make or draw some toys you would take in the tub with you for a bubble bath

"make or draw some toys you would take in the tub with you for a bubble bath" was the challenge for this week the last week in the month of February.....from Laura McHugh WEST.....wasn't really excited about this one because wasn't sure what I would create...love baths but really haven't taken one in so long....

I am always so busy and never seem to have the time to stop and relax...its my own fault...just love  creating so much that I find creating relaxing.....so to stop for a bath just takes too much time.....

so I took out my light  box, put my sketch under my watercolor paper and began to outline with my sharpie black marker....

used my favorite water color crayons and pencils...................
and can't forget my favorite water pens....

love adding the color................

love that it was  a nice afternoon to create art and paint...........love the warm sun shinning in thru the window...

even though I waited to the last moment......I did enjoy the process...so thanks Laura McHugh WEST! I learned that I need to take some time to relax and take a bath......maybe not with all my electronics...but with a glass of wine would be nice.....

Tub Time

This week's challenge I came up with was to make or draw some toys you would take in the tub with you for a bubble bath. I've had a bad week so I was struggling with the idea of relaxing.


Ironically, I have a bath mitt that I love, but I don't have a tub in my new house. I do have a hot tub outside, so I will take my little mitt out there and enjoying it. Definitely needing to relax.


I used traditional watercolors and a watercolor pen, just like Laura McHugh East. I love that pen - it is portable and always does the trick.


Here's a painting of it: Five Little Piggies Had Tub Time.

Journal Page Filled with Love

This week's challenge comes on the heels of Valentine's Day which was amazing and busy. Family, chocolate and a new boyfriend all filled my heart and my time.


The challenge that Laura McHugh East came up with was to fill a journal page with things we love. What I have is a journal for the Sketchbook Project with the theme "The Last Word Ever Spoken."

So I decided for this challenge I would combine the two projects and fill my journal page with words and sayings I love, and other things I love. 


Right now the thing I love most is being in love.

this is my week's challenge topic and I picked "create a journal page with all your favorite colors, motifs, quotes or sayings that you "LOVE"......"
well I am addicted to Joanne Sharps Letter Love online course.....LOVE IT and perfect timing for our month of LOVE here on Lauramchughsquared Blog 

             love doodling in my journal ...................

I have been busy with my letter LOVE class and love practicing so I thought I would do a journal page with lots of LOVE.......I had some blank tags and thought I would letter them up and use them in journal pages later on in my journal....hope you had a month filled with lots of LOVE!!!!!!!

loving qualities of your significant other.................

make a piece of art or drawing that represents all the loving qualities of your significant other was the challenge this week from Laura McHugh West.....I must say I really wasn't loving it......what to do??? how to do it....and do I want to share this info with others....?

well its late on Sunday night and I had a very busy and long week...I knew I had to come up with something....and didn't want to disappoint Laura....So I put my mind to it and got to work on  my challenge....

I am taking a lettering class called Letter Love with Joanne Sharpe and I am truly loving it and thought that this would be the perfect project to put my new lettering skills to use.....

Joanne is an excellent teacher and has so many videos for you to follow.....she makes what looks hard very easy...

because this months challenge is all about  LOVE I  decided to incorporate hearts in my design instead of flowers....I am following along as Joanne is demonstrating her fabulous technique.....

I made a mistake and didn't like some of the lettering so I started again..... I started to doodle along the side and make my lines....for which the type would later sit....

I was enjoying the process....I had jotted down my words to describe my husbands loving qualities....

and started filling in the words on the lines.....

using a black sharpie marker I filled the page with words and doodles.....

now to add some color...I took out my favorite supplies

love these water color crayons.....

and my water pens......

and my new copic pens........so I filled in the page with watercolor crayons and markers.....

I realized that I wrote Caring twice......but my hubby is very caring so its fine.....I loved how it came out and want to recommend Joanne's class...check it out here.....  

http://letterlove101-05.blogspot.com/?zx=2fd9dcd049a2c7af   

I must say I learned a few things completing this challenge...First that I have a very caring and kind Husband and I am so lucky.....and I appreciate all the things he does to let me keep learning, playing and creating art....he is always helping around the house so that I can create and I truly appreciate that.....Love Him!!!!

I also learned that the things you may dread may turn out to be not as bad as you thought, and if you put your mind to it you may enjoy the process.....so thanks to My Hubby, Laura McHugh West, and  Joanne Sharpe... 

Happy Valentines Day... xoxox

Qualities of Your Significant Other

As the deadline for this week's challenge neared, I was really nervous, mainly because I do not have a significant other. I was creatively thinking I would do it for the qualities I hoped to find in my SO, and then something magical happened - I reconnected with a friend from more than 38 years ago, and we are dating.

