 Welcome to another episode of RT Trio. Alright, so this month, this is our mood board. If you want to get a copy of it to do some work by and be inspired by, no matter whether you're painting, or journaling, sewing, needlework, whatever, you can get a copy of this by joining the RT Trio Facebook group. So I'll put the link down in the video description along with the video links for the other two teachers involved. Now, this month is October, of course, and so Halloween. And if you look at the mood board, we've got some pretty fall colors. We've got some Halloween-inspired imagery for those at least in the US or countries that celebrate Halloween. I know not all do, but anyway, I really like this here. And if you know anything about me, you know, I like painting skulls. So yeah, we're gonna do another skull. I picked some paint colors I thought were inspired by the mood board. These are matte acrylic paints, which is what I prefer to art journal with because they don't stay sticky after they're dry. So if you know anything about your standard acrylic paints, they have a little bit of a glossy finish and they can be kind of sticky when you close your journal. Pages all stick together unless you finish them with clear gesso or wax or something. You know, I'm the lazy crafter. I'm not the frugal crafter. That's Lindsey Weirich. I'm the lazy crafter. So I would rather just not be bothered. So if I can just use matte acrylics in my journal, it saves me a step. I'm all good. So yeah, I picked a purple and orange, like a gray green color and this green. I do need to pull some white and we are going to get started. So let me do that and I'll be right back. Okay, the first thing we're going to do is and yeah, I'm not going to speed through so much this month is I'm going to draw a skull, sort of my version of one. So the first thing I'm going to do and yeah, I'm using a white pencil so you all can see it is I'm going to do sort of a circle, sort of a shape like that. Then we're going to put in the eye sockets. If you need a reference photo for this, there's a lot of them on the internet. This is the day and age of Google use it. I'm not one for realism. I just, you know, I'm doing my best artistic interpretation of this skull. You could just download a copy of a skull image and be good with that. I tend to give my skulls big teeth. I don't know what's up with that, but they tend to have big teeth. So just sort of pencil out the eye sockets. They're these usually these funny shapes and then then the nostrils usually have two openings and then the teeth. You can do both teeth up or in lower jaw or you could just do the lower jaw and you're just looking for a rough sketch. You're not, we're not, again, we're not looking for perfection or realism or anything like that. So that's pretty good. So all right, cool. Now I have a purple doily and I was pulling out dictionary paper and I came across this one by accident. So I kind of think we're going to use, I don't know if we're going to use any or all of these, but we're going to use some. Now when I'm gluing things in my journal usually I use a glue stick. I don't have any problem most of the time with things not sticking. Every now and then I haven't put enough glue so that is an issue. I think at least for me the trick is just being heavy-handed with some glue stick. We are going to put this on. The question is do I want to cover up all the little notations of pencil I just put and put the whole I kind of do. That might mean I need to go pull black paint, but I kind of do. Okay so we're going to just go with that. We're not going to analyze what I'm doing too much. We're going to put the thing on, take something flat, a gift card that cap, obviously cap of a paint bottle, and get that stuck down. Kind of like that. Alright. I'm going to take a little bit of purple doily. There it is. You know sometimes the lids right in front of you and you still can't see it. It happens. And so sometimes what I do is I use that cap to the glue stick. Okay. Alrighty. We are going to let that dry for just a second and I'm going to grab some black paint. I'll be right back. Okay. Back. We'll see if we can. It's not quite dry, which is fine. So if you feel like you need to redraw, pick an appropriate color pen or pencil and just redraw your lines. I'm going to just sort of, I did a little bit, but I'm going to, number one, it's not dry. Number two, I'm going to just do it without, I think. Alright. So we're going to fill up our palette with our colors. I found nine times out of ten when I do something like this. It's best for me to just have all the colors out, a little bit of each, then to have to stop and go back and grab each color. That doesn't really work because I like to be impulsive. I like to just go with how it feels and paint, paint how I'm feeling about it. And why is the purple always so hard to get out? I like these Blick matte acrylics, but some of the bottles, they must be a different type of plastic because some of them are easier to squeeze than others. If you have any Blick matte acrylics and you have some that are hard to squeeze, just know you're not alone. Okay. We're going to put some white, a little bit more white than the other colors. We need a brush and we have a big brush, but I need a small one. That'll work. Well, that works. Yeah, that'll work. Okay. Let's start with some gray and black. We'll put the eye sockets back in nostrils. A little shadow that is along that temple on the skull. A scrap piece of paper. White my brush. No, I'm not going to wash it. Put in the suggestion of teeth. Now, if you're like me, you're going to find yourself going over this a few times to get the shadows and highlights in the right place. Nothing wrong with that. You could take some time and get real blendy with this. Obviously, probably not going to do that in case you haven't noticed. So I know that nostrils and the eye sockets would be dark. So we're adding the black in there. All the paint's pretty wet. So although I'm not getting very blending with it, it is blending with the wet paint, which is fine. And remember, this is acrylic paint. So if you get some paint in the wrong spot, you know, it's all about layers. I'm going to use the black paint to sort of define the edge of the skull. I did one of these a while ago, and I turned it into a sticker. It's now available to my patrons and supporters as a digital