Orange & Odd Inchies

Just call me every other Monday Inchie!   Um, Every Other Inchie Monday....  whatever

So, Orange is my total favorite color right now.  In fact, almost all of my clothes are orange lately... I'm obsessed!  So, I was pleased to have orange as our word!  I went with a poppy (or my interpretation of a poppy) because I also love poppies!  My orange poppy makes me happy.  A cheerful color and a cheerful flower  =)

SEE!

And because as we all know, I'm always late, I present you with last week's "Odd".  I actually could not get Koontz's Odd Thomas out of my head, but could not really think of a way to depict that so the other "odd" thing in my head was... well, you can see it... ODD DUCK.  Yeah, line drawing animals isn't my best talent, but here's my Odd Duck.

Have a fab week my friends!  Next week we'll have a little Privacy on Every Inchie Monday!

Catching Up! Navy, Negative, & Maroon Inchies...

The office I'm working in is moving and guess who has been in charge of coordinating pretty much EVERYTHING.  On top of my regular duties of course.  And, the truth is that I really believed the move was going to get pushed back so I was caught a little off guard when it really went down.  So, I've been working 12 hour days and since I live a minimum of 90 minutes from where I work, I move din with my mama for a couple of weeks.  Needless to say my life has been insane lately and here I go getting behind in inchies again.  I know, excuses excuses.  But, I'm still here and I'm catching up before I get too behind!

Luckily, I brought my art box with me to my mom's and since I got home early today (YEAH!  I am working on SUNDAY, Saturday happened, too!) I had some time to get my pencils sharpened and my paintbrush wet.  I present to you the following:

Navy:  Okay, this was hard.  Mom and I were brainstorming and I finally came up with a Navy Tattoo.  Pretty simple, but I like the choice.  Navy.  Geez... some of these words bug me.

Negative:  Speaking of BUGGING... hm.  I thought about drawing or painting something negative, but I really did not want to go in that direction, so I guess I took the easy route and drew an old fashioned film negative, was supposed to be sepia and all, with colored pencils, but now on here it is looking more yellow.  AH well.

Maroon:  I thought about the color maroon for like 5 seconds and then I immediately pictured exactly what I have here.  My little marooned fella.  Had to go with that, plus I love using microbeads!!!!

Have a great week all and I will be back for next week's EVERY INCHIE MONDAY!

M is for Maid Inchie

Hm.  When I saw 'maid', the first thing that entered my head was Ann B. Davis, Alice from The Brady Bunch, who died this month on June 1st.  Isn't she the quintessential maid?  One thing I just cannot do is to draw a portrait of someone specific, so I decided to do a photo collage but I don't have a working printer, so I went digi.  She's a tiny little thing and I did it completely electronically using a couple of different photo editing software programs I use.  Is this cheating?  Hope not!  I know I could have some more fun with it if I had a printer - at least some embossing or something on the final print out, but you gotta go with what ya got. Here's to you, Alice!

... and here's to Every Inchie Monday who keeps us inspired!

L is for Lavender Inchie

Well, I have to say that this week I didn't want to think outside of the box.  I actually really like lavender, the flower.  I find it awesome that this week happens to be lavender... the same week that the lavender festival is taking place in Southern California.  Unfortunately, I can't make it to the festival, but how fun that this is our theme!

Because I really like lavender, I wanted to attempt to paint them as a watercolor instead of finding some obscure way to depict lavender.  My watercolor experience is um, this and that beer I painted, so I have some things to learn, but I really like working with watercolors and I want to do more with it... you know, like actual sized pieces?  haha  .  No time this week to do a make up inchie, so my lavender:

Now I can finally head over to Every Inchie Monday to see the rest of this week's offerings from all of the Inchie artists.  I bet a lot of us stayed in the box with these gorgey flowers.

L is for Legal Inchie (& I is for Implausible)

Well, as you know, I've been MIA.  Whoops.  Maybe it was because I got "stuck" on implausible.  Maybe it was because I went through a rough patch where I just didn't have the energy.  Maybe just a combination of things.  But, I seriously don't want to give up on my inchies and so I'm here!  I'm back!  And, because I don't want to skip any, I'm going to work on hitting those I missed when I do the current ones.

