Addicted to Doll Making!

Did I mention that I am becoming addicted to doll making? This one’s taking a bit longer than the others have, and she’s still not quite finished, but I thought you might like to see her anyway.

The pattern came from Elinor Peace Bailey’s book Mother Plays With Dolls … and Finds an Important Key to Unlocking Creativity. It’s a generic pattern which can be adapted to make any number of variations – there are some amazing examples in the book. I stuck pretty much to the basic pattern, but wanted to add some wool hair. I searched online for some tutorials and finished up using a combination of these two tutorials: this one from Gillian Wynn Grimm at Dried Figs and Wooden Spools; and this one from Gillian Austin at Astableulah. I haven’t decided whether to paint or embroider her face, and I may add some other bits and pieces while I’m at it, but I’ll post another picture when she’s finally finished.

In between playing with dolls, I’ve also been playing with paint.

I started off with some recycled cardboard and a double page spread from a newspaper, added some blobs of moulding paste then swirled them about. I added acrylic paint, acrylic ink and spray paint to the mix, then left it all to dry. But that wasn’t the end! After scanning it I had to play digital blending…

…I thought this one was quite nice, but then I thought I’d try inverting the colours…

…and came up with this which I rather like. What do you think?

Melt Down!

Still struggling to keep up with my studies – yesterday I had a total meltdown!

I stormed off to my studio and started squeezing paint! This image really doesn’t do justice to the dimensional nature of the finished piece, so I captured these close-ups to show you just how much paint I used!

I called this one Faces because I can see a strange looking face in the bottom left corner of the image. Can you see it too?

The Tram Tracks in this one were created when I vented some of my frustration using the wrong end of the paint brush!

The Coffee Rings were created using a selection of circular objects pressed into the thick paint.

This one reminds me of a stormy sea – a bit like how I was feeling at the time!

But the exercise worked it’s usual magic. By the time I was done, the feelings had transferred their trauma to the canvas leaving me able to move on.

P.S. I’m still waiting for the paint to finish drying!

Academic Overload!

I’ve been totally overwhelmed by academic overload of late! But I have been painting … here are some of my latest creations!

I’ve been using quite a lot of thread and string in my art work recently – a reflection on how I’ve been feeling, perhaps? I created this using recycled cardboard and packaging, string, brads, spray paint and acrylic paint.If you look at the enlarged image you can see how dimensional the paint is!

Some more recycled cardboard and packaging, machine stitched and painted with acrylic paint and acrylic ink using a selection of stencils.I created this piece alongside a stitched postcard that I made for the Great Big Stitched Postcard Swap. I’ll post a picture of the postcard once I know it’s been safely received.

This is my favourite piece. Unlike the other two pieces, this was created in a much more intuitive manner while reflecting on an issue that I am currently dealing with. Like the others it uses a recycled cardboard base, together with acrylic paint and acrylic ink. Which one’s your favourite?

“Paint, Glorious Paint…”

“Paint, glorious paint…” a slight misquote I grant you – but after a long absence (at least a week!) its so good to be slinging paint again!! Even in my little journal!

The colour’s not very good in the photo, the original is a more peacocky colour! I created it with some acrylic paint, stencils and a bit of spray paint!

Then I went back to my recycled journal to make some more background pages.

I don’t really like pink… I know girls are supposed to, but I never have! So it was really quite a surprise for me to create such a pink page! I used a lot of different types of paint; acrylic paint, acrylic ink, fluorescent paint, spray paint, a few stencils and a homemade stamp.

I reverted to type and went back to my more usual colour palette.

That’s better… Sigh! All that pink… very worrying! I used acrylic paint, stencils and homemade stamps to make this page.

Last but not least, I dug out a piece of recycled cardboard for a change.

I do like working on recycled cardboard – it’s such a forgiving medium. It just sits there and takes whatever you throw at it! In this case it was acrylic paint, spay paint and stencils.

I really think I’m overdue for a Big piece of cardboard. So watch this space!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to you all! This post has been a long time coming, but December was a totally chaotic month with so much going on that I scarcely had time to breathe! However… January is here now, and I have started creating art again! In fact I spent most of New Year’s Day painting up in my studio – what a great way to welcome in the new year!

I created 2 images on recycled cardboard and 5 journal pages in my recycled journal. I had a bit of trouble getting my scanner to work after it’s long rest, but the perseverance paid off! I created this piece using recycled cardboard, acrylic paint, stencils and spray paint.

I’ll post the rest of the images over the next few days as soon as I’ve finished processing them. (I’m busy struggling to write an essay for my course at the moment!) So keep watching this space.

Green Thumb …

Yes … I have a green thumb …. but no – that does not mean I’m good with plants! I just got a little bit too enthusiastic with a spray can of metallic green paint 🙂

It all started last week when I taught leaf printing at one of my craft classes. I get so much inspiration from teaching! … I came away from that class inspired to find as many ways as possible of using leaves.

A few weeks ago I came across several cans of spray paint left over from previous projects … so I decided to try using them with the leaves, and the ‘Sample Various Substances’ page seemed the perfect page in the journal to use for the experiment.

After I’d picked a selection of leaves I used them as both masks and stamps to achieve this effect.

Using leaves for printing, you end up with some beautiful colourful leaves. I took a couple of the ones I brought home from the class, covered them in Gel Medium and used them to create this picture.

Going back to my journal, I decided to do something with the ‘Document Your Dinner’ page. I wasn’t prepared to feed my dinner to it, so I did the next best thing and used a heap of favourite ingredients to splatter over the page. I used Soy Sauce, Spaghetti Sauce, Strawberry Sauce, Lemon Juice and Salt!

I’m quite pleased with the visual effect … and it’s added yet more interesting aromas to the journal – it really is a multi-sensory experience!!