Hundertwasser influence

 

Been having fun playing with spraying backgrounds lately. Lots of spray acrylic paint colours over stencils and masks that were both found ojects and commercial stencils.

The hard part is trying to make some art on the top of the backgrounds. They already look like artworks and you don't know what to put on the top of them or even if you want to cover them up. But I know that you can't have a lovely complex artwork unless you let go a little and just work up the layers!

So I have shown you the stages of this page. I drew with black Pitt Artist pens and white Zigg pen, then coloured with Sharpies in red, yellow, blue and green.

Not sure if you recognise the influence for this piece ... it is Hundertwasser. The art journaling Yahoo Group "Blissfully Art Journaling" suggested the prompt to be influenced by Hundertwasser, and I rose to the challenge.

Enjoy and tell me about your recent art play!

Red Head

I had a lot of fun yesterday making art with some friends for a day. This art journal acrylic painting is the fruit of my pursuits!

Although I love mixed media, I realised when I went to describe this art page that it is actually pure acrylic paint. The background was done by laying objects on the page and spraying with watered down acrylic paint or liquid acrylic. Objects were also printed positively to use up the paint that was sprayed over them. Once the background dried more objects were layed down and sprayed over again. I tried this technique after doing Traci Bautista's Strathmore Art Workshop.

Then I used a pencil to draw a face over the top of the background and painted it in with acrylic paints.

Lots of fun! I was so pleased to finally use a background painting and paint something onto the top of it. I was never sure what to put on the top of these cool backgrounds. But I love the effect of the background texture coming through the foreground painting and giving it more interest.

I know I need to work on my face proportions a little more - I always make the eyes too big for the rest of the face. I also want to work on making the eyes on my faces more indistinct because they end up so clear and harsh looking - but practice makes perfect, so I will keep trying!

Keep making art guys!!!!

frida round robin journal

This is my entry in Elizabeth's journal with the theme "Self Portrait as Frida"

I kept these pages simple with mainly drawing.

Little bit of mixed media collage, but mainly fine tip felt pen. The patterns on the plaster cast on the second page are actually children's temporary tattoos!

art dolls

Meet Frida Kahlo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Tamara De Lempicka and Vincent Van Gogh... reinterpreted in my drawing style! The following photos are of some Artist Art Dolls that I made for a Christmas present for my niece.

That is her waving at us!!

The collection picture above shows all the bits that went into the process to make them.

I searched the internet and books first for images of the artists and their artwork and printed inspiration pages to work from (top left hand corner)

Then I drew their faces first on paper with pencil, because I thought their faces were the most important part (top right hand corner)

When I was happy with the drawing, I went over it more exactly with ball point pen, then reduced it to the size I wanted and printed it at the top of an A4 page on my printer. I then carried on the picture and drew their bodies in pencil till I was happy with those (middle images)
I drew in these lines with ballpoint pen as well, rubbed out the pencil lines, and then scanned them into Abode Photoshop Elements 6 and darkened the lines and cleaned up any messy bits with the Photoshop rubber.

I found images of their artwork that I felt represented their style of art and printed out the images and the doll drawings onto iron-on transfer paper. I then ironed the images onto some fairly fine weave fabric that I found in my stash (bottom right hand images)

I clipped the images of the drawings with bulldog clips over strong pieces of cardboard, then I started painting them in with acrylic paints. When I was happy with all the colours and shading, I repeated over the lines with black Pitt Artist pen. I then carefully reironed the images between greaseproof paper, and it seemed to remelt the paint and lines back into the iron-on transfer again. I gave a small test piece a good scratch and the paint wasn't showing any signs of peeling off (Yay! that was one thing I was worried about!!) (see middle bottom images)

Next I sewed on the few little notions on Frida... the roses in her hair and the earrings. I then stiched the two sides of each doll together on the sewing machine leaving a small gap to turn through the right way. They were difficult to turn through the right way because the paint made the material very stiff and I didn't want to damage the painting either when I did it.
Then I stuffed them with some Dacron and hand stitched the opening at the bottom back together (Voila! bottom left hand corner)

These are the backs of the dolls showing some of their artwork. Didn't get good closeups of the faces of the dolls because the focus was fuzzy.

