's just a little something I bought a few days ago that I was using to hold the picture up while I took the picture.)

This is a little tweety bird that I made. The feet and eyes are buttons. :) He has a little hook I made on his back, so that he can hang anywhere. I seem to like making birds lately. Maybe it's because it's spring and you can hear them more...?

Colorful Illustrations 93°C - Beware of this book...

This is very disturbing. Dani Jones' website brought up this information and I found it too important not to share with everyone else. Here is the link to the actual article where you can read the entire story. Apparently the so called 'author' of this book (and/or the publisher) have taken people's illustrations and interviews right off the internet and made them into this book, which comes with a cd in the back that basically lets you use their copyrighted work as clip art. This is an outrage! How can someone get by with doing this??? The sad thing is, the art in the book is beautiful, which means people will want to buy it, even though the artist will not get the credit for their work. It almost makes you want to not share any of your art or ideas with anyone...

New header

I've had the old header up for awhile, so I thought I would switch it to this one for a bit. It needs more...stuff I think, but for now I guess it looks okay. Hope you enjoy it. :)

Some new Art

I noticed that I have posted alot of words lately and not a lot of art. So, here's some new art for you to enjoy. :) I drew this one with my tablet.

A lamp shade?

In a few weeks, Craftster is having a contest on making your own lamp/light or lamp/light accessory. So for fun, I decided to go ahead and make something for this one, though I doubt I will enter it into the contest. What do you guys think?

To make this, I took some styrofoam squares that had come from some packaging and painted them in the colors that coordinated with my room. I was in a rush, so I didn't let the paint dry, even though I should have. Anyway, to hold it together, I took several toothpicks and painted them in another matching color, in this case orange (in case you can't tell), and let those dry. Once they were ready, I arranged the styrofoam the way I thought it would look best and started sticking the toothpicks in. Because I was rushing, I accidentally let one go through the styrofoam and had to glue the piece that fell off back on, but if you take your time and make sure everything is dry, this would be a fun project to do. For now I have it sitting over my Glade light show light (which I love by the way), but it doesn't look as good there as I had hoped it would. I'd like to make it into a real lamp shade, but I'm not certain how to go about doing that right now, so I'll probably have to look around and figure out how I can do that with this project. Still, this was fun to make and if you wanted, you can decorate it anyway you like and have a very reasonably priced lampshade that you can constantly change to go with your decor.

Oh, and if you need some inspiration to make some awesome projects on the low budget side, check out these awesome Craftster creators. They have some incredible stuff that they spend $10 and under on!

More Green art...

As I promised, here's the spaceship I created for my nephew. I actually painted this light bulb with my acrylics before I began making anything out of it. For this one, I glued on the plastic spoons first with my glue gun (after I had painted it and let it dry), then I glued on the pom poms in matching colors, then it took me awhile to figure out how to make it stand up, but I finally figured out that bottle tops worked fairly well for that, once I had covered the insides with tons of glue from my hot glue gun. Then I added the button door/window and Voila! A nice, cute little spaceship. :) Again, it looks alot better in person. Now I just need something for my other nephew...

Am I going green?

It seems all you hear about anymore is 'going green', as in people recycling and doing things to help the planet. Rather unintentionally, it seems I've sort of started doing that myself. I've started to take things that you normally would throw away once they're broken (such as light bulbs and batteries) and started making art out of them. I haven't actually made anything out of the batteries yet, but I'm still working on it. However, I have made several things out of the old light bulbs I had. Here's one thing I made out of them this past weekend.

It's light bulb bling! :D
(It looks much better in person. Pictures don't exactly do it justice.)

Basically I just took an old, burned out light bulb, hot glued an empty scotch tape holder to the bottom (Just the part in the middle of the tape) and hot glued some old beads and buttons and other decorations on to it. My neice absolutely loved it, so I'll probably end up giving it to her to set up in her room once I make sure it's somewhere so that her or her brothers can't get to it and break it. :) And obviously I couldn't leave my nephews out, so I made one of them a spaceship out of an old lightbulb, but I'm afraid you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see it. ;) I still have to make something else for my other nephew, so be sure to keep checking back to find out what his gift will be. :)

Thrifty spenders make the best art?