Today, I offer you L is for Legal (Okay, I'm starting to feel like Sue Grafton here!).  When thinking about "LEGAL" you just sort of think of the usual things like a gavel or scales or a judge, etc etc.  I wanted to do something a bit more than that.  When I really thought about "LEGAL" it made me think about those things out there that cause such an uproar in our world, so I stepped a little outside the box on this and decided to depict some of those controversial subjects.  Three pretty common debates taking place right now:  guns, same sex marriage and marijuana.  Should they be legal?  Shouldn't they?  Who decides and why?  And how does FREEDOM relate to these decisions?  I can't answer all of the questions and this is not a place I want to spend debating, but these are definitely things in our world that we have to consider, so I give you my Legal Inchie:

Oh, and since I have a little catching up to do...  what feels implausible tonight?  Well, with my recent poor showing, it seems a little implausible that THIS GIRL will put out 52 inchies this year...  here's those 52 that at the moment I worry about myself actually doing.  I can, though.  I know I can.  Implausible?  Maybe... we'll see, won't we?

Don't give up on my Every Inchie Monday!  I'm still here!

H is for HOT Inchie

As usual, my life guides my art.  When I read "HOT", I immediately thought of Hot Wheels.  I know... weird.  But, my husband is a toy collector and for most of his life he hascollected Hot Wheels.  Heck, he had me out searching for a particular Hot Wheel TONIGHT!   Some people call it collecting.  I call it mental illness, but... I love him.

So, I knew I wanted to do something with the Hot Wheels logo.  I tried just going with flames but couldn't really get the look I wanted.  I ended up using my colored pencils and my super fine black pen to create this little guy.  I knew I couldn't fit "HOT WHEEL" into the logo with that tiny little canvas, so I went with the next best thing... INCHIE!

I can't believe I managed to get this done on Monday!  My life has been CRAZY... this is probably the busiest time I've ever experienced in my working life.  Sometimes I feel like I can't even find the time to just breathe.  I have to say that stepping away and spending some time working on these Inchie projects feels really good.  I'll keep making time for this.  It's a good feeling. 

H is for Head Inchie

Well, I guess we can all agree that I'm no Flavia, but here is my first watercolor attempt.  When I read "head", being a beer girl, I immediately thought of a pint with a frothy head on top.  This is pretty much exactly what I pictured in my head at that moment, well except in my mind the pint glass was actually the proper shape for a pint.  The "head" is made of micro-beads.  I love those!  Enjoy your week!

If I don't demonstrate better time management skills and soon, we might have to change

  EVERY INCHIE MONDAY to THURSDAY!  YIKES!

G is for Gold Inchie

I sort of feel like this is the hardest one so far.  To me, portraying gold seems really hard... just the capturing the true color.  I thought of gold coins.  I thought of a golden ticket.  Gold bars are on my sketch pad.  But, then I thought (besides jewelry) how has gold been a part of my life and I had an "AH HA!" moment.  Again, this seemed hard for me, but I decided that when I think of gold, (besides jewelry) I think of gold prospecting because I spent many years of my life mining for gold.  I know, crazy, right?  But, I was once married to a man who had gold fever.  I've sluiced for gold, I've dry washed for gold, I've dredged for gold and I've panned for gold.  This is rudimentary and if I didn't tell you what it was, you probably wouldn't even know (the husband thought it was a plate of food), but it does bring back some memories.  Voila!  My Gold Pan.  And just so you know, green IS the most common color for gold pans, although my favorite gold pan ever was a burgundy color.  I think I'm rambling now, so I'll stop.

Yeah, I know there isn't much gold in that pan, but trust me that's more than you'd actually find!

Alright, Every Inchie Monday, you did NOT stump me, even though you tried.  haha

G is for Game Inchie

Oh, so many things ran through my mind for Game for this weeks Every Inchie Monday.  How do you pick just ONE game???   Well, I didn't.  I fell back to my old favorite medium of the collage.  I finally dug out a bunch of scrap-booking supplies and found a lot of fun things.  I'm even kind of inspired to maybe make some photo albums... we'll see.  But, I found some fun goodies and put together this inchie for your pleasure.  I kinda like it.  Hope you don't mind the funky angle, but it shows all of the aspects best.

F is for Figure Inchie

Yes, I'm late again. I had promised myself I would work ahead when vacations were coming up, but unfortunately I had to do that in all areas of my life and art got pushed to the side. BUT! Better a little behind than blowing it off, right? "FIGURE" really has so many connotations that could send you in a lot of different directions, but the first thing I thought of was how you learn to draw people by using shapes: circles, triangles, ovals, etc. I decided to create a start of a figure with those shapes like I learned when I was just a youngster. Except, once I got to that point, I just kept going. She's not super defined, but here is my figure. I call her Woman in a Mirror.  Just a little pencil and paper.

Again, thank you for inspiring me Every Inchie Monday... I might be late, but I'm stickin' with it!

