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!

Coming Home!

After my travels over at Face of Love, I’ve decided to return to Artimess to continue my messy exploration of all things creative.

Since I completed my Wreck this Journal book I’ve been through a slightly more structured phase in my creativity, but I’ve decided it’s time I came home to Artimess and started having fun again!

I signed up for Tamara Laporte’s Life Book Course back in January and have been joining in rather haphazardly throughout the year. Last week’s lesson by Connie Hozvicka from Dirty Footprints Studio caught my imagination. The picture above is my interpretation of the lesson. Created on watercolour paper (2 x A4 sheets), using glossy gel medium as a base to build texture followed by lots of layers of acrylic paint to add depth and more texture. I had great fun creating this – thank you Connie!

Make a Mess ….

‘Make a mess, clean it up’. That was the instruction on this page …

… and I know it doesn’t look very much like a mess, but if you saw how I made it you would have have to agree that I followed the instructions!!

I had been working on the Kelly Rae inspired journal that I’m currently making and had various surfaces covered in leftover paint lying over my desk. I should have taken some pictures … but it was the early hours of the morning and I was more concerned with getting cleared up and into bed. But I hate just throwing things away! Then I remembered this page in the ‘wreck my journal’ and I knew what to do!! I used a very wet paintbrush to loosen all the dried paint and plonked the journal into the wet paint. I did this several time until all the paint was used up … et voila!! … one completed jounal page and nice clean surfaces … mission accomplished 🙂

The scan of this next page really doesn’t do it justice.

The page instruction said to ‘Draw lines using abnormal writing utensils dipped in ink or paint’. I went for the paint option and dipped into it a paper clip, a hair grip, a make-up brush/comb, a cardboard tube, a plastic covered wire tie, a lolly stick, a bottle top, a button, and a staple remover. It looked Ok … but I wasn’t finished! I added a thick layer of glossy gel medium and used a small comb to make lots of ridges in it. Then I left it to dry. I love the way it turned out … it has a really great texture … the only problem is that the gel medium sticks to itself when the book is closed and it is quite difficult to prise the pages apart … but it make a wonderful noise when you’re doing it!!