This week, the craftster website has been doing a challenge to see what people can come up with by spending only $10 at their local dollar store. Let me say, the results are astounding. I don't know how people come up with these ideas out of nowhere. If you'd like to see the entries, you can view them here. It's ends tomorrow, so you can still join if you like. I might try this on my own, just to see if I can come up with anything at all. :)

Sorry I haven't posted any new art this week. Hopefully I'll have more next week. I've been busy lately and just haven't had much time to create anything much. Mostly just scribbles, and not very good ones at that. :S

Horton Hears a Who

For my youngest nephew's birthday, I decided to continue with my new tradition (or what I hope to be a new tradition) of taking my neice and nephews to a movie. We decided to see "Horton Hears A Who", and they all loved it! I think I actually loved it more than they did though. It was so adorable, and they all stayed awake and seemed to greatly enjoy it. I loved that they kept it close to the book, too. Dr. Seuss' books are so wonderful and I'm glad they didn't change it too much and that they even kept in some of the rhyming. I also really loved the artwork of the movie. It looked so real at times.

I definately recommend this movie and I can't wait until it comes out on DVD so that I can watch it again..and again..and again. :)

What does this have to do with any of my artwork? Nothing really, except that because of seeing this movie, it kept me from doing anything new this weekend, so I don't have anything new to post for now. Stay tuned though. I should have something new in a day or so to share. :)

Umm...?

This was just something I created the other day on my wacom tablet. Not sure what to make of it. The background doesn't match the rest of it, so I need to play around with it some more and see if I can create a better picture with it.

More spring creations....

Here's another spring ensemble I put together. It's not as good as the owl, but I thought it was cute. It's just a couple of birdies, in case you can't tell. :)

The Colors of Spring

Spring is one of my favorite times of the year. Autumn is the other, and Summer and Winter come last for me. But with Spring, I always find that I get so many ideas just from the colors around me. Maybe it's all the flowers in bloom or the fact that Winter is so bleak and white, like a blank canvas, but for some reason, Spring makes me feel creative. So, I have been caught up in the whirlwind of my cut paper, a.k.a. "Scrapbooking", technique again, and here's what I've come up with.

An OWL! :)

Happy (early) Easter!

Happy (early) Easter!

I know it's a bit early, but I probably won't have time to post a picture this weekend, so I figured I should do it now. Here's a picture I created on adobe. It seems the Easter bunny is a little bit stressed at the fact that Easter has come early this year and he's still not ready. :)

Spring is coming...

Spring doesn't officially begin until this Thursday (March the 20th), but it seems to have come early for me. I can't wait to start spring cleaning and for the weather to get warm. I've even started creating some cutesy little spring like pictures out of some awesome scrapbook paper I had. I just can't wait for spring to get here! :D

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I've been alittle behind this week and haven't gotten to create very much new art, so I don't have any of my own pictures to post at the moment, but here are a few websites you can go to to make your own art and crafts for this green filled day. :)

1.) Kaboose - Print your own Irish pictures

2.) Creativity Portal - Make crafts and learn about the history of St. Patrick's day

Enjoy being green today! :)

Heavenly Notes

These are so cute! I love the colors and the fact that they're sticky, like post it notes. They're from Hallmark. My mom gave these to me and I plan on leaving them everywhere for everyone. :) Oh, did you notice the bright, colorful blanket in the background? I just got it and I love it! :) It' so bright!

Take the time to read a book.

I drew this a few weeks ago on my tablet. I've nicknamed this little owl "Hootie" for now. It seems he has quite a has quite a handful of kids that want him to read to them. :)

Random sketches

Here's a page out of my sketchbook. A few fruits and veggies that seem to have come to life, and some animals who look very confused and just plain out of place. At first I wasn't too fond of the brown pages, but they seem to be growing on me. :) Plus it's a small book so that I can pack it anywhere without it being to cumbersome. I need to just take the time to draw in it more often. :)

Do you see what I see?

I have a question for you. What do you see when you look at this piece I created?

I see the beginning face of a robot. Minus the eyes, nose, and other gadgets a robot would have on his head, of course. It probably just looks like a blog of watercolor paints swirled around together to most people. Or perhaps you see a pool with fishes swimming around inside. Or something completely different. Hopefully once I tweak it and work with it in Adobe, everyone else will see what I see. But this makes me wonder, does anyone else 'see' pictures and art in the world around them? For example, do you see a plain old tree, or a giant piece of brocoli yet to be made? Does that hill look like a mound of dirt or a dragon laying down, growling at the tiny people living on his back?

Maybe it's an artist thing or maybe I'm just going loony from all the paint fumes, but this is how I've begun to see things around me. Ideas just seem to pop up out of nowhere sometimes, which sparks a vision for a new illustration or artwork.

Is this something that all artists do or just children's artists? Is it something everyone does in their every day lives? Who knows. But if you've got any stories or pictures to share where you've 'seen' some new artwork or it sparked a new idea, then I'd love to hear from you. I would love to do a post of some pictures of what someone 'sees' and what they created from that. If you'd like to share anything to do with art, you can email me at mindylouhagan at yahoo dot com, or just leave a comment. :)

WooHoo! Snow Day!

