Finally finished!

Yes! – I have finally finished my game board for last weeks Life Book lesson from Kelly Hoernig.

I ran out of space on my board to glue my car, so I attached it to a hinge so that it could be flipped to see the board underneath.

I may add some flowers to the roadside later – I can’t decide at the moment!

Meanwhile the ingredients list! I used collage, white gesso, acrylic paint, Artist Cellar stencils, a home made mask, some ribbon, a button, a little jute, a uniball eye pen, some digital text, most of a cotton bud, plus some ink and hot glue.

I really enjoyed making this – thank you Kelly for a great lesson.

29 Faces – # 2

Here’s my face number two.

I drew her in pencil, then coloured her using acrylic paint and watercolour pencils.

I’ve been busy finishing my game board for last weeks Life Book lesson and hope to post it tomorrow.

29 Faces 2013

February is the month Ayala Art challenges us to draw 29 faces. I missed the February challenge last year, but took part in the May and September challenges and was amazed how the discipline of drawing faces every day for a month improved my face drawing and painting skills.

So here’s my first face for the challenge. Drawn in pencil then coloured using a mixture of watercolour pencils and acrylic paint.

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.

Blended Mandalas

I just had to play with Wednesday’s Mandala! Do you like my animation?

If you missed it, click your browser refresh button to see the animation repeat. Not brilliant – but not bad for a first attempt!

I started off by inverting the original, then added colour changes and blends to the mixture.

Monochrome Mandala!

After playing with Dion Dior’s technique yesterday I had to have a go at drawing a mandala using it.

This is what I came up with. I drew and coloured the mandala using a white watercolour pencil together with a Sakura pen-touch pen for the highlights/outlines. I’m quite pleased with how it turned out. What do you think?

Celebration of Light

I’ve been a bit caught up in the mechanics of website maintenance for the last few days and have been neglecting my mess-making creativity! Thank goodness for the Monday Life Book lesson from Dion Dior this week – it was just what I needed to get back into mess making again!

Starting with a piece of black paper, I drew a handprint and mini mandala using a white watercolour pencil, then shaded between two using an assortment of dry white media which included a neocolour crayon, a soft pastel and a jelly roll pen. It was great fun and I think I’ll be playing with this concept some more over the next few days!

Just to add a bit of colour to the post, I had to show you this.

It happened when I was preparing this image for uploading yesterday. I accidentally pressed a few extra buttons … well maybe I did mean to press them … but it looks rather pretty, don’t you think?

New Blooms

Ever since Tam published this week’s Life Book 2013 Lesson from Christy Tomlinson, every spare minute I’ve had has been devoted to getting messy playing with the new techniques Christy taught us.

Along the way I had some leftover paint which I used with a flower stencil to create an image. I scanned this together with the sheet I prepared for making the flowers in the main project, then blended them. It’ll make a good background for something one day!

Finally – the finished product! I had so much fun! I started by creating a mixed media collage background using newspaper, old magazine inserts, bits of old envelopes, washi tape, white acrylic paint, inks, stamps and marker pen for the words. Then came the fun part of making the flowers. You’ll have to do the course if you want to know how, but I used kitchen roll, tissue paper, very runny acrylic paint, stencils, stamps, kitchen foil and lots of gel medium. I had to adapt some of the ingredients as I didn’t have everything on Christie’s list! It was great fun, and very messy! – Thank You, Christie!

I’ve really been missing drawing this year, so today I drew the Pink Lady! I wasn’t going to colour her at all, but then I had an accident over her right eye with my white marker. So she now has blue eyes! Not a bad cover up job!

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.

Catching Up!

I’m playing catch up today – it’s been a really busy week!

On Tuesday, I created a couple of backgrounds using a mixture of acrylic paint and ink. I scanned them both into the computer then added a photograph of some flowers and blended them to create this image.

On Wednesday I followed a video from Doll Dreams teaching us how to draw these cool doll birds! I tried it out in my everyday notebook using a uniball eye pen, then did the doodle later using my rapidograph pen while I was on the telephone! I didn’t plan for them to go together, but I think they do anyway! Do you agree?

Today I had fun playing with all sorts. I started by colouring the page with neocolour crayons, then collaged an embossed sheet which I had coloured with distress ink and the stamped image of the globe which I cut out. Next I added the text which I printed on the computer and coloured using a watercolour pencil and a gold marker pen. Finally, after scanning, I added a bit of digital shading and distressing. I really like how it turned out. What do you think?