How to create a neighborhood gallery with page protectors

I had a lot of art shows canceled and I was really missing the sense of community. I spotted the hashtag #putartinyouryard and got an idea. I put plastic pockets on my fence with a piece of cardstock in each one stamped with the words "Your Art Here". I also made a sign inviting artists of all ages to pop a piece of art in a pocket.

Well, it didn't take long and my Burbank Neighborhood Gallery grew!

Artists came by and shared their art. If you have a way to display art in your yard I highly recommend it. It really has brightened everyone's day and we could all use a little more of that :)

There are photographs, paintings, drawings, quilting, collage, and dried flowers.

So cute!
I also registered the gallery for this Saturday's National Arts Drive.
To see lots more of the art and people that contributed pop on over to my instagram feed.

Pom poms can make a statement in braille art

I  have been creating with pom poms my whole life. This is my first art piece created with pom poms. Braille type is created with the pom poms and this piece says "Not everything is black and white".  It is part of the Burbank Art Association Board show at the Geo Gallery titled -“Salt & Pepper - An Adventure in Monochromatic Art”

In the video the light is ambient. In this photo it has direct light and the "black" part of the black and white aspect of this piece is more dramatic.

Not only am I part of the show I helped hang it. It's a lot like my first career out in Los Angeles as a set decorator. Here I am with my fellow art installer Teresa after a long day of making a lot of decisions and holding up a lot of art :)

3 Pill art collages by Stefanie Girard

I love the shape of a pill and I have been creating lots of paintings and collages with the capsule as the focal image. Here are 3 pieces. The tall one and the pink one are currently on display with the Collage Artists Of America Show at the San Fernando Valley Arts and Cultural Center. They are all made with recycled elements.

This pill art collage is titled "Make Me"

This pill art collage is "Try Me"

 This Pill art collage is "So Loved"

Glow in the Dark secret inspiration word art

I am a big fan of little secret things in art, hidden messages, images, etc. I thought it might be fun to paint a secret message on two stenciled panels.  During the day they look like pretty decorative stenciled art and at night they glow with the inspirational word "DO".

I started out with some recycled square pieces of wood.
I painted them with two different shades of FolkArt paint- Cascade and Dutch Aqua.

When they were dry I taped the Floral Wallpaper and Nouveau Damask stencils onto the blocks and stenciled them using Waverly Chalk paint in plaster color.

 When the decorative stencil paint was dry I then laid the Waverly letter stencil over the decorative stencil (THIS IS IMPORTANT NOT TO REMOVE THE UNDER STENCIL!) and painted the letter with the glow in the dark finish paint. It doesn't show during the day but when the lights go out they show up.

50 Small Paintings-Done!

My New Year's resolution for 2015 was to do the 50 small paintings in the book Learn to Paint in Acrylics with 50 Small Paintings. It took me a bit longer to finish them all and even a bit longer to photograph them and write this post. But I should also add I built the shelves along the way to display them too!

 And me being me I did them all on recycled plywood I had leftover from a construction project.

I cut and sanded the plywood down to 5 inch squares.

Then I primed all the wood squares to get them ready to do each painting.

This was the first painting. Boy, that seems like forever-ago!

I can't tell you how fun this was to do! The directions are excellent and each painting is such a pleasure to paint.

I would end up working on several at a time as you need to allow the paint to dry in some cases so it's fun to start the next and jump back and forth. I highly recommend this book and this process. As you can see the collection looks great and you learn so much. I have already started to use the techniques I learned by painting these pieces in new original paintings.

Nothing Ever Changes Everything - Quote - Adult Coloring Page

Today's adult coloring page features the quote, "Nothing Ever Changes Everything". I used 4 different fonts and played around with the type a bit on a curve and the word "everything" I broke up and raised and lowered the letters.

 I used a combination of Tombow Markers and BIC markers.

Feel free to download and if you do, leave a comment with a link to your finished page or tag me on Instagram @StefanieLGirard

"Bless Your Heart" quote adult coloring page

I am from Connecticut but I love the southern phrase, "Bless Your Heart". I like it so much it is today's quote along with a border of bows in this adult coloring page. Feel free to download and if you do, leave a comment with a link to your finished page or tag me on Instagram @StefanieLGirard

Here is my Bless Your Heart page all colored in. I used a variety of pastel and bright Tombow markers.