I hope to make some more artists to add to her collection in the future!

the time traveler's wife

I finished reading "The Time Traveler's Wife" (Audrey Niffenegger) a little while ago and then saw the trailer for the movie since. It was a great book that was very moving and I can't wait to see how they try to portray it in the movies. I'm sure it won't be the same as the book, but I am pleased to have read the book first.

I had to do a journal page or two after reading the book, and this was the results. There were so many wonderful moments and images and quotes in the book that I didn't know where to start. I decided these were the quotes that I wanted to remember Clare and Henry by.

Henry's page shows him time travelling and shows him falling to represent what a dangerous and helpless condition he has. His wings are because of the constant references to angels and Clare's art and they relate to the central themes of the book (you will have to read it to know any more!)

Clare's page shows her self portrait. The full page doesn't quite fit in my scanner, but she is actually floating. The floating and the quote reflect the flying theme again.

There is a printed page in the background for both pages with all the years from the book printed in different sizes and fonts. Then there is a layer of gesso and water soluble crayon. Then I drew the picture of Clare using pencil and posemaniacs for a model. I did Henry falling by cutting a stencil from an internet image and sponging with acrylic paint. I drew in the wings, then painted with silver acrylic, highlighted with red acrylic and black Pitt Artist pen and tiny touches of white Uniball Signo pen. The text was done on both pages by hand with black Pitt Artist pen and black Sharpie. The stenciled edge was done with punchinella scrap and acrylic paints and graphite stick.

I know that some people found the book slow, but it is a book that you have to feel the characters slowly, not have them thrown at you in an exciting, fast paced way. I thought that the author got the pace just right and I can't wait to read her next novel.

foil print fun

This is an artwork on cartridge paper, using black gesso, watersoluble crayons, black ink and black Pitt Artist pen. I completed the artwork, but it is actually a failed attempt at a new technique. My friend (Helen) and I decided to try a technique from Mary Todd Beam's book "The Creative Edge"... but we made a booboo and it didn't turn out the way it was meant to. But if you are making any art at all, it is not a failure, so we carried on and had fun with what we had anyway!!

The first stage was to brayer black gesso onto aluminium foil.

It needed to be a fairly thick layer. Then you needed to wait for it to partly dry.

This was where the booboo happened! You had to wait for the shine to dull to know when it was ready. But we waited too long and it dried too much.

Then we turned the foil over onto our cartridge paper and using a pencil, and shapes, and sticks, and the side of a ruler, we drew loose shapes and patterns onto the back of the foil.

You can see that we ended up with lots of tears in the foil because we had to scratch the heck out of it to get anything to transfer over to the paper!

When I peeled off the foil it looked like this... it was meant to be covered in heavy and light black lines and shapes all over the page. So my result is very sparse. But like I said, bad art is still making art, so we made the most of what we had.

Nervous that I would lose what black gesso I did have on the page, I sprayed with fixative first to preserve all I could. Then I leapt in with watersoluble crayons and coloured and washed to my heart's content. The finishing touches were stamping the word "icarus" and then the feathers, and decorating more with black Pitt Artist pen.

partner journal

I am involved in a partner journal with Wendy in New Zealand. These are the sixth set of layouts that I have done. These layouts are in Wendy's journal.

The theme for these pages was self portraits with commentaries.

In the first page the frame is scrapbooking paper cut to the correct dimensions. The centre is painted with silver acrylic paint. The image of me is a digital photograph altered in Photoshop Elements. The poem is "Mirror" by Sylvia Plath, and it has been written in with black Pitt Artist pen.

The second page is a simple drawing done on the white page with black Pitt Artist pen, and smudges of acrylic paint on the butterflies. The drawing is a younger me. The verse is taken from a poem by Vivienne Plumb.

fruits

This is a scan of a drawing I did recently in pencil from an image in a book. Unfortunately I still haven't got the hang of scanning pencil drawings and getting them to come out looking right. It is a lot clearer in real life. I love drawing and I find that it really relaxes me. I disappear into another world when I am concentrating on the lines and spaces and time passes so quickly. If I do a long drawing session then I come out of it physically tired. Does drawing exhaust and relax you?


