As was the case with the previous paper art creations, I already knew, ahead of time, what I wanted to make to represent something poisonous. I decided on a cauldron with poison stew and a spell book that would show exactly what it was.
For day two of the April Art Challenge, we had to work on a skeleton. I decided I wanted my skeleton to be a silly looking skeleton that thinks he is a smooth talker. I looked up at references of skeletons. Even though I’ve drawn my share of skeletons, I forget the exact formation of the body, so references are always a good idea in my opinion.
As part of the April Art Challenge, I decided to blog every day about my little creations. These blogs will provide a bit more background info on the process and the idea behind them. They will be short, but hopefully insightful. 🙂
Day one’s prompt is “amphibian”. I decided to create two little toads out of paper. I wanted to give the pieces a more three dimensional look, so I created a lot of layers. I think the bigger toad was more successful.
My 90 Day Art Challenge is almost coming to a close. While I have not been great at working on paper art every single day, I have learned so much in the process.
Throughout the past few months, I have continued to look at other artists to find inspiration, particularly in those moments when I feel stuck or when I encounter obstacles.
The previous two weeks were so hectic, that I did not have a chance to complete the challenge every day, but I did make up the time that I was missing by making other days longer. I was also not able to post the update blog (that’s why it’s a week late). But things are back on track.
For the last two weeks, I continued working on the Day of the Dead themed shadow box. I continued trying to use more layers on the different characters in order to make them more three-dimensional and to make them more like real people look (but in paper form). I am so pleased with the results.
These past two weeks have been great. I feel like I’ve tried techniques that are more advanced, at least more so than what I was doing before. I used techniques that gave my piece more texture, more depth, and that resulted in a cleaner look.
These past two weeks were a bit harder to complete, simply because life got in the way. My two year old got sick with the stomach flu and required a lot of attention (my husband was out of town when that happened as well). But I managed to work on paper art pretty much every day and learn more about the medium in the process.
As part of my 90 Day Art Challenge, I decided it would be vital to look at other artists’ work to see the amazing things they’ve achieved with their chosen medium. The goal is not to be as amazing at the craft as they are, after the 90 day period, but to see what is possible with continual work and practice (and lots of patience).
It’s the start of my first 90 Day Art Challenge. I decided to focus on paper art, seeing as that’s the medium that has interested me the most these past couple of months.
The ultimate goal of this challenge is to improve my skills as an artist by reading up on the medium, learning from other paper artists, and by making paper art every day for the next three months.
Below is a day by day breakdown of what I made and learned each step of the way, these past two weeks.
author, illustrator, Cut-Paper-artist 