Playing with Layers

I really enjoyed all the mixed media work I’ve been doing recently, so I decided to do some more playing with layers, both physical and digital.

This first image started out as a collage using a mixture of old papers, book pages, old paint stained tissues, and magazine clippings. This was followed by a liberal application of acrylic paint, stencilling, homemade stamps, washi tape, and more collage. The quotation made me smile, as it’s the kind of thing I say all the time!

This second image was inspired by some work I did at the weekend on the Person Centred Expressive Arts workshop that I attended run by Dinah Brown and Nuala Eden. It began life as a geometric abstract created using watercolour pencils. Although it was quite colourful, it looked a bit flat, so I gave it the mixed media treatment. I added acrylic paint, stencils, homemade stamps, paint markers and indian ink, then finished it off with some letter stamps and collaged letters.

Its been a while since I played with any digital layers, so this last image is a digital blend of two journal pages – a series of swirls drawn with watercolour pencils, and a page created to use up some leftover paint.

Only five days left before the start of 21 Secrets Fall 2015 – I’m really looking forward to working and learning with all the amazing teachers Connie has gathered together.

Playing with Mandalas

Thinking about mandalas, I created this hand drawn one in my small journal the other day.

But as usual, I couldn’t just leave it at that. I had to play with it once I’d scanned it. I started off by adding some ‘twirl’, then blended the two together to come up with the final version.

Once in the blending mode, I find it’s difficult to stop! This image is a blend of two paintings to which I added the Maslow quotation.

Creativity Rocks!

Creativity rocks! I’ve been so busy writing my dissertation that I haven’t had time to do anything else. But I took a couple of days off last week and did a bit of catching up!

A couple of weeks ago we had our dissertation tutorials and as part of the tutorial, our group were asked to create an image to represent our finished dissertation. I knew I had to create a doll, but as we didn’t have much time for the art work I knew she had to be simple. So I made a wrapped pipe cleaner doll and called her “All wrapped up with a feather in her cap!” Do you like her?

This image started out as a photograph of the kitchen sink with splashes of water all over it. Then I blended a painting into it – et voilá!

This one is a blend of two paintings created during a recent painting workshop.

I’ve been fascinated by mandalas for a long time as any of you who have followed my blog or flickr stream will know. So when I saw Julie Gibbons was running a five day free course, I just had to sign up and play along. I must say, the course is one of the most comprehensive mandala courses I have ever seen and I am learning so much. Thank you Julie. This is my first mandala created on day two using a pencil drawn grid, neocolour crayons and watercolour pencils.

And I just couldn’t resist playing digital with the mandala after I scanned it!

Breathing space!

I’ve finally finished handing in my written work for this academic year and have a little bit of breathing space before the next marathon of academic writing begins!! I haven’t done any painting yet, but I have been playing digital and making dolls!

It never ceases to amaze me how many variations it’s possible to create from one image simply by copying and blending.

The problem comes with knowing when to stop – tricky one that!! Both these images were created from one original piece of artwork which I played with digitally to achieve more depth and interest.

Ever since we had a doll making workshop on the course, I’ve been obsessed with doll making and have been reading about the history and researching well known doll makers. I bought this Art Doll Instructional Zine from Lani Gerity a while ago, and finally managed to have a go at making one of the dolls.

She’s called “Study’s Over” and if you want to know how I made her you’re going to have to splash out $9 to buy the zine from Lani, but I can tell you I used pipe cleaners, fabric, yarn, air drying clay and acrylic paint. She was very simple and great fun to make!

I’m working on some more dolls and am hoping to get the paint out very soon, so keep watching!

Another Journal Page!

Following on from yesterday’s success, I’ve managed to create another journal page using the scanned digital technique. Yay!

This is the background I created in my altered journal using acrylic paint, home made stamps and stencils.

And this is my digital interpretation of todays ‘When Frogs Sing’ journal prompt.

I finally got around to processing the second of my recycled cardboard paintings from the other day. I created it using acrylic Paint, acrylic ink, stencils and moulding paste.

You can’t really see the relief on the big picture so I took a couple of detail pictures to show it off. It makes a lovely textured surface – I really love texture!

And you know what – I haven’t played blending for ages! So I just had to try a little blend here! I really like how this one turned out. What do you think?

