The Summer of Color - GREEN

"Pink with Envy"

8 x 10 Watercolor Journal Page

Wow . . .

What an incredible Blue week! I'm thrilled with the response we had with our first color prompt and am throughly enjoying the connection and community we're building here. Thank you for your time, enthusiasm and for sharing this colorful journey with me. . .

A little bit about Linking, Commenting & Giveaways:

Thank you for linking your color-specific artwork in the widget below. In order to qualify for the weekly giveaway, you must also leave a comment in the comment section directly below the current post. Starting this week, if you participate in the bonus challenge, you will be able to enter your name twice. The best way for me to get an accurate count for the Random Number Generator (and to save you from having to link more than once) is to take your names from the comment section. With that in mind (and although it goes against my very nature to do it ;), I have deleted any duplicate or additional comments from last week's blue pool in order to get an accurate count. As of this week, (A) please link your work in the widget below so that others can find you, (B) leave one comment if you created a Green piece and (C) leave two comments if you completed the bonus challenge. 

Anything else?

If you just found us, please feel free to join in the fun! Don't worry if you missed a week, you can pop in anytime. Also, there's an amazing community of artists gathering on the The Summer of Color Facebook page and in our Flickr pool. Check it out . . .

So who won the Blue Giveaway?

YOU!

Please email me your address and I'll get it right out to you . . .

Now, on to GREEN week . . .

This week's color challenge is Green. The Bonus! Challenge is to somehow incorporate the color Citron into your piece. Please remember to leave an additional comment should you complete both. I so look forward to seeing what you do! 

And what is this week's Giveaway?

An elegant floral picture frame with vintage sheet music, Liquitex acrylic paint in Brilliant Yellow Green, a set of two Moleskine ruled notebooks, Craft Smart polymer clay and a sprinkling of green, iridescent and clear Swarovski crystals and beads.

Okay. Please feel free to link your GREEN work here:

(Monday the 20th - Sunday the 26th)

And what is next week's color?

PINK!

"Pink is the navy blue of India"

-Diana Vreeland

Bonus!

Next week's Bonus! Challenge is to incorporate wax into your piece. Beeswax, candle wax, wax crayon . . . any kinda wax will do . . . Have Fun!

Kristin xo

The Summer of Color: BLUE

"The Wishing Well"

8 x 10 Journal loose-leaf page

Can we talk?

Before we go any further, I want to extend my sincere thanks and gratitude for the tremendous response we have had for this event. I'm blown away by the amount of participants joining The Summer of Color and am honored by your excitement and enthusiasm. It looks like we're in for a fabulous Summer of creating, community and connection.  . . 

What's everyone doing?

Last week's challenge was to tell us what you are planning to create during the event. It seems that the freedom to do anything you want was very popular and because of that, we have an amazing assortment of art and inspiration to look forward to. In case you're curious, the majority of us will be doing some sort of art journaling, followed closely by ATC's, color inspiration / altered books and scrapbooking. There will also be some doing canvas work, cards, collages, altered objects, illustrations and/or sketchbooks, digital art and photography. A few are planning to work with fabric or felting and we even have a poet, jewelry artist, one who restores furniture and an artist working on fairies. We will be seeing work with teabag paper (how cool is that?), oils and of course, some who will be doing a little bit of everything. I'm so looking forward to learning from all of you - thanks again for sharing your talents with us all . . .

A little bit of business:

In all of the excitement of the opening week, there were a few of us who got started on their artwork a little early (so we've had a sneak peek of some beautiful work ;). If you linked up with blue on last week's post, I would be so grateful if you would link it again this week. Those who wrote about their plans for the event qualified for last week's giveaway, which was the assortment of art supplies. Because the first week was a little tricky to decipher, I selected the winner by randomly drawing a name out of a hat (okay, bowl) and checked to make sure she had met the first week's requirements. From next week on, I will use a random number generator from the comments section. This will make more sense when it comes time for bonus weeks, when you are able to enter twice should you complete the bonus challenge. So, the linking is for us to easily find one another and the comments are to sign up for the giveaway. Lastly, you will always know a week ahead of time what your next color challenge will be. That way, you have time to plan and prepare your work.  . . 

Okay, okay, so who won?

Drawing for last week's giveaway of art supplies

Congratulations! The winner of the assortment of art supplies from last week's drawing (pictured in the post below) is: You! Please email me your address and I will get it out right away.

Now, welcome to Blue week!

As of today (from Monday the 13th to Sunday the 19th), you may post your artwork based upon the color Blue. To do so, please share your piece on your blog with a link back here (so that others can find us) and then link your direct post to the linking widget below. To enter the blue giveaway, please leave a comment in the comment section.

