A Blue Day :)

So I am a little late posting my blue work, I've been so tired from work I could barely keep my eyes open to do anything! Here is mine, done on an ATC card which I just discovered, this is the first one I've ever done. I used a stamp, acrylic paint and markers :) It is supposed to represent leaving your umbrella and not letting a little rain stop you. 

This next one was me trying to be unrefined. I notice with a lot of mixed media and art journals, lines, and staying within them, doesn't seem to be as important (but I don't really know much about these medias so I could be misreading it), and I have a hard time with just being messy. I want to be able to let go. So this is just doodling really with watercolors.

I wish I could have done something better, but I became conflicted with myself as an artist. I am good at reproducing things I see, other paintings or drawings, I can do it.  All the how to books, I always skip the steps and do the final image on its own. This has led me not being able to do something on my own.  I sat down to do a blue piece and realized I just didn't know what to do or where to start.  And it crushed me because I felt like somehow it made me just a fake wannabe artsy person.  I became very discouraged and down for a while, because with all the things that has happened and is going on in my life, art was the only thing that I felt was really mine, and then I felt like I lost even that.

So I hope with your support and encouragement, I can find my strengths and weaknesses and find my own style. That is something I want desperately, to be able to do something and it be my own unique style. So I am going to start a journey, beginning with those how to books, and actually work through them and learn real techniques and how to really do things. I will find tutorials and starting doing something, even if its a little piece like a tag or an atc, each day and post it.  If I don't post something, come yell at me and demand a legitimate reason why something isn't up  :) I hope you will give me honest and constructive criticism, ideas and tips.

Thanks to me discovering blogging, I have discovered all sorts of other types of art (mixed media, atc, art journals, tags, etc) that I want to dive into but I have no idea where to start or how to make it look as awesome as everyone else does. What are your favorite materials or books that have helped inspire and teach you? (so that with my next paycheck I can run out and get it and just hope it works as well for me as it did for you :-P )