download. So if you would like a copy, my Patreon is in the video description. I do monthly free downloads for them. I occasionally once a year or so do something by snail mail, but that's getting pretty expensive. So I mostly just do the digital downloads. I'm also a designer for our foamies. And so if you'd love to support an American home mom and pop business, go over there. Their link is in the video description. You don't have to buy my designs. I'd appreciate it if you did, but you don't have to. But look and see what they have. They have some really great stuff. Okay, we're just going to keep adding layers until we're happy. Looks really good on camera. I have to tell you. Okay, we're going to use the colors. So the orange is going to be a highlight color. Obviously, in case you didn't notice, we're doing rather than more of a spooky Halloween skull. I'm obviously doing something that's more sugar skull inspired. Those of you who have been following my channel for a while are not surprised because I seem to have this thing for sugar skulls. And sometimes when you do this, only a little bit of your collage in the background ends up showing through the final piece. That's okay. Use some green, purple. Purple is a good shadow color. If you're new to my channel, welcome. I'd appreciate it if you like, share and subscribe. I do paint and do art journaling. I also do lots of needlework and crochet. In fact, like, like a few of you out there who have messaged me recently, I started my creative journey with needlework and my grandmother's knee. So I know there's a few of you out there who have the same experience. My favorite conversation with her was when she I wanted to learn how to crochet lace and she said, Well, first you have to learn how to hand him the handkerchief. I wanted to make a lace edge handkerchief, which I still haven't done to this day. I should do one in her memory, you guys. That would be fun. I think we're just about done. So I always do this in layers. I add my color, I add my highlights and shadows, and then I go back and I look at it again. So we're going to just keep doing that and keep adding the layers until we're really happy with how our skull looks. I think our skull looks like he's going to a party or he's been in a party. Maybe he's a little hungover. The colors look very psychedelic to me, but I am okay with that. It makes me laugh. Sometimes I get to this point and I strongly have the urge to get out a baby wipe. Yes, clean the table a little bit, but also okay, I'm going to stop there because I kind of like the way that looks. We are going to give that a quick dry and then I'll be back. Okay, I just randomly grabbed a brush tip pen. This is a dark gray color. This is a cold gray, the I-235 Faber-Castell PIP Artist Pen. And I'm just going to, obviously, as you can see, bring some lines back, some definition back anywhere you feel like you need to get your white pencil out again. Remember that we're a mixed media artist, so don't be afraid to get in there with more than just your paint. Get in there with your pencils and your pens and even with a PID Artist Pen, if you put some marks down and then you want to blend them out a little bit, if you get in there really quick before it dries, you don't have to have anything fancy you can do with a baby wipe. That's actually not bad. I'm pretty pleased with that. Okay, now my work almost always has words on it. So yeah, we need to add some words. I think I want to write something. So, I'm going to grab this little pad of lined paper that I keep lying around. A big crystal pen. This is what I use. It works. I have a little few pieces of paper sticking up, but you know what? I could glue them back down, but I'm not going to. I'm going to put them off. I don't know why I want to say this, but this is what we're going to say. No idea. I'm going to tear it and we're going to glue it down. Find a place to glue down. Now, usually when I stick the words down, again, I do follow my instincts sticking it down. Nine times out of ten, I find that I've stuck it down in the place where I think the painting is kind of ugly. I kind of want to stick it right there. There's some glue right there. So, glue and paint. So, I'm going to stick it there. I love art journaling and I love experimenting which is what this journal is all about and often it inspires being able to play with paint and color inspires other creative work for me. So, this is sort of a DIY reference book or that's what it turns out to be. All right. So, now on the other side for me, we're going to make some notes about what we did and what we used so that if I ever do refer back to this, hey, I did not skull. How did I do that? Just you know. So, we're going to glue the mood board down. You can also take your mood boards and you can glue them to a card and you can make yourself a card library or a reference book. Get a cheap composition notebook and make yourself a reference book or reference card library of the mood boards. Once you're a member of the Facebook group, you can go back and download all the mood boards. They're in the photo library and I have done that and with all the different things I've ever done with art that have involved mood boards and I have a little reference book full of mood boards. It's actually pretty cool when I'm stuck. Okay. So, I'm going to make reference to the paint that I used and or the pens and this part I'll speed through so you don't have to watch me like do this. All right. I'll be right back. Okay. There you have it. There is our October page for the month. That's a little better. You get less glare on the page and I love the way it turned out. That's really cute. There's just something about painting sort of a freeform skull that's like I don't know. Enjoyable. At least for me. So, have some fun with it. Whether you do some collage, you do some painting, you do some drawing. If you make a skull, I'd like to see what you do. Join the R.C. Trio Facebook group. Tag me in your post. I'd love to see it and I know I haven't been super great about that lately but I will endeavor to be better. Anyway, enjoy this month's mood board and check out the video description for all the relevant links and ways to support the free content here on YouTube. Above all, go out and have a great day. Have a great week. Do something nice for yourself because you deserve it. I'll see you later. Bye guys.