Finally All Done!

I can’t believe how long its been since I last posted here! I’ve decided that unpacking is a lot more stressful than packing … but it’s finally all done – including the 5 boxes which my brother returned to me (after looking after them for the last 18 months) during his visit last week!

So… what have I been up to? I got my paint trolley from Ikea…

I broke up all the packing boxes and saved a big pile of assorted shapes to use as canvases, then started painting some of the smaller ones.

I painted this on recycled cardboard using acrylic paint, acrylic ink and various homemade stamps.

I painted this on a scrap of plywood salvaged from some packaging using acrylic paint, acrylic ink, clear stamps and a staz-on ink pad.

There are lots more to show you, but I haven’t finished scanning them all yet, so I’ll post pictures of them during the week.

I also got a brilliant easel for painting big …

… as you can see – I’ve already started playing with it. This is just the first few layers – I’ve added two more since I took this picture!! I’ll post another picture when it’s finally finished.

I’ve also been playing digital … but you’ll have to wait till tomorrow to see them or I’ll never get this posted.

I’ll leave you with this beautiful view taken on a trip to the Peak District, half an hour from our new home, yesterday.

Kaleidoscope Mandala!

I have been busy painting and working on Rae Missigman’s 21 Secrets 2013 Class, but I have nothing to show yet, so I thought I’d share some digital playing instead. I was catching up with my reading list yesterday and came across this post from iHannah about creating digital kaleidoscope mandalas. Well – I just had to give it a try, didn’t I!

I decided to use my Face Emotions image as the source and had great fun playing. iHannah’s instructions are very helpful. I created four mandalas, but that wasn’t enough for me. After downloading the results I had to play digital blending to take it that little bit further! This is the result.

Thank you iHannah for the inspiration, and thank you SumoPaint for a nifty piece of software.

Time Flies!

Doesn’t the time just fly by! I can’t believe it’s a week since I last posted here. In between a very special birthday, the celebration of which got delayed by snow over the entire country, followed by a nasty tummy bug which laid me out for a day, I’m only just catching up with myself now!

It all began when I had some leftover paint from creating cards for this week’s Life Book lesson. As usual I painted a page in my notebook with what was left of the paint. Then the postman brought me some very special paint that I’ve been coveting for a very long time – some Golden fluid acrylic paint! Well – I just had to try that out didn’t I? Isn’t it lush!

With two pages of abstract paint marks scanned I just had to play digital! So much fun and such beautiful colours!

Today I finally finished my game cards, the first part of Kelly Hoernig’s Lesson from Life Book this week.

I created my own playing card size cards using glossy white card, then painted them using acrylic paint (the old paint!). I used collages of stamped images coloured using watercolour pencils to decorate the front of the cards, and luggage tags coloured using distress ink pads to write my goals on the back. I obscured the titles of a couple of them as I am not ready to share them at the moment.

So now I’d better get back to completing the rest of Kelly’s Lesson! I hope to be able to post it in the next day or so.

Getting Messy!

Once again I’m playing catch-up! I’ve been having so much fun getting messy, I just haven’t had the time to post the images!

On Friday I played with some embossed flowers, trying to colour them using a couple of ink pads. It didn’t work quite as I planned. Instead of nice clean colour on the raised areas, I ended up with a very dirty, grungy looking image (and a very dirty grungy me, covered in ink!). Not being one to let these things deter me, I stuck the image to a page in my notebook and created a grunge border round it using acrylic paint and an old credit card (getting covered in paint this time!). I think it looks alright now. What do you think?

Yesterday I finally got around to completing this week’s Life Book Lesson from Monica Zuniga. I was a bit apprehensive when I watched the video, but once I got started I had so much fun (I got covered in paint and glue with this one!)! I started by creating a painted background, but once I created my doll and put her on it she disappeared, so I decided to use a plain black background. I created the doll using a collage of a mixture of stamped and embossed images, with the exception of the face which I scanned from a magazine and altered digitally, then coloured her using watercolour pencils. I’m really pleased with the way she turned out. Do you like her?

Today I thought I’d play digital and mess free! I started with a photograph of sand patterns I took last week, then added a scan of an acrylic paint background I made a while ago and blended them together.

I really love how the colours draw you into the image.

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.