creative jewish mom

Rosh HaShana Symbols Mobile Or Wall Hanging Craft

Dusting this one off and sharing it again, just as I was thinking about painting a fish or two or three?

Rosh HaShana starts on Monday night, yet there is still time to whip up a few fun decorations to add extra meaning to your holiday. Or maybe you are celebrating at someone else's home and would love a fun way to add a special holiday touch to a bottle of wine or wrapped gift? Here is it my friends, simply paint some whimsical shapes that look like a fish, a carrot, a pomegranate, a beet, a gourd, and an apple for starters, and either use them together to make a mobile, or use them separately as gift tags, place markers, cupcake or cake toppers, or you name it!

As you may have figured out by now, I am all for crafts and creativity that use the simplest of materials and therefore the most creativity. And you know what, generally the results are also the most heartfelt. Got it? So get out those paints and enjoy, because quite honestly just applying color to paper is so very very satisfying and a great way to jump start your family's (or your) creativity!  Ready?.......

Painted Paper Apple Collage

How about an artful apple collage to celebrate fall, or maybe you need some fun kitchen art? Apple collages could also make great cards for Rosh HaShana, the Jewish New Year, or even fun place cards or gift tags. Keep it simple, and the results will be great! When collage is made using painted paper, and the collage pieces are well adhered, it almost looks like a painting, which is so amazing!

Collage using painted paper, and specifically painted tissue paper was made famous by the children's book author Eric Carle, who unfortunately passed away recently. I made this painted paper apple collage based on a class taught by the amazing Este Macleod, called Colour Collage 1 (which is not currently available), though you can certainly visit the hashtag #colourcollage1 on instagram to see all the student work.

I can not explain the process based on how Este taught it, but I can explain the process based on Eric Carle's technique, which is similar. Eric Carle, used painted tissue paper collage exclusively to illustrate his world renowned children's books and in fact kept huge flat files full of painted tissue paper sorted according to color! Okay dear readers, as you can likely imagine given the wide variety of projects on this blog, I could never limit myself to one technique, so I always find it quite interesting that artists are able to do the same thing for years on end! Lesson learned? Keep doing the same thing over and over to be successful at it? Hmmm, I do plan to try this same technique with some pomegranites, so that is a start? Okay, let's get to work!

Sketchbook Brushstroke Daisies Are So Much Fun!

Summer is a great time to start a sketchbook, and fill it up! The more you create in a sketchbook the more you'll want to create in a sketchbook, promise! A year ago I dedicated days on end to sketchbook drawing and later painting, and it was only through that process that I learned that I can make mistakes in my sketchbook and it is okay! During that time I also learned how to cover mistakes that bother me, and today, I have progressed to even leaving unsuccessful pages as is! And friends, my sketchbook is a regular drawing sketchbook, nothing fancy and not made for painting, and yet it works just fine with acrylic paint, and even a composition notebook with lined pages can be used as a simple sketchbook. The main thing is to start a sketchbook, with whatever you have and start the journey! If you feel like painting, so you can try painted circles with flower doodles seen here, or you can try these layered brushstroke daisies, though it does take practice. Okay, lets take a closer look and think about some helpful tips!

Daily Creating On An Index Card Produces Fun Results!

Daily creating on an index card, or index card size, is an amazing exercise that I greatly recommend! Just look at my results so far, and I'm one picky customer! As I was nearing the end of my personal challenge to make 100 oil pastel paintings I was starting to wonder what I would do when I finished that. And then fortunately, just as I was nearing the 100 mark this Index Card A Day challenge for the months of June/July came into my radar, and white I was hesitant at first, I decided to go for it, albeit with a simple theme that would hopefully be low stress and high success! And phew, it was such a great decision, because just as I finished those 100 pastels I had another something to jump into to keep myself a bit focused and moving forward in my art journey. So friends, it is not too late to join the fun, and you can do it with whatever medium you choose. The majority of the thousands participating are collage/mixed media folks, so choose your potion and go for it. Just image your own little gallery of tiny art after just 16 days, as I'm sharing with you here! Check out my instagram account @sara.rivka.dahan and look at the hashtags to see where everyone is sharing their results. And just by the way, this is also a great thing to do with kids, a little summer creativity can go a long way!

Simple Doodle Flowers Are Perfect For Summer!

Summer is the time to spend time drawing and painting and doodlng in a sketchbook! It is so very relaxing, and a great project to take on the go! Last summer I drew in my sketchbook for days on end, and this summer, while I'm involved in other art practices, I finally found some time to get back to my sketchbook for a little colorful doodling, and guess what, NOW it feels like summer to me! So friends, develop your art skills, keep an art journal, learn some new doodles, learn how to draw flowers......whatever it is that interests you as far as a sketchbook, do it! And to get started, how about some sweet doodle flowers that are simple to draw and look amazing! Okay, lets do this!

A Make 100 Oil Pastel Paintings Challenge!

