Tree of Life

Browsing through blog posts in my rss reader a while ago, I came across a beautiful image called ‘Ablaze’ by Kathryn Dyche Dechairo. I was totally inspired!

This is where the inspiration took me! I started with a torn magazine collage on watercolour paper. I covered that with a sheet of crumpled tissue paper stuck down with lots of semi-gloss gel medium. When that had dried I used my neocolour crayons to add some colour to the mix. Next I drew the outline of my tree using water soluble graphite pencils and coloured it in using the trusty neocolours. The next part involved covering the tree with hot glue! The last bit was adding the text using letter stamps which I then embossed.

I toyed with the idea of adding some collaged leaves, but decided to keep it as a winter tree for now. Maybe I’ll try adding some digital leaves later!

Knotty Blend!

Today I decided to draw a simple knot. I’ve always been fascinated by the way the lines in knot work overlap and intertwine.

I started off by creating a simple background using acrylic paint and a homemade fun foam stamp. When it was dry I drew the knot in the centre of the page, coloured it using a mixture of neocolour crayons and acrylic paint, and outlined it using water soluble graphite pencils.Then I scanned it into the computer.

Somehow it didn’t look quite right, so I added a scan of another image left over from Thursday’s project, blended the two together and ended up unable to decide which ‘blend’ I liked best!

What do you think?

Digital Hocus Pocus!

Today I discovered some photographs on my phone that I had forgotten about and felt in the mood for a little digital hocus pocus.

I started out with the photo I took of the rusty seat bracket, duplicated it, inverted the duplicate then blended the two together. Then I added the leftover paint splurge scan and got creative.

I really like the way that turned out especially the ‘eye’ on the right hand side, but I wanted to add a quotation. After some more digital wizardry…

…I finished up with this. What do you think?

Making a Mess!

Making a mess and not trying too hard always seems to produce the best artwork!

Today’s piece of work started as a way of using up some leftover paint. I added some gel medium transfers to it, but they went wrong and came out as grey squares. Finally I thought I’d try out a paper stencil I made using a border punch – the footprints. As you can see the stencil wasn’t a brilliant success – the paper was far too flimsy and let too much paint through! But taken overall, I think my catalogue of disasters looks quite good. I may add some words to it later.

AEDM 2012!

When I started AEDM (Art Every Day Month) this time last year, we were in the process of selling the house prior to setting off on our travels. It’s been a very exciting year, we’ve experienced a lot and had so much fun along the way! Now – one year later, we have settled near the sea in North Yorkshire. I’m really looking forward to taking part in the challenge again.

I created todays art for this weeks Life Book class from Tracy Verdugo.

As I completed each part of the process I was reluctant to go on to the next stage – I liked it as it was, so I scanned the four stages. The first stage above started off with journalling using wax crayon. I was supposed to use oil pastel but I didn’t have any! The idea was to create a resist – I thought the wax crayon would work, but it didn’t seem to work at all! I added acrylic paint on top of the journalling.

The next layer included stamping done using a home-made foam stamp with distress ink, and some more acrylic paint.

More acrylic paint for the next layer,

and finally a doodle layer. I doodled using a selection of gel pens, sakura soufflé pens, uni paint marker, and rotring rapidograph pen then added some additional colour added using neocolour crayons.

Magic!

This piece has magic built into every part of it from the background to the magical font making app.

First of all there’s the magic of the water-soluble neocolour crayons and the way the colours blend together when you add water. There’s the magic of what happens to those wet colours when you add sea salt crystals and leave them to dry. Then there’s the magic that happens when you add digital elements and start playing with blending options!

But do you know what the biggest magic of all is? This iPad app at iFontMaker that enabled me to create my own font. A big thank you to Elsie from A Beautiful Mess who blogged about it last week. I was so excited when I read her post – I bought the app and sat up till 3 O’clock in the morning playing with it! It was so much fun!

If you like the font in the image click on the link Funtime font to download it.

Altogether a truly magical piece!

Doodle Magic!

This catch-up on the Life Book Course came from Lesson 20 with Jodi Ohl.

I started out by colouring the background using Derwent Inktense pencils. For the doodling and text I used a uniball eye pen, then coloured the doodles using neocolour crayons and a graphite pencil. The two stamps were hand made using pieces of fun foam: I stamped the butterflies using a distress ink pad, and the star using a Staz-on ink pad.

I’m still toying with the idea of adding more doodling. What do you think – do you think I should?

Freehand Mandala

Playing catchup with the Life Book Course, today I followed Tam’s Freehand Mandala class from week 36.

I hand drew it in pencil, then coloured it using Derwent Inktense Pencils. When I had got to this point with colouring it, I couldn’t decide whether to colour the rest of the background in or to leave it as it was. So I scanned it in to the computer and added some digital backgrounds to see what they looked like. This is my favourite – it really seems to make the colours pop!

After all that, I decided to leave the original as it is. But it was fun playing.

Playing…

Today I felt like playing digital! I took the last two hand drawn mandalas that I created and played digital blending with them – great fun! I think my favourite is the top right one. Which one do you like best?

Another Seed…

Here’s my version of another Seed of Life mandala from the talented Guada.

I had a lot of fun making this one! I drew it in pencil then coloured it using a mixture of Derwent Inktense Pencils, Lumiere paint, acrylic paint, graphite pencil, uniball eye pen, and uni paint marker. The colour was built up in layers which gives it extra depth. Thanks for another brilliant lesson Guada!