Creative Squad: Good Morning Good Evening – Maura Hibbitts

Hello from my Creative Squad! Today we have a super thoughtful art journal spread from Maura Hibbitts using my new Brownstone foam stamp and my Santiago and her thoughts on our latest theme: Good Morning Good Evening – Are you a Morning Person or a Night Owl? Or maybe neither? Create a project inspired by your preferred time of day – when you are in good spirits, doing what you love, and enjoying life.


Good morning, good evening! Do you ever think about what your favorite time of the day is? Well, I still have to think about it and I realized I don’t really have a favorite time. I like to do certain things in the morning and other things in the evening. This got me to thinking about Yin and Yang and how there’s a duality in the world between light and dark, night and day. When you stop to think about it, there’s no day without night, and there’s no night without day. When it’s daytime on one side of the world, it’s nighttime on the opposite side of the world, so somewhere it’s always day and night. So rather than choosing morning or evening, I decided to work in my art journal to show the idea of the duality of day and night.

First step to create the page is to draw a large circle on a sheet of watercolor paper, and two smaller circles within it. Then draw a line that comes down in between the two, to create the shape of Yin and Yang. Cut these out.

Next step is to add some color to the shapes using inks. Swipe the inks onto a craft sheet, and mist them with a little bit of water.  Press the paper into the ink and repeat as necessary. Let dry completely. Repeat the same process on a piece of scrap paper.

Using the ArtFoamies Brownstone stamp and several paints, stamp the image of the brownstone onto each of the shapes. I like to use a gel plate and a brayer to spread the paint out on and then stamp on this to pick up the paint. I used red and copper for the daytime brownstone, and a couple of greys for the nighttime brownstone.

Using the scrap paper that you made, along with the Santiago stencil, stencil in a bit of color with a contrasting ink.

In the black art journal, use a compass and draw a large circle that the Yin Yang symbols will fit within. Around the edges of this add your journaling with a white pen. Cut out small circles from your stenciled pieces, and add those above and below the brownstones. Fit the pieces together and adhere to the journal.

Yin and Yang symbols are used in many dualities, from male to female, and bright to dark. Just think about mythology and the Sun god and Moon goddess and these ideas begin to merge. I also use it to symbolize that I need both morning and evening in my day.  For example, I enjoy meditating in the morning, doing a little reading, enjoying a cup of coffee, and then I get to my creative work. In the evenings, I love to watch the sunset and maybe take some photos of it, do some reading or perhaps watch a show, and wind down with some music.  Since I enjoy both these times of the day, I could not decide on just a morning or evening as my favorite.

Have you thought about a favorite time of the day, or are you like me and you enjoy both the morning in the evening? Whatever time of day you love, enjoy the remaining mornings and evenings of summer and take care!

– Maura


Thank you Maura! I always love to learn more about our artists as they share their thoughts with these posts and the resulting art journal page here is simply lovely.

Give it a try: you can find all my Foam Stamps and Stencils in my Online Shop and here are some of the supplies Maura used:

Looking for more inspiration from the Creative Squad? Follow them on Instagram here.

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Pattern Monday 10 – Video from my Ledger

Happy Monday and welcome to another pattern in my big vintage ledger! Today I’m using one of my newest foam stampsHydrant! I kept it simple and stamped the front and back – sometimes the back of the stamp is an interesting shape on its own.

Here is a look at the finished pattern and the Hydrant stamp that I used:

Now it’s your turn! Here are the supplies I used:

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ArtCollab – Next Episode August 3rd!

The next episode of ArtCollab is Tuesday August 3rd and this time Sarah and I are speaking with our special guest Rachel Juanita Bellamy! Register here to attend the ZoomCast.

Here is what we have planned:

Episode 6: Pass the Brush

In this episode Sarah and Nat are meeting with Pass the Brush organizer Rachel Juanita Bellamy. In 2020 the Pass the Brush event paired up Sarah and Nat and it prompted them to get to know each other better. Pretty soon they had forged a lovely new friendship and jumped into several creative projects together (including these ArtCollab zoomcasts). They will chat with Rachel about the benefits of artistic collaboration, the importance of elevating others, what has changed since the Pass the Brush event last year, and what challenges remain. Tune in to join us and contribute to the conversation with Questions and in the Chat.

ArtCollab is a monthly zoomcast with artists Sarah Matthews and Nathalie Kalbach (and occasionally other special guests too).

Each episode Sarah and Nat get together, collaborate on all sorts of unique artsy projects, share their process and offer updates and sneak peeks along the way, and of course they chat about all stuff art-related and topics that go way beyond that too.

ArtCollab is a real life look into the process of creating, collaborating, and the ins and outs of living an artistic life that is touched by others.

Join in for an entertaining and inspiring interlude into the world of two artists who are working together in conversation and practice.

New zoomcasts will be live and happen every first Tuesday of the month.

Sign up for my newsletter HERE so you do not miss the next episode!

Comments (1)

  • Robin

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    This is such a great topic! I love when I can collaborate with other artists. I hope I can join!

    Reply

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Stroll Through the Hood – July 2021

Strolls through my hood get me out of my studio, they help me get unstuck and often I get inspired by what I see and get new ideas to create something. It is part of my philosophy about Artful Adventures in Mixed Media – which is the subject of my book. Here are some photos that I gathered in the last couple weeks.

Loving this mural on this building – the blue is mesmerizing …which is good…because usually when I see the mural…I sit in traffic LOL

Silly little guy looking at me through the flowers

I always love when people put flower pots out in front of their apartments onto the sidewalk – it just makes me happy to see some green. Those are all old storefronts that at some point became apartments.

Low tide at the Hudson River – after all those years the view of Lady Liberty and Manhattan never gets dull.

Massive work in our garden, we put a new fence in and also a dry well. I will show new pix once the grass came back – it looks really good now but picture hurt me a bit .

Oh and this is the first year we are actually harvesting figs from our fig tree- this was the first bunch but so far we had about 20-30 figs and they keep on coming. yum yum yum

Two silly boys waiting for their food …they start this process about 1 -2 hours before their feeding time …

Which reminds me – this is a wonderful piece by Natalya Khorover of our house. She printed some historic maps on dryer sheets, stitched and embroidered – it is so special and wonderful. The picture cannot even do this piece justice. And some of the elements she stitched onto the piece are the same you see carved into our fireplace below

And …she also embroidered the two silly cats to the piece …so of course this has to hang above this fireplace and the cat’s feeding spot :) And that was it – a bit of a home stroll . Until next time! Hope you guys are enjoying summer as much as I do.

Comments (2)

  • Sue Clarke

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    People having apartments in old store fronts is pretty wild!
    Love your garden in the city Nat.
    What a wonderful piece of art to hang over your fireplace.
    Thanks once again for wonderful inspiration and eye candy.

    Reply

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Hydrant Feels – Art Journal

“Some days you’re the fire hydrant, and some days, you are the dog.” 

This quote made me laugh hard so I just had to use it to show you my new Hydrant foam stamp in action.

I kept the page pretty simple – just stamping in a complementary color scheme with Versafine ink pads, layering them up.

I really like how big and bold the Hydrant stamp is and I’m excited to use it not just in my art journal, but other projects too. 

Here are some of the supplies I used:

Comments (1)

  • Sue Clarke

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    I love the quote, the colors, and the overlap of the stamped images.

    Reply

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Artistic Inspiration – Finding the Magic – SYH Webinar Tomorrow!

I hope you will join us tomorrow July 30th at 12noon EDT for our next Spill your heART webinar: Artistic Inspiration – Finding the Magic. 

I will have panelists Birgit Koopsen, Amanda Trought, and DeeDee Catron on to discuss our episode 6 topic: Artistic Inspiration. We will share practical tips for finding and energizing your artistic mojo and discuss how to encourage it when it gets sluggish or goes missing. Our goal is to help you find the magic so that you can stay in your artistic groove. Register HERE to join the live webinar.

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City Scenes Votive Candles – DIY Play Date

Last week Kim and I got together for the first time since 2019 for one of our epic Play Dates!!! We had such a nice time gabbing and making art and just enjoying the experience of creating together. Our project? Votive candles using my NEW foam stamp designs! It was an easy peasy project to get us back in the groove and the results are very nice. Here’s how we did it:

The supplies are simple: my new foam stamps (Clockwise from the top they are Powerhouse, Church, Brownstone, Lady Liberty, Hydrant, and Row Houses), Grafix Dura-Lar matte film, black acrylic paint, brayer, double stick tape, LED votives, and scissors or a paper trimmer. We also dressed some up with Posca markers, but more on that in a bit ;)  The whole idea was to have the buildings and such silhouetted so that the light shines through all the details. Read on!

We started out by rolling black acrylic paint out on palette paper with a brayer. We both liked Carbon Black Golden Fluid Acrylic paint for this – a nice opaque black. Then we rolled it on the stamp (in this case, the Church stamp) and stamped it on the Grafix Dura-Lar matte plastic sheet – a matte white plastic that is kinda translucent with light behind it. You could also use a StampBuddy here too to ink up your stamps.

We left some room at the bottom of the film and stamped across the width, leaving room on either side to eventually tape the ends together. In this one I am stamping the Brownstone foam stamp.

Here I am inking up Lady Liberty

… for a nice impression :)

A lineup of Hydrant stamps… cue the dogs!

Keep in mind that when stamping on plastic film the surface is slick and the stamps can slide if you aren’t careful.

The Row Houses on the left turned out fine but I slipped a bit with Powerhouse on the right. We each had a couple misfires so plan on having some extra sheets of plastic just in case.

