September 2013 monthly calendar

September 2013 monthly calendar 

I made this to be used on a desktop or printed out as a monthly calendar page for a journal. Feel free to use as you wish.

Night sky.

Did I mentioned I signed up for a pen & ink drawing class in September? I'm excited. It's a whole new skill set to learn - drawing without an undo button. No safety net.

I try to do something creative everyday, whether its a quick sketch on the old iPad or knit a few rows of a sweater. It keeps me sane.

This was done with the Sketji app. The effects are more like a brush painting than drawing. A fun app.

Time goes by fast.

What's on my desk. 

The weather is still warm but kind of cloudy and rainy. The mornings are dark when I wait for the bus now. Although August is not quite at the end yet, it feels like the end of summer. Another year going by quickly.

Drawing done on Sketchclub on the iPad.

5 year journal, part 2.

5 year journal pages in Paper 53

I'm going to commit to doing a five year journal.  Just write one line a day.  I tried that before but got bored very quickly.  Maybe it will be different this time because I'm doing this on my iPad using Paper 53 app for this.  A quick line and a quick doodle.  I can do this.  This might be easier than doing a paper journal - I always have my iPad with me. 

Old favourite shoes

Going through my closet and came across these oldies but goodies from the old Fox and Fluevog days. Amazingly, they're still in good condition. I gave the suede a bit of a brush with the suede brush and they look good as new.

Wildflowers

Wildflowers

Digital painting done on my iPad, using Procreate and Artrage for the canvas texture. Inspiration for this piece came from Splatter paint tutorial over at Tammy's My Flower Journal. Although the tutorial is for real paint and paper, the techniques can easily be translated for digital painting. I used the splatter brush in the spray can set in Procreate. Once the painting was finished, it was imported into Artrage for the canvas texture.

Fifty two

Fifty Two

Something about turning 52 that wasn't there when I turned 50. I'm that much closer to retirement and have been thinking of how I want to spend my sunset years. In truth, I've been thinking of what I want to do when I retire and how to prepare for it. Financially, it's going to be fine. Hubby will retire first in less than than two years. In my retirement, I want to have more time to make stuff, sit around and read all day if I wanted to.

As part of my preparation, I've been taking a few drawing and painting classes. I've signed up for another one in September and I'm really looking forward to it. I think, one is never too old to learn new things. It seems weird to think about retirement already. I don't feel like I'm old enough yet.

The photomontage was done on my iPad, using Sketchclub for pretty much all of it and Artrage for the background texture. The text was done on Documents, imported into Sketchclub as an image load. I wanted it to look like an old newspaper clipping. This was done using the sepia filter in Sketchclub.

Photo corners courtesy of Retoucher07039 on deviantART, tweaked in Sketchclub to fit my picture.

No Undo button in Real Life

Scribble Drawing

The idea was to make a scribble and draw something with it.  I did this using FinngrPro  app on my iPad.  The appeal of FinngrPro is there is no undo button. Whatever marks you make, you work with.  If you don't like something, you have to paint over it or make it into something else.  That was an interesting challenge. 

A metaphoric lesson on life...you work with what you have and make the most of what you're given.  Sometimes you have to look at your mistakes from a different perspective. 

Scribble and drawing done on FinngrPro, imported to Sketchclub for the border (no reason, other than I wanted to), and for the signature brush.

Time

To Do

The question for yesterday was "What is the one thing you want to accomplish tomorrow?"  Interesting that it did not ask what I accomplished today but for tomorrow.  I started to mske a To-Do list but that was not the question. What was the one thing I wanted to accomplish?  The question made me more mindful of what I needed to accomplish not just for today but for my week off work. Although I still have my list of chores for this week, I'm going to make sure I have time to do things for me.

This journal page was done on the iPad with Sketchclub. I tried to do this page as if I had painted it, laying on the colours on one layer, rather than multiple layers.

What did I have for lunch today?

Sushi, of course

Sushi is my go-to lunch when I don't know what to eat and I didn't bring my lunch. So far, it's three days in a row this week.

I know this is boring stuff but I told myself I will try and do something everyday. I liked the Everyday in May series. The prompts help...I think I needed someone else to do the thinking for me. When someone else tells me what to draw, it takes the pressure off me. I've been using the 365 questions for the 5 year journaling when I'm stuck for ideas. Trying to draw sushi was a challenge trying to get the rice to look rice-like. Baby steps, right?

Sketched on my iPad with Sketchclub and imported to Artrage for the background. Newspaper background was imported in as an image load and distorted using transform.