Danielle Calabro

As a mother of two, a wife and a full time job, creating can end up being put off until the end of the day. Staying up until 12am in the morning just to get a little practice in then waking up at 6am to go to work is all apart of the sacrifices we as artist make to do what we love. Being in the baby stages of making a dream come true seems like a never-ending quest, sometime unreachable. Getting discouraged and ready to give up is always in the back of your mind, but there is always that little voice, that little spark of inspiration that tells you not to give up, never let go of your dreams. Try something new, go bak to the old, mix the both of them. A busy life can sometimes take over and you briefly forget what you are trying to accomplish, then it hits you, the reason you were working so hard to begin with.  Ask yourself, What are your dreams? What do you want to accomplish? How do you get there? Are you holding yourself back or is someone else? Are you afraid to step ou...

This is my second attempt of playing with the Dylusion™ line, inks and paint. I was trying out some stencils and the circles in the background is just me cleaning off my blending tool. Still getting the hang of it but having fun doing it. As with all inks you will need to put a sealing medium over the top if you are going to be using white or any other light colors over the top.

Flowers are like people, all are beautiful in their own way, and just like people some are dangerous. When flowers are given, most bouquets are a mixture of different types and colors of flowers. If we could all think of ourselves as flowers image how well we could coexist with one another, bringing out the beauty of each other instead of cutting each other down at the stem.  It is amazing that our children today can not grow up as innocent as we were able too. The world has changed so much, people have changed. I have noticed over the past 12 years that people choose to be victims rather then make their situation better, there are also those who add fuel to the flame. We are all human beings, when we are cut we all bleed red blood, ALL LIVES MATTER and it all starts with us parents, we have to teach our children how to treat others. If we teach them to hate, they will hate but if we teach them to love, they will love. Treat others the way you would want to be treated, no ma...

It's been awhile since my last post, lots of busy weekends. I have been playing around with a few new mediums and tools. I picked up some Dylusions Paint and inks along with some Distressed crayons, both are from the Ranger brand. I also got a Brayer tool and a Gellie Plate. I am having so much fun with these. I also picked up a new art journal, which I have a few pages started but not finished yet. Anyways, my sweet Mother-in-Law is doing a Chili Cook off this weekend and asked if I could make her a little poster to put on her table. Of course I said yes. I wanted to do something a little different then just a basic drawing and either painting or coloring it in, so once I had my sketch done I used some scrapbook paper to make the poster come together. First I started with the background, I used the Dylusions paint and the Gellie plate with the brayer for the brown background, in person it almost looks like leather, once I had everything cut out and glued down (using Distr...

I picked up a pack of Yupo synthetic paper a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to give it a try. Iy feels like painting on plastic. This paper has a lot of benefits you can use a lot of water on this with out it buckling, use pretty much any medium and if you make a mistake you can wipe it of and start over, however I did notice mediums that have more pigment will stain it. I am still experimenting with this paper and this is one of them, by the time I finished I had myself a little galaxy. This is also one of those unpredictable tools of an artist. 

"La Vita e Bella" This is Italian for "Life is Beautiful" and it is. To often we look at our struggles and ask "why me?" or "life sucks" but when you stop and think about the things you have, you can only be thankful, there are people that have it far worse. This was another experiment, I purchased a product called Brusho from Colourcraft, it is basically a powdered/crystalized ink. If you like how unpredictable watercolors are then you have to give these a try. I started of with the 12 pc set, I did not want to invest too much to try something out. You can still use these as watercolors but you have to be mindful not to accidentally get crystals from one color mixed with another. I think these are great for making some kick-ass backgrounds. This was one of a couple of attempts, I am still trying to figure this medium out. I used watercolor masking for the tree and lettering. 

This is my last Watercolor for #worldwatercolormonth. A Madala drawn out and partially painted in watercolors, I got some awesome metallic paints and had a chance to use them on this. I was not able to do a painting everyday but I can say I was able to be apart of it. During this time I have seen a lot of watercolor artist that do the same type of paintings, like landscapes and still life, I did not see too many watercolor illustrators but the ones I did see were great. Techniques were different, there were all levels of artist and it was nice seeing that no matter what level the artist was at there was no negative comments. I even saw people giving advice. I think it is great they will be keeping it going, if you are interested check out  worldwatercolorgroup.com . I will keep up on the watercolor challenges for the month of August and September but my next will be Inktoberfest. Really looking forward to getting my Inktober package from Artsnacks.