We had a MAJOR snow storm this weekend, leaving at least 6 or 7 inches (or more!) at our feet. So what does that mean in regards to my artwork? I didn't do it! :D I played in the snow instead. Hey, it was a snow day after all. And once you're out of school, those come far and few between. :) I don't have any snow day pictures to share as the ones I took were fairly boring (since I couldn't take too many pictures with my gloves on) but I do have a few new pieces of art to show you that I created last week. This one started out as just a scrap piece of paper used while figuring out my watercolors, but somehow it turned into a fish.

My mom found me a watercolor dvd that I have been watching and trying to learn from, so to use the terms I have learned so far, I believe this is a wet on dry piece. I really like the wet on wet technique, since it produces the sort of image that I have shown below. (On which I also like to use salt, as you can see by all the white dots.)

I think I'm going to try and make some sort of picture out of this on Adobe, but I haven't decided yet. I'll have to play around with it and see what I can come up with. Also, if you're trying this technique out, be sure not to use too much water, as it will run and crinkle your paper if you're using fairly thin paper. I believe mine here was 90lb., so you may want to get something a bit heavier to start out with.

Colored Pencil Instructions?

With the addition of some new Prismacolor colored pencils to my art utensils this week, this article really hit home ... and made me chuckle! With all the new age 'technology' in our world, everything has become so detailed in the instructions. But what about everything that doesn't really require a manual? What about things that require you to use common sense to use them? Well, this person decided to make an instruction manual/guide for colored pencils, and it is hillarious. Be sure to check it out and if you use colored pencils, you'll probably think of this article every time you use them afterwards. :)

Heave, ho!

This is also a digital picture done in Adobe. It's more a rough sketch though. I'm not sure what I was originally trying to make, but I ended up making this strong guy. Too bad he couldn't really take the garbage out for me. :)

Finally, some new pictures!

I've been so busy lately, I haven't had much time to put up anything new, so I decided I would put up a new picture to show. Enjoy! :)

*Note: I call this picture Pinky, but it's actually a digital copy of a real painting I did. I did this one on Adobe. I prefer the real one though. It's much cuter. :)

Absolutely Beautiful

There has been so much technology in the world that it's amazing what we can see and do today. Apparently yesterday scientists 'saw' an avalanche on Mars. How amazing is that? I know you're thinking, what does this have to do with art? Well, just go here and you'll see the most beautiful pictures of stars and colors I have ever seen. The pictures are truly amazing and it shows just how big the universe really is.

Oh no, it's the Design Police!!!!

"Design Police: Bring Bad Design to Justice!"
I stumbled across this website from another blog, though I'm not sure which one. I thought the idea was cute. :) They have "Design police" labels for you to put on your work, or other people's work. Some were things about how an idea was stolen or that an artist or illustrator or writer is needed. Basically, they're all kind of funny things to add some color to your work and to give you a little chuckle. You can go here to download the sheets you want to print.

Some Groovy Chic!

I created this picture awhile back in my sketch book and am just now getting around to sharing it. I thought it was cute and I liked how the bright colors made her seem to jump from the page, especially when I used just some cheap old colored pencils to color her. :)

It's almost spring!

Well, I'm back. :) I've created some new pieces which I hope to scan and post soon, but for now, I thought I would share this little guy. He didn't scan very well since I didn't paint him on watercolor paper, but I'm hoping I can rescan him later and make him look better. I've been drawing a lot of these little hoot owls lately, and for some reason, they make me think of spring.

Creating...be back soon!

Sorry I haven't posted, but I am creating and will post soon! Be sure to check back!

Brrrr!

Another day of snow for February. This little guy can't wait for spring. And neither can I! ;D

Paint or pastels?

This is one of the pieces I created this weekend. Can you tell if it's paint or pastels? To me, it looks like it's done with pastels, but it's actually done with acrylic paint. No one else seems to like it, but I really liked it, therefore I thought I would post it. :)

A little birdie told me...

I did this with my tablet and really liked the colors and layout. It makes me think of spring. :) Oh, and I was in my 'studio' this weekend, creating some new art, so hopefully I can get some of those pics up soon, too.

Lady bug

I may have already posted this some time ago, but I thought I would post it again because I just saw a lady bug. Plus, this seems to be the time of year they invade this area, so it seemed fitting to post it today. :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

*This is one of those pieces I said I would past back when I was sick. It's something a little different, but I'm really pleased with how this turned out. I did several different types of pictures and painted them on blank cards using my own stencils.