Looking for a great adult coloring book? Might I suggest this awesome one:

Just Add Color: Day of the Dead

Who doesn't love to color? As an adult, now that you can stay in the lines, you only need to think about what color to use! Rockport Books presents a series of grown-up coloring books for art and design lovers. Just Add Color: Day of the Dead includes 30 original designs from artist and illustrator Sarah Walsh. Each book contains 64 perforated pages to make it easy to share, frame and hang your artwork. You'll be inspired by the sumptuous artwork in this book, and the use of color is endless. Relax, have fun, and Just Add Color.

Adult coloring page with quote: "We are all searching for someone whose demons play well with ours"

Over at Craftside there is the page from the book 20 Ways to Draw a Cat that features 20 ways to Draw a hedgehog. I used one of the hedgehogs as my guide to draw one as an outline so that I could include it in the adult coloring page that features the quote, "We are all searching for someone whose demons play well with ours."

I had a lot of fun coloring in all the tiny little hearts that form the letters. I did a bunch of different color combos, stripes, random and all the same color family. I colored in the hedgehogs in different color ways as well.

NOTE: I am playing around with file types and settings. Please leave me a comment if you find anything odd about the file when you download it, open it and print it out.  I noticed that my first few had a slight gray haze on them.

If you do, leave a comment with a link to your finished page or tag me on Instagram @StefanieLGirard

More about the book 20 Ways to Draw a Cat:

Art Prompt: stripes and stencil combination

I am pleased to share with you one of my first paintings. I am so thrilled about the new book The Paintbrush Playbook: 44 Exercises for Swooshing, Dancing, and Making Dazzling Art With Your Brush which is filled with a wealth of great starting points to make art.

I used the gradient wash technique as my inspiration to make this background. The book calls for this technique to be done with watercolors but I simply tried it with acrylics in blue, white and just a touch of green to make blended horizontal stripes.

The second element to this painting was an eye chart made with a Tim Holtz Eye Chart Stencil. I like it the way it is with just these two  features but I may add more at another point.

More about the Quarry Book:

Sketch and paint right on the pages of this fun, modern, approachable practice and inspiration book focusing on one of the most popular drawing tools - the paint brush.
This playful, colorful exercise book is filled with fun, contemporary, beautiful illustrations by leading illustrator Ana Montiel.

The exercises explore mark making, patterns, geometrics, simple drawings, texture, and composition and includes professional tips and tricks that will enhance your skills as you work through the book. Each spread has one page filled with art examples and an exercise, with plenty of room to draw or paint right in the book. The Paintbrush Playbook is printed on high-quality, uncoated paper, allowing you to paint or draw anywhere that inspiration strikes.

Explore abstract drawing, pattern drawing, meditative doodling and more with this all-in-one learning and practice book. This is a great volume for artists, designers, doodlers, illustrators, painters, pattern illustrators, and zentanglers of all ages. You will not want to miss it!

"Cry on the Inside Like A Winner" quote - Adult coloring page

Today's adult coloring page feature's the quote, "Cry on the Inside Like A Winner" by Cameron Diaz from the movie - The Other Woman and a background of circles loosely inspired by a Frank Lloyd Wright dish pattern.

Feel free to download it and try it yourself. If you do, leave a comment with a link to your finished page or tag me on Instagram @StefanieLGirard

I played with more patterns, scribble fills, and overlapping of the colors and patterns.

A great coloring book I am enjoying right now as well:

Just Add Color: Mid-Century Modern Mania: 30 Original Illustrations To Color, Customize, and Hang
by Jenn Ski

"Nothing Is Without Meaning" quote - Adult coloring page

I loved making my first adult coloring page with a quote so I made another one. This time I used my favorite image- scissors and combined it with The Wolverine movie quote, "Nothing is Without Meaning".

I used the font Satanas Humanum Sal available for free. And the scissor clip art came from The Old Design Shop.
Feel free to download it and try it yourself. If you do, leave a comment with a link to your finished page or tag me on Instagram @StefanieLGirard

 One of the things I did on this page is I started to mix colors of the markers and play with the filling in of space to make patterns. I like some of the effects.

If you like books filled with adult coloring pages I suggest the pretty Just add Color series:

"Kill or become irrelevant" quote - Adult coloring page

I am addicted to fonts, quotes and adult coloring pages. There, I said it. So what is a girl to do? Why try making one herself. So here is my first one.

It features the quote "Kill or become irrelevant" by Bruce Willis in the movie Perfect Stranger (2007) and the background art is from the site Zone Interior Design.

Feel free to download it and try it yourself. If you do, leave a comment with a link to your finished page or tag me on Instagram @StefanieLGirard

I started coloring my page with BIC fine tip markers and I like how it's going. I like this set of markers because they open up and you can see all the colors then it folds back up and easy to store. I haven't lost one yet!