Digital Blending!

Today I felt like playing digital, so I started out with one of my leftover acrylic paint creations and a photograph I took showing the beautiful autumn leaf colours.

Then I played digital blending.

You really need to look at the big version to see the full effect of the final result, but I really like the result. Do you?

Take Two…

Take two images – in this case two leaf prints. Scan into the computer, then work some digital blending magic ….

…. et voila! – one new piece of art.

Both images have acrylic paint leaf prints on a background. The top background was coloured using neocolour crayons, the bottom background was painted with white gesso.

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?

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.

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!

Collage Lady

Being without any internet for the past few days, I have had more time to get messy with paint and gel medium! Collage Lady is another catch up from the Life Book Course.

Loosely following Mystele’s week 22 lesson I created a collage from torn magazine pages using a picture of a woman as the central focus. I then used a mixture of pastels, gel medium, neocolour crayons, journaling and acrylic paint to add colour and depth to the work. I must add that the painted lady bears virtually no resemblance to the collaged image underneath!

I had great fun making this piece. Thanks for the lesson Mystele and for the new techniques I learnt!

Landscape

The leaf I used to print with on the post Newspaper Collage created a rather unusual pattern which I thought looked rather like a tree. So I thought I’d have a go at creating a landscape made from leaf prints.

This is the result! I started off with a layer of white gesso to which I added a wash of colour using neocolour crayons.Then I added acrylic paint leaf prints to create my landscape, finishing off with with some tree trunks created using an old credit card. Quite effective I thought!

Autumn Blues!

I love the autumn when the leaves turn such beautiful colours on the trees. As they fall to the ground it’s the perfect time of year to satisfy the child in me by doing some leaf printing. A few mornings ago, I came back from my early morning walk with a large bag of assorted fallen leaves ready to spend the day playing!

By the end of the day I had paint everywhere, together with a stack of images in a variety of styles and colours. Having scanned them all into the computer, I am now in the process of going through them. Some of them like the one above, immediately suggest something to me, but others may sit neglected for months before I discover a perfect use for them.

Autumn Blues was created using a base coat of black gesso, acrylic paint leaf prints, followed by some digital text and a bit of blending.

The observant among you may have noticed that I’ve just acquired a new badge on my right sidebar. I’ve just signed up for this years Art Every Day Month – the challenge of being creative every day for the month of November. I really enjoyed taking part last year from my Face of Love blog and am looking forward to being part of it again. Why don’t you give it a try – it’s great fun!

Coming Home!

After my travels over at Face of Love, I’ve decided to return to Artimess to continue my messy exploration of all things creative.

Since I completed my Wreck this Journal book I’ve been through a slightly more structured phase in my creativity, but I’ve decided it’s time I came home to Artimess and started having fun again!

I signed up for Tamara Laporte’s Life Book Course back in January and have been joining in rather haphazardly throughout the year. Last week’s lesson by Connie Hozvicka from Dirty Footprints Studio caught my imagination. The picture above is my interpretation of the lesson. Created on watercolour paper (2 x A4 sheets), using glossy gel medium as a base to build texture followed by lots of layers of acrylic paint to add depth and more texture. I had great fun creating this – thank you Connie!

Let’s Have Some More Creativity!!

Yes!! … I’ve done it! I’ve linked and transferred all the posts, images and comments from my free WP blog! I couldn’t believe how simple it was 🙂 Any way … enough of my rambling …. let’s have some more creativity!!

Last week, my daughter left home to start her life at Greenwich University. I decided a ‘Welcome to Your New Home’ card was a bit too normal, so to mark the occasion, I made her a Mixed Media Collage picture for her wall.

I started off with an old piece of mount board left over from my own days at Uni not that long ago. I painted it with white gesso to give me a good base to work on then coloured it using a three or four colours of acrylic paint and various techniques. My next step was to arrange the images into an interesting shape which I then covered with more acrylic paint to make them blend in. I mounted the central image onto some corrugated board and stuck it in the middle, then made the frame from old bottle tops.

Delivering the picture, along with a car load of ‘forgotten’ bits, at the weekend gave me the opportunity to take my camera out round the O2 on Saturday night. With my normal penchant for the unusual .. I was quite pleased with these detail shots taken inside the dome.

I love getting out with my camera – it provides me with a wealth of original images that I can turn into artwork for all kinds of uses.