Take Two…
Take two images – in this case two leaf prints. Scan into the computer, then work some digital blending magic ….
…. et voila! – one new piece of art.
Both images have acrylic paint leaf prints on a background. The top background was coloured using neocolour crayons, the bottom background was painted with white gesso.
Celebrating!
This weeks Life Book lesson is about celebrating the things we have achieved this year. I am very fortunate in having many things to celebrate – having given up my security to travel, successfully navigating the subsequent soul searching and releasing that went with it, resettling in a new location, studying and developing my spiritual life, completing the first two levels of Reiki training, and getting back into creating every day.
So it gave me great pleasure to create this whimsey with her animal totem, Badger. I drew her in pencil, then coloured her using neocolour crayons. I used some patterned paper to collage her dress and used letter stamps to create the word ‘celebrating’ in the balls I gave her to juggle with. I added golden stars using star confetti and coloured the background using a neocolour crayon. It looked good but I felt something was missing. So… I used a watercolour pencil to write words describing what I was celebrating around the balls, then blended them into the background using a damp brush. Although it more or less obliterated the words, the extra colour just completed the picture.
Thank you Tam for such an inspiring lesson 🙂
Green Goddess
I started today by painting a couple of backgrounds using derwent watercolour pencils, a blue one and a yellow/green one. While I was waiting for them to dry I felt prompted to draw a female face on the yellow/green background. So here she is – my Green Goddess!
I drew her face in pencil, outlined it using a uniball eye pen, and coloured it using neocolour crayons, leaving quite a lot of the background colours still showing through. Lastly I darkened the background using distress ink pads.
I have no idea where her face came from, but I’m quite pleased with the finished result.
Tree of Life
Browsing through blog posts in my rss reader a while ago, I came across a beautiful image called ‘Ablaze’ by Kathryn Dyche Dechairo. I was totally inspired!
This is where the inspiration took me! I started with a torn magazine collage on watercolour paper. I covered that with a sheet of crumpled tissue paper stuck down with lots of semi-gloss gel medium. When that had dried I used my neocolour crayons to add some colour to the mix. Next I drew the outline of my tree using water soluble graphite pencils and coloured it in using the trusty neocolours. The next part involved covering the tree with hot glue! The last bit was adding the text using letter stamps which I then embossed.
I toyed with the idea of adding some collaged leaves, but decided to keep it as a winter tree for now. Maybe I’ll try adding some digital leaves later!
Knotty Blend!
Today I decided to draw a simple knot. I’ve always been fascinated by the way the lines in knot work overlap and intertwine.
I started off by creating a simple background using acrylic paint and a homemade fun foam stamp. When it was dry I drew the knot in the centre of the page, coloured it using a mixture of neocolour crayons and acrylic paint, and outlined it using water soluble graphite pencils.Then I scanned it into the computer.
Somehow it didn’t look quite right, so I added a scan of another image left over from Thursday’s project, blended the two together and ended up unable to decide which ‘blend’ I liked best!
What do you think?
AEDM 2012!
When I started AEDM (Art Every Day Month) this time last year, we were in the process of selling the house prior to setting off on our travels. It’s been a very exciting year, we’ve experienced a lot and had so much fun along the way! Now – one year later, we have settled near the sea in North Yorkshire. I’m really looking forward to taking part in the challenge again.
I created todays art for this weeks Life Book class from Tracy Verdugo.
As I completed each part of the process I was reluctant to go on to the next stage – I liked it as it was, so I scanned the four stages. The first stage above started off with journalling using wax crayon. I was supposed to use oil pastel but I didn’t have any! The idea was to create a resist – I thought the wax crayon would work, but it didn’t seem to work at all! I added acrylic paint on top of the journalling.
The next layer included stamping done using a home-made foam stamp with distress ink, and some more acrylic paint.
More acrylic paint for the next layer,
and finally a doodle layer. I doodled using a selection of gel pens, sakura soufflé pens, uni paint marker, and rotring rapidograph pen then added some additional colour added using neocolour crayons.
Doodle Magic!
This catch-up on the Life Book Course came from Lesson 20 with Jodi Ohl.
I started out by colouring the background using Derwent Inktense pencils. For the doodling and text I used a uniball eye pen, then coloured the doodles using neocolour crayons and a graphite pencil. The two stamps were hand made using pieces of fun foam: I stamped the butterflies using a distress ink pad, and the star using a Staz-on ink pad.
I’m still toying with the idea of adding more doodling. What do you think – do you think I should?
Celebrating!
I really enjoyed this weeks Life Book lesson with Samantha Kira Harding. Each layer had its own special meaning and took courage to cover and move on. But I’m so glad I did – the finished piece has so much depth.
This is the first scan taken after the first three layers. Layer one was journalling done using Derwent inktense pencils. This was followed by a layer of white Gesso which made all the journalling colours run and blend together creating a lovely soft background colour. Layer three was a mixture of alcohol inks shaken from the bottles to create nice ink splodges which I swooshed around with a tissue to spread the colour further, and a lino cut which I stamped over the top using distress inks.
This next scan – done on my lovely new A3 scanner – was taken after the next two layers. It took a while for me to pluck up the courage to add a layer of Gesso to everything and even more courage to start doodling over the top of it, but I’m glad I took the plunge! The doodling on the right page was done using graphite pencil and neocolour crayons followed by a flower collage and face outline drawn in pencil.The left page got a collage of tissue paper.
The final scan shows the finished piece. The face on the right page was painted using neocolour crayons. The left page had a machine stitched border added and journalling done with a gel pen. It took a few days to complete, but I’m really pleased with the end result. Thank you so much Samantha!
Collage Lady
Being without any internet for the past few days, I have had more time to get messy with paint and gel medium! Collage Lady is another catch up from the Life Book Course.
Loosely following Mystele’s week 22 lesson I created a collage from torn magazine pages using a picture of a woman as the central focus. I then used a mixture of pastels, gel medium, neocolour crayons, journaling and acrylic paint to add colour and depth to the work. I must add that the painted lady bears virtually no resemblance to the collaged image underneath!
I had great fun making this piece. Thanks for the lesson Mystele and for the new techniques I learnt!
Badger
We’ve been battling with our internet provider this week and have been without service for nearly two days! It’s just come back up so I’m making hay while the sun shines!
I wasn’t in the mood for crochet (this weeks Life Book lesson) so I thought I’d play catch up with one of the previous lessons I’ve not looked at yet! I chose week 25 by Juliette Crane.
I loved every minute of doing this picture of my totem animal – so much so that I kind of forgot to follow the instructions and ended up with something rather different from Juliette’s wonderful whimseys! I drew the outline using water soluble graphite sticks, then coloured Badger in using neocolour crayons. I used the neocolours to create the background, then added some distress ink to add a bit of depth.