Celebrate Your Creative Self - Seascape

In the workshop I am doing this year that is working the way through Mary Todd Beam’s Celebrate Your Creative Self, we are working on a seascape this month.  I have been behind due to some unforeseen and some foreseen life circumstances.  I just started mine today.  This post will be a continuing one with the various phases of my seascape.

 

 

Well, the initial work - gesso and making some imprints and salting - are dry and I have worked on the watercolor part of my seascape.  I had a Pearl Ex-Press palette from some years ago so I decided I was going to use those as my watercolors this time.  Below is the result.  This is still not the finished product.

 

 

April Art Partner Challenge

I finally managed to be one of the first ten people to sign up for the Art Partner Challenge, sponsored by Inka Stamps on The Latest Trends in Mixed Media Yahoo! Group.  I was so excited when I saw the stamp that was enclosed as I do not normally work with photo stamps.

I was driving about 175 miles the next day and thought about that little girl the whole way.  I could envision many items that would go well with her on a card front - flowers, a covered bridge or wagon (I looked for a covered bridge on my travels).  But what to do with the Scrabble tile that was also included?  I couldn’t remember the letter that it was but then, as I started today, I decided she would be Rebecca - for the R tile.

Then, I was in a discussion about techniques and the one where you stamp on stickers and then put the stickers on the card or item was being discussed.  I use to love this technique.  I decided, then and there, I needed to marry Rebecca with this technique somehow.  The result is above. 

Leather Paper

I know it sounds odd - leather paper.  This is a paper technique in Julia Andrus’s Paper Transformed.  I did not have the Perfect Ink Refresher called for in Julia’s original instuctions so I simply spritzed my cardstock with water.

My first attempt did not turn out in any way, shape or manner to look like leather.  I didn’t even bother to try to put it online.

My second attempt was a lavender cardstock to begin with.  It was not a real heavy cardstock so wrinkled up easily.  I did have some issues finding the right ink to highlight the wrinkles with.  This was a part of my first attempt problem.  I also found that I liked the way it looked if I used a stipple brush to apply the ink as opposed to direct to the paper from the ink pad. 

I am also working on a piece that looks more like real leather as it is brown.  You can see how it looks more in the image below.  I wanted the lavender for something specific I have in mind.  The brown was a heavier cardstock.  I had to really get it wet to get it to crinkle and wrinkle up good.

 

Canvas with Tissue Paper

With an online group, I am working my way through Mary Todd Beam’s Celebrate Your Creative Self.  The portion we were working on this month was to add tissue paper to an illustration board or canvas and then paint it. 

 The workshop leader was so smart and decided to break this into three weekly parts to make it easier.  And I am sure it would have been if life didn’t get in the way.  I started this last Thursday and still think I need to put some additional color on it.  I want the third that is basically in the center horizontally to have something else on it - a different color to contrast, something.

The first step was to get the tissue paper on the board.

While this does not look like much, it was harder than I thought it would be.  I knew what I wanted it to llook like, but really wanted to let the tissue have its own “life,” so to speak.

I have three pictures below that have the item with its first coat of acrylics on it.  I did gesso over the entire canvas once the tissue was dried on, including the tissue.  The acrylics I used were crimson, deep turquoise, and phthlato green.  I also used a pearlescent tint in the bottom area which tends to show as a bit of glare off my flash on my camera.   All three images below are the same canvas.  I just haven’t found a good way to take pics.

         

Photography

While I am working my way through several art books for the Triple Eight Challenge for 2008, I have taken a month off most of these workings.  I spent most of March honing my photography skills.  I have some of my shots below.

I have always spent a lot of time in the out of doors so to me, it was logical to take my pics outside.

This one caught my eye while I was running one day.  I didn’t have my camera with me.  I went back, via car, later and couldn’t find it.  The next day that I ran that route, I took my digital camera with me.  It was perfect.  I had my eye set on entering it in a environmental photography contest.

 

This image above is a closer shot of the same image.  This time the hide is not visible in the picture, just the rib cage.

My favorite shot is the one above.  It is ironically entitled Tire Garden.  It is truly just someone’s way of getting out of paying to dispose of old, used tires.

This is by far my most artistic in my mind.  It is the fog created by the snow that is left on the ground.  I call it Fog on Field.  

Just a thought in my mind

Sometimes, I think that is what my blog is all about - getting some of what is in my mind out of it and “onto paper” as the case may be.  Of course, this is a modern form of paper but I still love it.

I went through a phase when I would not subscribe to any magazines.  This was about five years ago and I did it based on the impact on the environment.  I would go to the library once or twice a month and sit and read periodicals.  This was great in that I was exposed to many different periodicals - ones I would never have paid to subscibe to and ones I love. 

 Now, as more publications are moving towards using recycled paper for their pages, I have picked up a few subscriptions.  Most of these are for inspiration for art, for gift giving and for general knowledge articles. 

I was leafing through a few the other night.  As the new month’s magazine comes into the house, I go through the previous month’s and tear out anything I wish to keep.  I saw a picture on a page that just jumped at me.  I tore out the page.  Then, yesterday I saw another picture that also spoke to me.  I tore that page out.  I trimmed around the various pieces that I wanted and voila - below is a college I did.

Water Webbing

In one of the last lessons I have to do for February’s working through Paper Transformed by Julia Andrus is webbing.  I knew, from the start, just what stamp I wanted to use and what I was going to do with it.  I just needed the time and a water bottle. 

I have several squirt bottles but they are all large ones for cleaning solution, although they do not all have cleaning solution in them.  I grabbed one and cleaned it up, made sure there was no cleanser left in it if that is what was there to start with and filled it with water.