F is for Forest Inchie

So.  Forest.   I immediately thought about Emily Carr, a Canadian artist who was famous for her paintings and drawings of the Canadian forest.  I first learned about her when I read The Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland.  Inspired by the historical novel about Emily Carr's life I started searching out her art and really fell in love with the vibrant colors and chunky brushstrokes used to bring the forests of British Columbia to life.  Oddly, I never did read any of her writing... I need to do that.  When I visited Victoria, BC, Canada, I was disappointed to find that her home which is a museum was closed... BOTH TIMES!  But, I did get to see some of her work in person at the Royal BC Museum (which I HIGHLY recommend visiting if you are ever in Victoria, Canada.  It is an outstanding museum.)

While I don't do a lot of drawing or painting... it's not really my strong point, this challenge made me want to pay homage to Emily Carr with a colorful forest drawing using my new colored pencils that I've been itching to play with!  I actually did a good handful of forest drawings - you know, when it's only an inch you can be left wanting more sometimes!  Then it was hard to pick which to go with, so I just played a little more tonight and created a couple more.  I decided to go with this one because while it's not really anything like an Emily Carr painting, I like to think it has her essence with my streaky colors.  If not, we'll just pretend.

I had a lot of fun with this Every Inchie Monday, so thanks!

E is for Engrave Inchie

Well, I have to give a lot of credit to the husband for this one.  I was feeling super stumped by the 'Engrave' theme, but he immediately said, "you have to do something with a dollar bill". OF COURSE!  THAT is the number one item made via engraving in the world!  Well, paper money in general.

So, I'm back to my usual style of collage building, even though I just stocked up on pens, pencils, paints, etc.  I thought about going crazy with a lot of little pieces, but I like this.  I guess this is one bill that won't find it's way onto WheresGeorge.com, but that's okay.  It's worth it!  Oh, and I'm actually posting my Every Inchie Monday TIMELY!!!

E is for EXPLODE Inchie

Oh boy.  I'm not doing well when I'm posting these the day before my next one is due.  I promise to do better  =)  In fact, I'm about to get started on the next one.

For explode a lot of things popped into my head.  At one point you were going to see a champagne bottle with the cork popped, then there were fireworks, but then the whole Wile E Coyote cartoon explosion popped into my head and I decided it was time to sketch a cartoon.  So I did.  I present to you, EXPLODE!

I have to say, it's funny how you don't see the million imperfections when working inside an inch, until you blow that bad boy up with your photo editing software.  YIKES!  So, maybe EXPLODE needs a little refinement, but hey, it's a cartoon.  I'm off to ponder Engrave for tomorrow's Every Inchie Monday challenge.

D is for Dark Inchie

I hope this isn't a cop out or too simple, but when I thought of dark, the first thing that popped into my head was a dark sky with stars. I couldn't get that out of my head.  I had to go with it, so I made the stars into the constellation of Libra - for myself.

I will say that after this triple play experience, I realized that my art supplies are pretty weak.  Most of my what I do have is scrapbook supplies that are packed away.  It's time for some pens, pencils, paints, etc. and time to drag out what I have and go through it! I'm getting excited about the idea of getting some new toys!

Thanks again, Every Inchie Monday.  I never need an excuse to shop, but it's still nice to have one!

D is for Dual Inchie

Dual has so many possibilities.  The weird thing was that when I thought ahead to it, all I could think of was doing a square that was half black and half white!  I dunno why.  I just could not get that out of my head.  But, once I was ready to go, I knew I wasn't going there.    Then I looked up the definition for dual.  I like to do that for inspiration sometimes.  When I read

dual (ˈdjuːəl)

adj

1. relating to or denoting two

I immediately thought about love.  Maybe it's Valentine's Day still in the air or maybe it was the excellent time I had with my husband on vacation last week, but I decided two wedding rings was the depiction of dual I wanted to go with.

Happy belated Valentine's Day to my Every Inchie Monday friends!

C is for Chocolate Inchie

OH, better late than never.  Next time I need to work ahead when I'm going on vacation so I don't get so behind.  I had a lot of ideas about "chocolate".  I kind of just wanted to create a "piece of chocolate" like you'd find in a box from See's or something, but I could never find the materials I had in mind.  Then I thought of drawing a box of chocolates and lamented not owning a set of colored pencils... THOSE are on my wishlist now.  I guess I need a trip to Michaels!  Eventually, I thought about all of this old leftover Halloween candy I had and came up with the bright idea to use the wrappers to create another type of collage.  You know I like those collages!  So, here it is.  Can you read it?

