Snow White Kite

Wow – I’m impressed! The finished painting actually looks more or less as it did in my head! This is the final version of my painting for Danielle Daniel’s class (part of the 21 Secrets 2013 course). Thank you for the tip about the ‘Stabilo All’ pencils Danielle – worked like a dream! They have this amazing ability to be able to write on almost any surface – they certainly worked on my glossy gel medium! The title for the piece, ‘Snow White Kite’, is taken from the Simon Dupree & The Big Sound song ‘Kites’ which was a hit way way back in the mists of time!

I initially ‘saw’ the girl in the background paint and used the Stabilo All pencil to sketch in the details. I painted her using acrylic paint and used a Uniball sign pen and an Edding 780 paint marker to outline the kite. Lastly, I used a Pilot gold marker to write on the kite.

I am really enjoying the 21 Secrets 2013 Course – thank you Connie! It’s not too late to come and join the fun. I’m off now to see what the next class has in store for me – see you later!

Bloom Like Flowers

“The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.”

I thought this quotation from Thich Nhat Hanh was very appropriate for my journal spread inspired by Cathy Bluteau’s class on the 21 Secrets 2013 course.

Why is it that whenever you want a specific sort of image in a magazine you can never find what you want? I ended up sourcing my flowers online from Five5Cats who very kindly allows her images to be used for private artwork. Thank you Cindy!

I collaged the background using old papers and flowers, then added doodling using Pitt Artist Pens. I coloured my doodles using Inktense pencils and filled in with more collage using various tapes and pieces of old artwork. I created the quotation using digital text and finished off by adding details with Pitt pens, an Edding 780 paint marker, neocolour crayons and distress ink pads.

I’ve never done anything quite like this before, but I really enjoyed it and will definitely do some more pages using these techniques. Thank you Cathy for a great class!

Beautiful Postcards

I had so much fun in March making 10 postcards to send out around the world as part of the iHanna Postcard Swap 2013, but this month has been just as much fun seeing what the postman has brought me every day.

These are the postcards I have received so far – aren’t they beautiful! And they came with lovely messages from all around the world. Thank you so much Hanna for all your hard work to make such a swap possible.

Yesterday I had every intention of getting messy and grungy and playing mixed media games, but life decided otherwise! So instead, I created another Quirky Bird. This one’s called Freda!

I painted her on calico, after using clear gesso to seal it. My original intention was to paint her using the natural calico colour as the background, but I made such a mess of drawing her, and the pencil lines wouldn’t rub out, so I ended up painting over the background to hide the mess!!

She’s painted using acrylic paint, neocolour crayons, Edding 780 paint marker and Pitt artist pens. Despite the early disaster, I don’t think she’s turned out too bad.

And now your must excuse me – I have an overdue date with some messy mixed media grunge!!

More Quirky Birds!

Carrying on with this week’s Life Book 2013 lesson from Tamara, I got a bit carried away with drawing quirky birds. I drew four instead of two! – oops!!!

These are painted on the back of the other four and the whole image folds up like a concertina. Like the others, I created the background using spray inks and stencils, followed by neocolour crayons and acrylic paint and stencils. When it was all dry I covered it in clear gesso then drew the birds using pencil and coloured them using a mixture of acrylic paint, neocolour crayons, Edding 780 paint marker and unipin fine line pens.

I completely missed out the journalling part of the lesson!! I may add it later, or I may just skip it, I haven’t decided yet. I’ll let you know when I decide… keep watching this space!

Quirky Birds!

In this week’s Life Book 2013 lesson from Tamara she taught us how to draw these quirky birds. They were so much fun!

I created the background using spray inks and stencils, followed by neocolour crayons and acrylic paint and stencils. When it was all dry I covered it in clear gesso. I drew the birds using pencil, then coloured them using a mixture of acrylic paint, neocolour crayons, Edding 780 paint marker and unipin fine line pens.

I haven’t finished the lesson yet, so I’ll post some more pictures when I’m done.

Monster Pop-Up!

I have always loved pop-up cards so this Life Book lesson from Mitsi B really appealed to me, and I loved every bit of the process of making it.

I started by journalling over both sides of the paper using a water soluble graphite stick, then activated it to stop it bleeding. I added big blocks of colour using acrylic paint, then splattered and dripped a bit over it all.

Next I made the pop-ups for the inside of the card. Owing to my inability to listen to/read instructions, my card is slightly smaller than instructed so I had to modify the rainbow pop-up to make it fit! I painted the shapes using acrylic paint, stuck them in and added more journalling using calligraphy pens from Asda and an Edding 780 paint marker to outline the letters.

Finally I painted my monster on the front cover using acrylic paint. Don’t you think she’s lovely? I think this has been one of my most favourite lessons so far this year. Thank you so much Michelle!