Inter–connected–ness–

Ever since I can remember I have always believed in the interconnectedness of everything. So when I came across this Pueblo Indian saying in Way of the Doll: Art and Craft of Personal Transformation by Cassandra Light, I couldn’t help but feel a journal page needed to be created.

I decided to use my recycled journal, and created this double page spread using acrylic paint, moulding paste and a linocut stamp. I added the quotation by cutting up a digital printout of it, glueing it down then adding paint, stamping and permanent marker to help it to blend into the page. Did I mention that I printed it on yellow paper?

And talking of blending…

…I just couldn’t resist the digital kind!

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?

Painting Big!

Up until the advent of the new easel, the biggest I had ever painted was a double page in my 12″x9″ Strathmore journal! To be honest, I had never had the courage to try anything bigger. But that’s all changed now! With all the recycled cardboard from moving, I have lots of larger canvases to play on, and because they’re made from recycled cardboard I don’t have the fear of spoiling them that I might have if I’d invested lots of money in expensive canvases! And I’m really loving the freedom of painting big! Every day so far I’ve been adding some more to my 25″x25″ recycled cardboard.

I’ve added more acrylic paint using letter stencils and home made stamps and am loving how it’s looking so far, but have a feeling it still wants some more layers!

Meanwhile, I’ve been playing with some rather smaller pieces as well!

I created this one on recycled cardboard using acrylic paint, stencils, homemade stamps and a paint covered mopping up tissue to add the highlights…

…and this one on salvaged plywood using acrylic paint, acrylic ink and homemade stamps. The only problem with the plywood was that it had quite a pronounced curve from being used to protect the corners of something (I can’t remember what!) and when I tried to flatten it for the scanner it cracked across the top and had to be mended 🙁 …

…and lastly – a little bit of sparkly digital blending – you need to look at the larger version to really see the sparkles.

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.

I Begin…

The 1st of August has arrived bringing with it the start of Effy’s challenge to blogalong with her for 30 days in August. There’s still time to join in if you haven’t already, just click on the link below.

Being a little slow off the mark, I have just decided to join in Effy’s Inner Excavate Along where she is going through Liz Lamoreux’s book Inner Excavation. Effy has nearly finished, but I’m just starting …. O well as Effy says, I own the book so I can work through it whenever I like :).

Anyhow… after reading all the ideas and suggestions in chapter 1, I decided to create a word poem using a few of the words on the pages of my recycled journal. Originally I thought I’d add some joining words between the words on the page, but on reflection, I decided that would be overkill and have bravely left them stark and suggestive. I hope you like them.

I started out by very careful covering the words I wanted to use in masking fluid. Once that was dry, I covered the pages with a thick layer of gesso, then started adding layers of acrylic paint, stencilling and stamping. When I was happy with the result, I carefully peeled off the masking fluid to reveal the words, then added my theme ‘I Begin…’ using die cut letters.

I’m off to see what everyone else has been up to now. See you tomorrow!

Recycled Journal

Ever since I saw Rae Missigman’s ‘Go Green’ class on 21 Secrets 2013 I have been longing to have a go at making a recycled journal following her instructions. I have been an avid recycler for many years and have made use of many books in art projects, but I have never before taken one apart and reconstructed it, so this was a new adventure for me! My first step was a trip to my local Charity Shop to find a suitable hard back book to turn into my journal. These are the before and after pics!.

As usual I couldn’t quite bring myself to follow all the instructions…

… plus I didn’t have all the recommended ingredients, so I improvised a bit! The biggest change I made was to the binding. Because I had 7 signatures and my pages were quite heavy, I thought it better to use a different binding format to the one Rae taught. I used this brilliant tutorial from Sarah to learn how to do the binding the way I wanted.

