Sketchbook Revival Days 7,8,9

The prompt for Day 7 had to do with floral watercolors.  The example was "okay" but not what I felt like doing...so I put together my own bouquet.  That felt nice.   I continued my effort to do a Zentangle each day as well.  The second prompt had to do with a portrait.  I was quite fascinated with her approach but I did not have time in one day to do it justice.  So...you see on Day 8, below, I made that prompt on an improvised "envelope" and put the paper for the future portrait in the envelope.  I'll pick that up after the prompt series is over.  

Day 8's prompts were interesting.  Noah had us put 100 dots on the page (on the left).  Completely random.  (I framed the envelope with my hand-made washi tape.).  Then he suggested we look for shapes and see if you can connect the dots to make a picture.  The pictures people found were amazing!  I found a little landscape and used colored pencil to color it in.   The second artist, Youhjung Son, had us work with clay.  Obviously that kind of prompt would not fit into a sketchbook...unless, like me, you had paper clay (which I just happened to have). If interested, I did another one of these on canvas awhile ago.  See here.

I rolled out my clay slab and imprinted it with a favorite sunshine stamp.  Let it dry thoroughly overnight. Then I painted it with gesso and let it dry. Then painted it with acrylic clear gel and dried it.  Then I painted it all over with black acrylic paint and let dry.  Then I removed most of the black paint with alcohol.  I touched it up with a dip pen and India ink.  Then glued it into the journal.  

Day 9 was working with old photographs.  The artist herself picked photos that really had no relationship to her and found artistic ways to feature them.  But I could think of no reason not to use an old photo with meaning.  So this is a photo of my mother...I think it may have been her high school graduation photo.  I used gouache paints for the background.  The second artist was an "inspirational coach" and I so there wasn't anything to draw.  She wanted us to consider how our art journey's developed.  I did write about that in the pink box.  Then the Zentangle was inspired by Molly Hollabaugh's talk-through prompt on line this week.