Back at the end of February I decided to embark on a journey of using oil pastels to hone my landscape painting skills, and took upon myself to create 100 5" x 7" pieces! There is a huge benefit to creating 100 of something, and there are many 100 day art challenges out there that folks do regularly on instagram. 100 is enough to really sink your teeth into something, and yet not too much that it becomes overwhelming. I have to say, that making 100 was a much greater task than I had imagined even though the pieces are small, and it has been so helpful to have the support of my followers on instagram @sara.rivka.dahan and to be accountable somewhat to the task I took upon myself! As I write this I have 9 to go, and starting to plan my next steps to develop my art.

What else can I say? Most of the pieces I created ended up being shared on instagram, while a small portion, maybe five or so, went into the garbage, as should be expected. Truthfully some of the pieces were a good three paintings in themselves and would have gone in the garbage if not for my dedication to just keeping at it, even when it seemed hopeless! Additionally, most of the pieces were intuitive, or started off with inspiration of some kind but then veered to something else altogether, which makes the process much more time consuming and at times frustrating, but in the end rewarding when the end result comes to life.

What is the lesson here? If you dream of honing your art skills, of being able to call yourself an artist, of really creating something you could be proud of, you have to invest in it, and for most of us that means investing in it big time! Make art, make art, make art! Make art that you don't show anyone, make art that gets painted over, make art that gets torn up, make art that is made for the sake of the making, not the result, and THEN you might just be ready to start making art that you can give as gifts, hang on your walls, and who knows? In case you are wondering, I certainly have done all of the things I've listed before starting this oil pastel challenge, so do keep that in mind.

Okay, want to have a closer look, come along with me........

Simple Geometric Color Swatch Art

Looking for an interesting way to learn about color combinations with results that are just so satisfying? Looking for a fun art project for all ages? This just might be the one! These bars of color are so simple to create, either in a sketchbook, or on paper, or even canvas, you just have to give it a try! You can use oil pastel, acrylic paint, colored pencils, watercolor or a mixed media combination. Do thick bars with acrylic paint and then go back and fill the bars with doodles or marks, note to self! Or choose to do squares or any combo of geometric shapes. Choose a set palette of 5 or 6 colors, plus white, and then have fun placing one color next to another. How did I get those bars of color to be so crisp? Keep on reading, I even took a process photo, imagine that!

Watercolor Blue And White Vases With Flowers

Summer is the perfect time to delve into something new, and if you can take it with you, all the better! So friends, consider starting a sketchbook, keeping in mind that it is about creative growth not perfection, and I can promise you, it is a very very worthwhile journey, and so very satisfying, trust me! This watercolor paper sketchbook of mine was started two years ago on a vacation in Sweden, and I have been slowly adding art to the pages, most recently, art created with watercolors, ahhhhh. And guess what friends, if you don't like the results, so paint an acrylic paint painting over it, and voila, that watercolor painting gone wrong is old news. The main thing is to use your sketchbook to tell the tale of your creative journey, which can be so many things! If you'd like to start but not sure where, how about some sweet blue and white vessels filled with flowers, or not? This is a perfect subject for beginners, because wonky vases and flowers with interesting shapes might be that much more interesting! Okay, lets get started!

A Festive Painted Cut-Out Bouquet For The Front Door!

The Jewish holiday of Shavuot starts on Sunday night, and our front door is ready! I just love painting flowers and cutting them out, as with the water color poppies cut outs, and am also really pleasantly surprised by how wonderful a bouquet of painted flowers can be as well, especially when you free it from the confines of the paper! Of course a bouquet of flowers drawn and then painted, like this one, is all about planning, and execution, so after all that effort, you will want to use it again and again, or even hang it somewhere in a frame, and you should! The more flowers the better, and painted ones add so much joy where ever they are hung! There is still time to make something similar for Shavuot, so get started, loose a little bit of sleep over it if necessary (that is the type I am, don't do if it is isn't you!) and most of all, have a wonderful holiday! Okay, lets get some more info regardng how this paper bouquet was created, shall we?

Simple Watercolor Leaves To Paint For Shavuot!

As you know, I love to create with a wide variety of media, and recently I've been devoting just a tiny pocket of time to filling my watercolor paper art journal with simple watercolor paintings. Check out my watercolor carrots, watercolor feathers and watercolor ferns. It is true, I'm loving the watercolor exploration as it is a relief from the intense oil pastel paintings I've been doing, though to create the kind of art I love with watercolors I'd need to combine them with acryla gouache and also get some liquid watercolors with intense colors, ah yes and huge pieces of watercolor paper! That said, my little travel watercolor palette is just so cute and fun to use, and there is something about the simplicity of watercolor that is just so very very wonderful, not to mention all the cool results one can achieve by letting the watercolors move where they like, on paper to which you've applied water first. And when the time comes to travel once again, I'm all set! Especially since I treated myself to some travel watercolor brushes, that come apart and form their own little protective case, lucky me!

Right now, as we approach the holiday of Shavuot for which we decorate our homes with greenery and flowers, decorating with watercolor paintings of greenery is certainly a wonderful way to go. So take a look at this layered watercolor leaves idea, do it on sheets of paper, and then hang them for wonderful and artful greenery! Keep on reading for a few helpful tips!