With some of the mistakes, we created masks to use in building up more complex, layered scenes – a great way to use those.

Kim stamped Row Houses and Brownstone and then used the masks to add Church to the background for a little streetscape.

Looks pretty neat all together like that.

I first stamped Church, then added Powerhouse, and then…

…I added Row Houses to the left…

And then I finished with Lady Liberty!

We created a variety of sheets to move on to the next step:

I broke out my new Dahle trimmer and we cut things down to size. We experimented with trimming some with a margin around the image – room for tape and a little lift off the ground.

We also fussy cut some for a different effect!

Looking pretty good there Lady Liberty! The choice is yours on how you want to trim them.

We also tried coloring some in with acrylic markers.

Here are some details in those stained glass windows.

Using double sided clear tape we got ready for the final assembly.

Coming together and holding tight with permanent tape.

Here are our City Scenes votives ready for illumination – LED lights must be used with these to be safe.

Let’s light them up!!!

For the taller ones you may want to use a taller LED votive or stack the votive on something inside the sheath.

Love this one that I fussy cut!!!

And now after dark…

I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial and maybe you’re feeling inspired to make some foam stamped votives of your own. Please do!!! And I hope you join us back here for our next Play Date :)

Here are some of the supplies we used:

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Creative Squad: Dear Mother Earth – Jordan Hill

Hello from my Creative Squad! Today we have a journal spread from Jordan Hill working in a junk journal and using my Mini Santa Fe Foam Stamp and our theme: Dear Mother Earth – Our planet Earth is an amazing and beautiful gift to all of us. Let’s write her a letter, telling her just how we feel. This could be an actual letter/mail art, an art journal page, or some other mixed media project.


Hello, everyone! I’m very excited to be back with my project for July! This month’s theme of “Dear Mother Earth” resonated with me quite strongly, since I tend to draw a lot of inspiration from nature for my artwork. I hope you enjoy following the process!

For this month’s project, I decided to work in a new little journal I made semi-recently; this is actually the first official finished spread.

I started things off by prepping my background. I selected a photograph from an old book, consisting of some beautiful pink flowers, which reminded me of this month’s theme of “Dear Mother Earth”. After tearing that photograph to size and gluing it down, I added some CraftSmart acrylic paint in Coral Pink and White (to create a color reminiscent of the flowers) and a printed image of a postage stamp that also featured pink flowers.

Next, I reached for Nathalie’s Mini Santa Fe Foam Stamp and some black ink, adding it over most of my spread. I’ve tried several different methods of applying ink and paint to these foam stamps in the past, but for this project I wanted to experiment with a stamp pad re-inker. I wasn’t sure if this would work or not, but the roll-on nature of the re-inker actually made it quite simple to cover most of the stamp and get a good, solid impression. I also found that the effect of using this type of ink was different than if I had simply used an ink pad.

Usually, words are the last thing that I add to my art journal spreads, but for this month’s project, I got the urge to add them in earlier. I wanted to incorporate this quote (which again, reminded me of this month’s theme) in white gel pen over the photograph. However, because of the glossy finish of the photograph, the pen didn’t really want to adhere. In order to mend this issue, I used some clear gesso to paint over the photograph. The pen was a lot more willing to cooperate with me after that.

In addition to the white gel pen, I also outlined the words with some black ink to help it stand out that extra little bit.

At this point, I was ready to add my focal point. I started out drawing a face, but I found myself wanting to spice up the clothing a bit. Instead of the tank top style shirts I typically dress my figures in, I used a turtleneck style for this character. After painting the top pink, I then added some little patches of white, which I later drew petals on top of, in order to give the shirt a pattern!

I also used a small piece of a paper napkin and some Mod Podge to collage another little interesting element into the background.

In order to finish off this spread, I gave the character some hair (which I’m actually quite fond of, and would love to have myself) using Liquitex Soft Body Acrylic in Prussian Blue Hue mixed with white, and added a small little collage cluster in the lower right hand corner of the page. When creating this collage cluster, I took care to choose colors and imagery that I felt fit with the left hand page, in order to tie the two together.

Overall, I’m very happy with the way this spread turned out, and I definitely think I’m going to be reaching for my stamp pad re-inker for use with my foam stamps again in the future!


Thank you Jordan – love that you worked in a junk journal for this one – great way to repurpose scrap papers!!!

Give it a try: you can find all my Foam Stamps in my Online Shop and in addition to some collage elements, here are some of the supplies Jordan used:

For more from the Creative Squad check out Nat’s Creative Squad on Instagram too: Each week we post projects, ideas, and inspiration for mixed media art.

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Pattern Monday 09 – Video from my Ledger

Happy Monday my friends – time for another pattern in my big vintage ledger! For this one I used my Hex Set Small and Solid Hex Small rubber stamps. Check it out in the following video:

 

Here is a look at the finished pattern and the stamps I used:

Give it a try – here are the supplies I used:

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