The Blue giveaway for the week is . . .

Large Martha Stewart fine glitter in turquoise, 2 bottles of Martha Stewart flocking powder in Robin's Egg and Turquoise, a Martha Stewart ballpoint tip glue pen (and believe me, you want this ;) and a sprinkling of pale blue, clear and iridescent Swarovski crystals and beads. 

Also:

Please feel free to share your work on our Facebook page and our Flickr group which you can always find on the sidebar here . . .

And what will we be working on next week (from Monday the 20th to Sunday the 26th)? 

Green!

"Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which it's loveliness arises." 

- Pedro Calderon de la Barca

Bonus! 

For Green week, your bonus challenge (for a chance to be entered twice in the Green giveaway) will be to incorporate the color Citron in your piece. Have fun . . .

Kristin xo

MMM: Shape Up

"By Any Other Name"

10 inch round canvas

This is a special day: It is the final post for one of my favorite sites, Mixed Media Monday. Unfortunately, MMM has come to an end and this month's prompt, Shape Up is it's final challenge. I have a strong affinity for Diane and her beautiful site which has been the source of much inspiration for me in the last year-and-a-half.

As you may know, I started Twinkle, Twinkle in an effort to spread the word about our family's hope to adopt again. But I had no idea what to do with a blog once I got it. So I looked to challenge sites to provide an audience and a focus. MMM became a place to hang my hat, and for a while there, I posted just once a week and for those challenges alone. They taught me to grow as an artist, to learn new techniques and of course meet amazing, talented, beautiful people along the way. As a matter of fact, I'll never forget my first post for MMM - I stayed up all night to complete the artwork and found out the next morning that I was too late! The results for the challenge had already been posted and I learned there and then when (and when not to) submit my work. Diane was so sweet as she greeted the "newbie" and told me to post it anyway. And I (almost) never missed a challenge since . . .

And here we are, all this time later and I find myself posting to Mixed Media Monday once more. I've selected round for the Shape Up prompt and was completely and totally inspired by the new Lilly Pulitzer Spring catalogue (which, btw, is so fab and would be great for art journals ;). I wanted a bold color palette with a lot of texture and chose this rose to end our ride with . . . 

Detail of sides

Detail of texture

So much love and thanks go out to Diane for all of her efforts in making us all feel at home with MMM. It has been my total honor and pleasure to work with you all and I look forward to seeing you on other challenge sites out there. Until we meet again . . . 

Kristin xo 

Willowing & Friends!

"Invitation Angel"

12 x 18 cold press watercolor paper

Full page

Detail of "Trust"

The final assignment for Willowing's Art, Heart & Healing is to create an "Invitation Angel" or figure  intended to represent that which we may be lacking in our daily lives . . .

And this was very interesting for me. I started out week 4's lesson intending to soak up as much knowledge as I could while creating a pretty picture. What I didn't expect was how much the piece would really "speak" to me . . . . Let me explain: as many of you know, we are eager to adopt again and have been trying for years now to find another adoptive situation. To be honest, it has been a long, painful wait. We were connected with Kendra's Birth Mother (her "Tummy Mummy") relatively quickly just over 5 years ago and I guess we expected or hoped that it would come as easily the second time around. But that has not been the case. We waited a couple years after K was born because she was in and out of the hospital and needed our full attention. Then came the recession and an expensive adoption was not possible for us. So, I started finding other avenues to spread the word in hopes to find a Birth Mother on our own. . . Now we are ready financially and otherwise and, well . . . are still waiting. We just this month went through our county to adopt in that way (usually faster than a traditional adoption agency) and were devastated to learn that we would not even be able to begin that process until the middle of next year. So here we sit, ready and waiting . . . 

Which brings me to the piece above. What I am in need of (and a word that I have clung to in the last year) is Trust. I know that this is all happening for a reason and I know that we will adopt again. But I have to Trust that it will happen in the right time, and not just the time that I think is right. . . 

And as I worked on this little one in the last two days, I found myself really connected to her. She was given eyes the color of my husband's and tiny freckles which to me indicates youth. I choose to color her hair both blue and pink and give her the suggestion of a belly . . . and all of this was done with my knowledge but without really thinking about it. . . and when I looked at her this morning with fresh eyes, I noticed that the stripy hair on the left represented Kendra, my beautiful little tomboy. It will be really interesting to look back at this piece later in life and see if there are more hidden clues that will only become evident when our next baby is home. . . 

I also want to take this opportunity to thank Willowing for all of her efforts in bringing this beautiful community together. It has been an amazing experience, one which I hope you will consider doing yourself, if you have not joined already. She will be leaving the course up indefinitely so that everyone can benefit from the healing exercises she has so generously offered. 

Kristin xo