Inspiration by Every Inchie Monday

C is for Cathedral Inchie

So, this was hard!  But after consideration and since I just finished reading the Tiffany Glass Co story, I decided a stained glass window would be my cathedral concept.  I had it in my head to do a glass painting to mimic an actual stained glass window.  I used to do a lot of glass painting a million years ago... or well, 30 years ago.  Then I realized that would cost a lot for the supplies for one single inch, so I decided to do a drawing as my "sample" and then decide how I wanted to proceed.  Well, once I finished my sample, I decided it would work just as is!  I drew it, inked it with highlighters and sharpies, then covered the whole thing with nail polish to make it shiny.  The picture doesn't really show the shine, but I'm happy with this result and I'm loving that every inchie I've done so far has been totally different than any of the others.  Don't know how long I can keep that up... we'll see!

As always, thank you Every Inchie Monday for the inspiration to create.

B is for Ballet Inchie

Ballet instantly brings up pictures of pink toe shoes and tutus and if there is one thing I love making it's a tutu!  This is the smallest tutu I've ever made and I don't plan on doing it again!  I used tulle from the tutu I made at Burning Man, so it makes it a little more special for me for it to have a piece of such an amazing time of my life incorporated.  Just did a little doodling on the background paper and blinged it with a couple of sparkles.  Voila!  Smallest tutu ever!

As always, thanks for the inspiration Every Inchie Monday!

B is for Brown Inchie

A funny thing about brown is that when I hear the word brown or see anything brown (and I mean anything), I immediately think of my six year old nephew, Nicholas.  He's a funny kid and there is something particularly funny about him:  he LOOOOOOVES brown.  I don't mean brown is his favorite color or he has a favorite brown shirt, I mean this kid is completely and utterly focused and maybe even obsessed on brown.

If he sees someone wearing a brown shirt, he would likely say, "Look!  That boy has a brown shirt.  I really like it."  If you ask him what color toothbrush would he like, he'll probably answer "brown".  This kid LOVES brown.  He especially LOVES little brown girls.

Nicholas started in the computer/gaming world quite early and somehow between Mario World and his big brother (who is a "the 3rd") he decided that his "avatar" when playing video games was Daisy 3, a little brown girl (by golly, do NOT say black girl - he WILL correct you!  "She's BROWN!")  We joke that someday he'll meet a brown girl named Daisy and he'll probably marry her - but it's not entirely a joke.

So, back to the inchie.  When I saw Brown, I thought of Nicholas and I had to make this about him. I first came up with a plan where I was going to do a sepia photo of him with a brown leather border and do some decorating around it.. I started that, but it wasn't really coming out like I wanted, so I tossed it (not so hard when it's only an inch) and I have been wracking my brains since on how to depict my little guy and then looking at a bag of scraps that I used to make favors for the Renaissance Faire one year, I saw the wooden petal shapes and though, how about a brown daisy?  And there's his little face in the center.  I cheated a little as the bottom wooden petals stick out a little over the edge of the inch and I had to put this together quickly, so I could have neatened it up and cleaned up the edges of the leather better, but here is my result.  My Brown Daisy 3.

Thank you, Every Inchie Monday!

I also want to thank my dear friend Annette, without whom, I would not be so inspired to create.  She is a beautiful and inspirational soul whose art is beautiful, hands are magic, and who just knowing her, makes me smile.

A is for Amulet Inchie

Amulet (noun)     \ˈam-yə-lət\

a small object worn to protect the person wearing it against bad things

Do I wear a key?  Actually sometimes I do.

Does it protect against bad things?  Well, I suppose in theory it should protect my home and my personal property when used to lock doors, etc.

But, more than that Key has so many more meanings.  The best being "to be essential to".  If anything can act as an amulet, I see a key as a perfect one.

That said, I'm a little torn with my finished product.  I wanted to shine it up like my last one, but the husband said he thought it was best just like this.  SO, here is my amulet:

Thank you, Every Inchie Monday!

A is for Alice Blue Inchie

Oh, I'm running behind as usual, but I am determined to stay on top of the inchies, so I can't miss the first one.  When I saw ALICE BLUE, I wasn't sure what direction to go.  There is the real "Alice Blue" based on Alice Roosevelt and then there is the Alice in Wonderland "blue dress" and it got me thinking of the many shades of blue.  So I decided to simply make a collage of Alice Bluish colored hearts...  Has anyone else noticed that one inch art projects are actually harder than full size projects?  SHEESH!   Here she is!

Thanks, Every Inchie Monday!