 I, then, took my Marvy Le Plume markers and used the brush end to color my stamp which is from Anita’s.  I stamped first and second generation on this one piece to be sure I had one finished item for my project.  Then, came the water and squirt away I did.  I finally realized I love the technique but do not love the large squirt bottle.  I am putting a small squirt bottle on my list of things to get next time I am at the dollar store.  This one just put too much water on my designs.

Not Just Charms Challenge

This month at the Yahoo! group The Latest Trends in Mixed Media Arts the “Not Just Charms” challenge is to make charms out of game pieces.  Last month focused on buttons.  December was actual charms.

I have struggled with this idea.  I have set aside wooden dominoes to make charms out of.  I wonder if these are too large, although they are not as large as normal dominoes.  They are not shiny either - being black and white.

I then thought about poker chips.  The biggest problem with this was I only could scrounge up one poker chip that my boys would let me near.  This was one I had received in an collage bag swap.

Not only did it have writing on it, there was only one.  Now the rules do not say that each charm must be the same but they do state that the charm must be made from a game piece.

I started working on the domino charm in my mind.  I have a small stamp of a champagne flute I wanted to stamp on the all black side of the domino.  I wanted to stamp and then emboss in gold.  Then edge the sides in gold also.  So far I do not have any charm hooks (I am sure that is not the correct terminology) but here is a look see.

Now I just have to finish edging and manage to get a hook on it on it.

February Projects

In the two workshops I am participating in this year - Paper Transformed by Julia Andrus and Celebrate Your Creative Self by Mary Todd Beam - have some wonderful projects for the month of February.  Unfortunately, February is a very short month and very busy so I spent a day doing some paper transformation.

All of the colors in this are done on white cardstock.  The colors are watercolors that are manipulated.

I set up six half sheets of card stock on my art board.  I used masking tape to keep them from curling from the moisture associated with watercolors.  Each piece or part of a piece of cardstock has a different technique used on it.  Most, actually all but one, are from Paper Transformed.  The wax resist is from Celebrate Your Creative Self.

This particular technique involves putting Pearl Ex mica powder in the watercolor as I painted the cardstock.  I used a mahogany color watercolor and a antique gold Pearl Ex. The picture does not do the coloring justice.  It is much more gold looking than here.

Above are what will become two different plastic wrap altered watercolors.  Neither left the amount of design in the paint that I thought it would but I do like this technique and will continue with larger and smaller, tighter squeezed together and looser plastic wrap until I get what I am looking for the watercolor to look like once dried.  The finished products are below.

Another wonderful technique was the basic watercolor wash.

Next up was salt.  I don’t know what I was thinking.  I have two containers of sea salt - coarse for making bath salts and reminding me of the rock salt I put on the driveway here in upstate NY during winter.  I figured this was what I was going to use.  I guess I should have thought about it more so in the second art board full of techniques I used both the sea salt and table salt.

             

The first two of these have the coarse sea salt on them.  The right end has the table salt on it.  The results are below.

      

Another technique that I fell in love with was the watercolor with watercolor pencil shavings in the wet watercolor.  I did this with deep green pencil shavings in a yellow watercolor.

Finally, I utilized a wax resist from Celebrate Your Creative Self.  I have tried a wax resist before, using the wax from a dripping candle for wax and ironing off the was when done, and not been happy with the results.  I am not sure I liked the results this time either but below are two examples, one with a yellow crayon and one with a white crayon.

    

I am going to keep trying the wax resist.  I also still need to try the water removal of paint to reveal white space.  If it doesn’t get tried in the next week, it probably won’t as I have a big event coming up March 1 and need to work on that for a bit.

Simple Abundance - Feb 11 - 17

I realize I should do these second time through readings of the daily meditations in advance of the week, not in retrospect.  Anyone who is reading along may not come back to look now for the past week.  I am going to seriously try to do this for the upcoming week later today.

 I truly love our search through ourselves for our authentic selves.  The discussion of “spiritual electricity” resonates with me.  I have been trying to create some varying backgrounds and works of art but have seemed to feel there was nothing there.  I did not work on Friday of this week as my son had a sectional diving event and, then, decided not to play catch up on Saturday.  Instead, I flipped the switch of my “spritual electricity” on and did some painting and creating.   My first creation was three and a half dozen ginger cookies for my visiting 21 year old daughter to take back to college with her.  Then, the work from Julia Andrus’s Paper Transformed began.  That is another post altogether, though.

And, that 10 year old girl…. oh my!  I do not have this picture but I can see it in my mind.  It was on my father’s desk in his office, when the office was behind an old barber shop.  I had hair about mid-back, straight as a board and pulled back in a partial ponytail.  The chestnut colored hair is a color I yearn for these days but it is not the hair color that speaks to my authentic self.  I was wearing a high necked green plaid dress.  This dress does not speak to my authentic self either.  It is my face that speaks of who I really am.  I had the remnants of two black eyes.  I had spent the summer camping with my grandmother and tripped over a wagon tongue.  In the process, I fell - hitting my forehead in a very precarious spot.  The doctors said I could have been blinded had the point of impact been a fraction of an inch in any direction.  The blood from the huge egg on my head drained the only place it could - into the whites of my eyes.  Then, the bruising came.  I had these huge black eyes for weeks.  But getting them was fun!  I was playing with the boys, a tomboy at her best.  And, that is truly me.

Wanderlust and travel are also explored in ways now that could not be previously.  Do you dream of travel?  I have done the travel in a small part.  I spent one fall travelling up and down the eastern seaboard.  I went 13,000 miles from August until November.  I saw many wonderful places and beautiful people but I loved it most when I came back home.  I don’t think this is where home will always be but it where it is now and I love it!