LOOK!!! SQUIRRELS!!!!

8x8 canvas panel

The lines and bumps are texture from layers of painted collage

Black lines are a new pen, Uniball Vision Waterproof in Microfine point

Still not sure if this is completely done

Deepened the colors with Tim Holtz alcohol inks in Pool and Pink Sherbert

Lots of Tombow markers on this, spread out with water

Love me some texture

King size bed. I had to walk around and carefully climb up between Jake and the Princess. No one would move.

Ah, Pinterest. We love thee. You drive us to buy supplies we didn't know we needed. You tempt us to try techniques we never knew we could. OH, look! An artist that I like that I never knew existed. Let's follow that squirrel today.

The artist is Jacqui Fehl, and she can be found at jacquifehl.com. She is a working artist, no classes. Whimsical, humorous, perhaps a touch snarky. I love her work. Anything in layers and depth will draw me in immediately. So I used 3 that I found on Pinterest as inspiration for the above. No idea how she does this, but what I did over the last 2 days is this:

Went through my handmade collage papers and chose gelli plate prints, underlayment papers from the desk, and splashes of colors that I liked. Tore them into at least 3 pieces and applied to the canvas panels with Mat Medium. Let that dry. Added some paints, in particular Party Streamer from Martha Stewart, and Saffron from Martha.  Also an off white/buff from Apple Barrel. Let that dry. The paints were scraped on with the Catalyst wedge or an old credit card, whatever I grabbed. To pull it all together and totally cover the canvas on the panels (I am not fond of painting directly on the canvas, the texture will show up due to being cheap), I added layers of heavy body gesso with a credit card from Ultrecht. Good stuff. Let all 3 pieces dry overnight.

Added some black marks by applying black from Apple Barrel to a grunge type stencil and laying the stencil down on the canvas panels. When this became too dry to leave marks, I spritzed it with water. Blotted up if it left too much paint. Let that dry.

Drew the birds with a number 2 graphite pencil, nothing fancy. I was after random marks. Pulled out the Arteza Brush watercolor markers and started to fill in the birds. Added some Tombow here and there. On the second canvas, I also added some Tim Hotlt Distress paint in Moss, after the alcohol inks.

The first two panels have been outlined with my new favorite pen, Uniball Vision in waterproof ink. Amazon, folks. A box of 12 is $14.99. I found out about this pen from Jill Faust on YouTube. When it says waterproof, it IS waterproof. You can draw with this pen, wait a few minutes, and watercolor over it. Yes, that is correct. Flood the paper. The pen marks stay. Can we say happy???

The last canvas panel I used the Jumbo black pencil from Jerry's Artarama. Jodi Ohl made us buy this for her Absolutely Abstract class, and I am so glad I got 3. Using it a lot.

I really need to go back to Jodi's class online and catch up. I really need to start classes I paid for and never got into. I really need to relax and go with the flow and let this month glide on by. Art Saves. Again and again, working on these types of pieces makes me happy.
Linda