But I digress! Having chosen and purchased my book for the princely sum of £1, the first task was to very carefully take it apart, removing all the signatures. Next came the fun part of decorating the cover, followed by the much trickier part of reassembling it into a book again! I started the decorating process with lots of layers of gesso, clean and painty tissues, and coloured inks dripped and sprayed. Once I was happy with that I added some scraps of material which I machine stitched very carefully to the cover – I only broke one needle in the process! Then came the embellishments which I added using hot glue and a material wrap to keep it closed. I am always envious of my American peers who seem to be able to purchase waxed bookbinding thread in assorted colours quite easily. I always end up waxing my own thread – and getting melted wax all over my cooker! With most of the book pages safely restitched within the covers I moved to inside the book.

I covered the inside of the covers back and front with fabric which I stuck in using iron on fabric glue, then set to work creating a title page for the book. I started off with a layer of gesso, then added several layers of acrylic paint using a mixture of stencils and assorted stamping implements. I used letter stencils to create the titles and neocolour crayons to draw the flower.

I’m really pleased with the way the book has turned out and can’t wait to work on some more pages! Thank you Rae for a really inspiring Class.

Playing with Ink!

Project #4 in Kate Crane’s 21 Secrets 2013 class is all about playing with ink! I managed to make quite a mess and had wonderfully coloured fingers for a day!

I started off with a piece of recycled cardboard and covered it with a patchwork of torn music squares then covered that with white gesso. Next came the messy part – spraying ink. It took several layers to achieve the look I was after and Kate showed us a really cool technique which disappointingly didn’t work with my homemade ink sprays. Still I was pleased with the result I got. For the next layer I used an assortment of background stamps with colour co-ordinated distress ink pads. I have yet to add acrylic inks to my supplies, so I thought I’d have a go at making my own using golden fluid acrylics and water. It took a bit of juggling, but I managed to get quite a pleasing result which I used in a dropper to draw circles on top of the stamping. For the final layer I used Pitt Artist pens and an alphabet stencil to create my caption, and collaged a quotation from Carl Jung that I printed on my computer.

Just two more to go now!

Transitions and Changes

Project #3 in Kate Crane’s 21 Secrets 2013 class called for us to draw three people representations and journal on their bodies. Just prior to watching Kate’s video, I had been reading these articles by William Bridges about transition and change: their meanings, the differences between them and their relationship to each other. While William Bridges is writing about these terms in relation to the work environment, I was thinking of them in a personal environment, and thought it would be interesting to use project #3 to journal about these ongoing experiences in my life. As a result I ended up with five figures!

As before, I started off with a piece of recycled cardboard, but this time I began with two layers of white gesso. Next I positioned and lightly sketched my people, then painted the remaining background using acrylic paint and a variety of stencils, stamps and stamping junk (old bottle tops etc). I used more acrylic paint to paint my people, then added more depth to the colour using neocolour crayons. I added the journalling using a dip pen and black indian ink and finished the piece off with six hearts cut from leftover scraps from a previous project.

Three done, three more to go. Keep watching this space!

Ironing My Images

No … I’ve not gone completely mad … I really have been ironing my images! I’ve been trying out another technique from the Image Transfer Workshop Book. By some magical process (the physicists out there will be able to explain exactly how it happens) heating a magazine page that is next to some cling film (plastic wrap) enables the two to bond. You can then remove most of the paper backing which leaves you with a new very thin, waterproof version of the image. Clever stuff!! This is my first attempt … and I’ve stuck it in my altered fiction book before adding paint to the page.

I’ve been busy completing more pages in my Wreck this Journal as well. This page was done using the Gel Medium method described in my last post. I used last week’s church bulletin (which was printed using an ink jet printer). I love the distressed look this method gives to the transfers!

I’ve been struggling over what to do with this next page for some time. The page was headed “Space for Negative Comments” – not something I thought was very constructive! But then I thought … what if I wrote my negative thoughts in thin black pen and wrote their opposite on top in thick red pen – it would be following the instructions, but putting a positive spin on it. So that’s what I did! Next I painted the opposite page and squidged them together to transfer some of the wet paint. That obscured some of the words, but it was still too legible for for my liking, so I added a blur filter to the right hand page after I scanned it!

… sorry … you don’t get to read my secrets … but I like the way it looks 🙂