I've been divorced for 15 years and have not really dated. I've been super busy raising my four kids and working. Nine years ago, I made a list of the qualities my perfect mate would have:

• Available
• Attractive
• Accepting
• Seamless Union with Me
• Honest
• Emotionally and Intellectually Intelligent
• Funny
• Fully Self-Expressed
• Passionate, Slow and Observant
• Connected to me, and others
• Open to Learning 
• Generous
• Patient and Loving
• Forgiving
• Immense Amounts of Integrity

No small order, right? Between January 3rd, when I contacted this old friend on Facebook, just to say hi, and middle of last week, I went from zero to girlfriend.

We are taking it slow, and when I found this list and read through it, I realized he meets EVERY SINGLE QUALITY I want in a mate.

This weekend, I was at a workshop at SCRAP in San Francisco doing recycled glass collages with Reddy Leib. It works this way: make a paper collage, sandwich it between two pieces of used glass, solder around it to secure and adorn it with more small pieces. SCRAP's resources of all kinds of cool buttons, paper, and other objects make it fun to go find things to then use in your art.

I made this piece to honor this new relationship. The one quality I was concerned about was a feeling of having a wee bit of a wall up. That's actually a pretty normal thing in a new relationship so I was working within myself to not sweat this too much. 

Vac Tube Symbolizes "Him"

I picked the vacuum tube from one of the bins to represent my SO in the collage. He's very techh-y and works with electronics so this was the perfect piece to symbolize him, but the glass around him bothered me. I want to see inside him and not have that barrier there.

As we were working, I turned around and the tube fell to the floor without me realizing it. I stepped on it and broke the glass. When I picked up the tube, I realized that the barrier can come off and I needn't worry about that with my SO. It will happen in time. And when it does, there is so much fun juicy stuff in there that will be revealed.

Here's the piece, still needing the final soldering together.

Mended Hearts - Happy Valentine's Day Terry xo

A Month of Love

Our theme this month is love, pink, Valentines. It's February, so why not celebrate love love love.
This week's challenge was from Laura McHugh East: create a Valentine's Day decoration that you would love to share with our guests...

I started to make a Valentine's Day card for someone - I wasn't even sure who. By the time I finished, I had a decoration that is about 15 inches tall, with another little decoration that goes with.

Here's what I did:

I had some wrapping paper from a friend's birthday last week that I cut to make a heart. Then I embellished that heart with my new Dr. Ph Martin's watercolors. I wasn't at all happy with how that turned out. I was trying to make the heart less lumpy looking and instead, the purple outline just drew attention to it's lumpiness.

While I was on the phone with my sister, I picked up a scrapbooking pen that draws white lines and I just started "doodling" on the heart. I put it on a yellow cutout circle, and used a strip of the watercolor paper for a "stem." 

I doodled more white on that. For the base of the flower I cut another half-circle out of the yellow cardstock and painted the flower on it by adding pink watercolor to white acrylic paint.
 

I did this all while talking to my sister about a bunch of heavy family stuff. But there was love in that conversation, so I guess it came through.

The smaller piece I did by using the left over yellow cut out over the top of a small drawing my daughter did to test that same white pen. After she left the kitchen, I took the little drawing she did, which is so different than anything I would do, and painted in with different shades of pink.



I have no idea how to use these items, but they do have love written all over them.

Happy February!

Valentine's Day Decorations......

This week it was my turn Laura McHugh East... so I asked that we create a Valentine's Day decoration that we would love to share with our quests....

I just love Valentines Day and the thought of letting your loved ones know that you LOVE them....

after a long dark winter I love to see the bright Reds and Pinks start showing up for this special occasion.

Here is my Valentine's Decorations to share.....

found this package of  foam hearts at the dollar store...

love playing with color and rolling it onto bubble wrap with a brayer.....

then pressing the  bubble wrap filled with paint onto the foam hearts.......you can't make a mistake.....

I cut out heart shapes in the hearts shapes......

I thought from this one package of hearts I could make 2 items a banner and a wall hanging.... sew... I got out my ribbons and sewing machine and started at the top and sewed right onto a ribbon then through all the hearts straight down the center from one heart to another....

I thought I would take it outside in the First snow of the season and man  did those colors pop!

here it is our home hanging from a favorite shabby angel....

and here is the banner hanging outside....

the banner I did a little  different...I punched wholes on each side of the hearts and then with ribbons and fancy bakers twine I tied the hearts together......and here the banner stays to brighten up our kitchen on these cold and dreary days.....