Day 7....Following your Heart

Today's post is going to be just a drive by....I'm  soooooo tired you would not believe, having so much trouble sleeping lately  and have been up since 3:00 in the morning again.  The good news is that I get a journal page done early...the bad news is that I  crash and burn mid day and that's not good when there is a bazillion things I need to be doing.  Am I just excited for Christmas??LOL    

Today's page is about following your heart.....wouldn't you agree, magical things happen when you do?  

Hope you have a wonderful night and are in the midst of following your own adventures led by your heart and soul.

With love,

Jodi Ohl

Day 6....One and Only..... and a SALE!

First off.....4 more days till Christmas!!!! whooooohooooo!  I can't believe it's almost here.  YIKES...I'm not ready! LOL  I'm excited though, can't wait to see the look on my boys faces as they open up a few special things. There is one gift each of them are receiving that i think is just so funny...the look on their faces should be priceless!  

I know that it may be a little late to send  gift to your special someone from my shop but you can ALWAYS treat yourself to an after Christmas holiday gift purchased at Sweet Repeats Studio Shoppe, my online shop!  Added bonus points...I'm offering a 25% off coupon off your entire purchase (not including commission work) from now until Christmas Eve.  So what are you waiting for?  Check out some of my NEW updates this week.....several new pieces loaded to the shop :)))

How to redeem?  Simply type Holiday2011 in the coupon code portion of your shopping cart and your purchases will be reduced by 25%  whoooohooo!  

Thank you so much for all of your support and encouragement all year long!!

Day 6 of my Morning After Challenge.....Can you guess what song I was listening to before and during the creation of this page??  I can tell you I was swoooooonnning over it. I love love love the song.  If you don't  know I will share a link at the bottom of this post. Wouldn't want to leave you hanging!

 I used watercolors, prismacolor pens, white gel pen, and I also incorporated Neocolor II crayons for the soft look of her skin and face.  

 She is just a character I created, no real portrait copy....just a pretty little girl waiting for her knight in shining armor to come and sweep her off her feet.

Hmmmm well she may be me after all :)  I have a little bigger boobs then her and curlier hair. haha!  

I'm so loving this challenge and hope you are too..I have more ideas swirling around my head.   The best thing is that it is allowing me to try things I've been wanting to try but haven't made the time.....making the time for things you love and the people you love is what life is all about.  Why wait?

Have a wonderful day, hold tight to the season.....hug those around you and create and live with joy. Life is too short otherwise.

Click here to view the song I was listening to....

With love and Gratitude,

Jodi Ohl

Day 4 Morning After Challenge: Beauty is More Than Meets The Eye

....Good Morning My Loves.....

So here we are on Day 4 of my challenge....and I'm sharing with you an sketch that I had in one of my journals that I forgot about truthfully but happened upon when I was thinking about what to do last night for my page of the day. I decided to tweak it a bit , take the sketch and turn it into a pen and ink painting.  The concept came from a page in a magazine.  While a lot of times, I just make up my portraits, more or less concentrating on the technique rather than the outcome, sometimes I like to look in fashion magazines for inspiration because the models features are so pronounced and unusual at times...it's fun to try to recreate.

That's the thing about beauty of a person. It often is more than what you would assume is traditional beauty. And what is beautiful to one, isn't nearly as striking to another.    

Those that may appear beautiful on the exterior are quite harsh and ugly on the interior.  

.....but the eyes....they tell so much about a persons soul.  They are the windows to someone's heart. They reflect the beauty that resonates on the inside of one and speak volumes even when all else is silent.

there is so much more than meets they eye.....and yet, it has to be the eye that catches one's heart first and foremost before the rest walks away in a rush.

Once you've captured someone's eye, the rest begins to reveal itself.  It's only then you can decide if it's the type of beauty want to bloom into something more.    :)

***

Today's suggestion: leaf through some magazines.  Find a photo of someone that has eyes that speak to you.....work on recreating those eyes in your 'own words' with your own strokes.   My advice is to use a pencil first and foremost, a 2b and maybe a 4 or 6b for darker shading. A blending stump helps tremendously with shading and smoothing out the features.    You can do it!! :)

Have a great Sunday....may your day be filled with moments of great beauty and joy.

xoxo Jodi

Morning After Day One Challenge: Letterific!

Happy Thursday Friends! 

Today's the official first day of my challenge to work in my journal and post on my blog "The Morning After"  and I have to admit it was hard for me today to muster up the energy to finish my pieces from the night before because...well....I had a big time last night celebrating my birthday with a friend of mine. Just being honest.  LOL    Normally I don't go out during the week but it sounded like a good plan and since I'm the boss and I hardly take any days off....I said what the heck and I'm glad I did because I had a lot of fun and it was good to get out of the studio and talk to someone other than myself!  

So my project for the last couple of weeks has been to work through the alphabet, creating funky black and white doodle letters. I completed letter O and P yesterday::

My goal is to finish all of the letters before the end of December and then to work through doing bigger pieces in color on watercolor paper and use those to sell in my Etsy shop.  I think they would be so cute to hang up in your studio or to offer as custom orders.  What do you think?  If you are stuck on a subject to work with in your journal, why not try working through your own alphabet and see where it takes you.  I bet you'll have a blast and love the ideas that come to you. Try to challenge yourself to make up new patterns of your own or create different patterns with each letter.   When I'm stuck for inspiration, I go to this site and peruse the designs:   Tangle Patterns

Just for a little color I wanted to show you a separate page I did on Tuesday. I have another goal of working through a big canson watercolor pad 11 x 15 with all separate pages of doodle designs.  Once finished I may send them in to get published...who knows what will happen, right?  What's the worse that could happen? They are going to either say yes, or say no..and if you don't try at all....it's a definite no!  That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it!

Window Shopping:

 I totally get how busy this time of year is so if you are too busy to play along every day, no worries. If you can take ten minutes out to journal each day and that is it....FANTASTIC...it's better than nothing at all.   I have a ton of things to do today and I got a late start so I'm going to close by saying this--have no fear when creating, even your biggest mistakes can turn into the best opportunities.   Just do it.

xoxo Jodi