Each month the Documented Life Project issues a new overall theme for the weekly art challenges. For March the theme was “making your mark” with doodles and mark making. We were both a little challenged by this–  perhaps because Melinda and I don’t do enough doodling or “mark” making, so we got a little behind. But we are trying to stretch our skills and we will catch up.

The art challenge for week 10 was to use marks “as a layer element” and the journal prompt (for those who like to journal) was “surviving the elements.”

Jan:
My final page ended up nothing like I originally had in my head. I started by dripping watercolor drops onto my paper and blowing on the drops through a straw. It was rather fun watching the paint run away from my straw in straight and curly lines all over the paper– though I did get a little light headed. When the paint dried, I used a black marking pen to draw all kinds of doodles all over the page. By the time I was done, I felt the page was way too busy and my eyes could not focus on any one thing. So I pulled out one of the few punches I have and punched out trees from my doodled page. I painted a watercolor background page of green hills for the trees to stand on and glued them in place. By the time I finished I definitely felt like I had survived the elements of doing a mixed media page!

Melinda:

I saw a doodle in Pinterest that made me think of scales of some kind. I wanted to try making something like it but on a fish. I used colored sharpie for my outline and colored pencils to color in my little fishy and the underwater scene. 

Melinda’s oldest kids can’t wait for the new challenge to come out each week (they have kept up.) Ninja Boy asked why they don’t just give all the challenges for the year at one time!

Ninja Boy:

My Princess: