Digital Wizardry!
Today I started out by sticking a mixture of all kinds of paper to a sheet of watercolour paper. I followed this with a light brayering of white acrylic paint to blend everything together. Then decided I would play some more with the flower stencil I used yesterday and ended up with this image.
I couldn’t decide what to do with it next. So I scanned it into the computer and stated playing. This was my favourite of all the blends I came up with.
I liked it, but I wanted to take it further. It occurred to me that it would look cool as the pattern on a christmas tree shape, so I set off on a hunt for some Christmas tree brushes. I found some beauties here at Photoshop Graphics
Of all the Christmas Tree shapes in the brush set, this was my favourite! But I still wasn’t finished!I decided to create my first Christmas card of the year – well two actually! I think I prefer the one without the writing on the front. What do you think?
Quite a productive day really from one simple piece of artwork!
More Winter Flowers!
It must be the effect of all the dull winter days at the moment, I just keep wanting to play with flower images, so here are some more winter flowers!
I started off by stencilling the big flowers onto the watercolour paper using acrylic paint – messy, but fun! Then I added some more flowers using clear stamps and a mixture of Staz-on ink pads and distress ink pads. Lastly I scanned the image into the computer, added some more greenery with digital brushes and some more background colour using gradients and blending.
Monochromatic!
I got a bit behind with the Life Book 2012 classes and have only just finished Rhomany’s monochromatic lesson from last week.
One of the disadvantages to having given away most of my craft supplies at the end of last year (read more about that here) is that I don’t have a lot of the supplies that Rhomany used, but I’m very good at improvisation!!
I started off with a collage of newspaper pages then drew the face using a black biro. I didn’t have any ink so I used a mixture of graphite pencils and neocolour crayons to colour and define the face. I used a tiny bit of white gesso for the highlights.
On the left hand side of the page Rhomany used black and white scrapbook paper. As I didn’t have any of that I used layers of black and white tissue paper to create my pattern. Then I used white gesso to create a lighter area on which to add my words which I created using my dymo machine, black paper and a white oil pastel.
Lastly I added some stamping using a Staz-on ink pad.
Thanksgiving Leaves!
Remember me saying I had loads of leaf print images to use up? – well here are two more! Although we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving here in the Uk, I kind of wish we did. So I added a quotation which I think says it all.
I used my home-made font, ‘Handwritten’, from yesterday for the quotation. In case you missed it yesterday, here’s the link again HANDWRITTEN if you want to download it :).
The background is a digital blend of two more of my leaf print images which I created using acrylic paint.
Font Fun!
I’ve been playing with the iFontMaker app again – it’s just so much fun!
Today I used a stylus instead of my finger, so I got slightly less wobbly results than last time. This font is called “Handwritten” and you can download it by clicking HERE if you like it 🙂
I created the background using my favourite Inktense pencils on water-colour paper.
Doodle Flowers
Yesterday I got talked into trying out a new app on my iPad called Bamboo Paper. It’s a notebook that you can paint and scribble in.
The first thing I wanted to know after I’d played around with the different tools and produced a few doodles was – “Can I export the images?” So I tried… and it let me email myself a .png file copy of the page I’d been working on. From there it was a simple matter of playing digital games to come up with today’s image. I can see I’m going to have fun with this!
Winter Flowers
After yesterday’s disaster I thought I’d keep things nice and simple today. I felt like playing with bright colours so I got my Inktense pencils out.
I created the flowers and the background using the Inktense pencils, then added some foliage using digital brushes after scanning it into the computer. I love the way the Inktense colours glow!
Purple Haze!
Today’s piece underwent radical transformation in it’s early stages. The first layer was a complete disaster – but it did add some texture to the piece.
It all started when I emptied my pencil sharpener and discovered amongst the wood shavings remnants of lots of beautiful colours of water soluble pencil lead. I had the bright idea that if I tipped them onto the page and added water, I would get a lovely rainbow effect. It didn’t work – what I actually got was a dirty brown/grey sludge! So much for bright ideas!
To cover up the mess, I added a thick and lumpy layer of gloss gel medium, then started adding layers of acrylic paint. The first paint layer was just added with a brush. Next I added some lines and shapes using a variety of implements including bubble wrap, old credit cards and bottle tops. The next layer was a black outline followed by a layer of coloured gel medium. Some more bubble wrap splodges followed finished off with a healthy dose of gold Krylon Webbing Spray.
I have no idea what I’ll end up using it for, but I love the colours and the textures it has ended up with!
More Cling Film!
Following on from yesterday, I thought I’d create a background on glossy card using the distress ink pad and cling film technique.
When I saw how it turned out, I decided to scan it, add some digital brushes which I created from a couple of my own photos and the Thich Nhat Hanh quotation.
Snowflakes
Seeing all Leah’s snow pictures last week got me thinking about snowflakes, which in turn inspired me to get some paper and scissors and start cutting! I know snowflakes are supposed to have six sides, but mine has eight – call it artistic license!
I coloured the background using Inktense pencils then cut the snowflake out of white paper and coloured it using distress ink pads applied with cling film. I stuck the snowflake to the background using gel medium then added more colour to the background using the same distress ink and cling film technique.
After I scanned it into the computer I started wondering what it would look like if I played digital blending games! You need to click on this one to look at it large.