The book is fantastic inspiration and a fantastic source for people who like drawing fashion. The book is called "Fruits" by Phaidon. Here is the link to it on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Fruits-Shoichi-Aoki/dp/0714840831/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255072696&sr=8-1

And here is a link to the exhibition:

http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/exhibitions/fruits.asp

The Tokyo Street Style outfits are funky and crazy and fun to draw!!! Below is the page that I used as a model to draw from.

partner journal

I am involved in a partner journal with Wendy in New Zealand. These are the fifth set of layouts that I have done. These layouts are in my journal.

The theme for these pages was self portraits with commentaries.

In the self-portrait as Venus page I painted the background first with acrylic paint (for you people who like detail... the colour was "Derivan Matisse Ultramarine Blue", gorgeous colour!) The image of Venus and Cupid was found on the internet. The painting is "Venus and Cupid at Vulcan's Forge" by Palma Giovane. I added my face to Venus' body (bless her!) using Photoshop Elements and cut out section I wanted and glued it to the page with Gel Medium. I continued on the curtain at the top and the sheets at the bottom using watersoluble crayons. I stamped flourishes with white ink (sorry all you artists that don't like flourishes!!), then printed my commentary with a white Uniball Signo pen (the colour is called Angelic Colour!). This pen is FANTASTIC on the dark background, the white comes out even more solid than my souffle pens and there was no trouble using it over acrylic paint.

The next page started with torn and collaged scrapbooking and magazine and pamphlet papers. Then I drew the drawing on the right hand side. Then I attacked it with gesso and watersoluble crayons and coloured metallic pencil for the glasses. It was cool too wet the watersoluble crayons with gesso rather than just water! You get a more milky effect. On the left I used watersoluble crayons on the edges and gesso in the centre. The text is done on the computer and printed on transparency sheet. The writing didn't show up too well when I sat it over the page to test it, so I glued a layer of white serviette with gel medium to the centre of the page before I glued the transparency on. You will notice that I managed to smudge the bottom of the text in the process, but I let it go, because it is OK to make bad art!!!!!

I am loving doing this journal swap, it always manages to kick start me again from the doldrums!!

alphabet soup

This is a mixed media piece I did for the "Scavenger Project" an art project organised by Art House Coop. The prompt they gave was "alphabet soup" and this was my response.

It is a mixed media art work on a vintage book page. I drew with pencil and painted with acrylics. The words have been written with white souffle pen.

The words are imaginary dialogue I wrote using the story that was on the vintage book page. The key words are in the soup in the ladle. I enjoyed doing this page. It was nice to do some drawing and painting again rather than collage. I liked the old page and the text as a background to start from and the double prompt of the words on the page as well as the prompt from Art House Coop.

I am interested to see whether any of my submissions will be printed in the "scavenger project" book, but it is not due out till next year, so I will just have to wait!!

girl alone

Just thought I would add the scan of the girl I drew by herself without the weight of her strings attached heart! This one is a scan rather than a digital photo so it is probably a bit clearer. I need to find myself some really smooth paper to draw on. I find when I do these sorts of pencil drawings I just want them to be absolutely smooth so that nothing interferes with the line. Does anyone have any suggestions? I might ask one of the Yahoo Groups I belong to. Mmmmmm. Good idea! Bye.

illustration friday "strings"

"strings attached"

This is my Illustration Friday entry for this week. It is a pencil drawing on paper, with string and a red heart cut from a coloured magazine page. It is late at night, but I had to post this before I went to bed!! Goodnight!

illustration friday "sugary"

Yes!! I'm back! I managed to get an Illustration Friday drawing done before the week had finished! I have had lots of ideas for the other weeks, but never got the chance to do them. Well this time I got my brain thinking hard straight away and I did it!

This is done on a new brown paper journal that I bought from a local bookshop. I loved the brown paper, and I thought that it would be something different to draw on (if the mood struck me to draw on something different!) (and it did!)

The process is just pencil on brown paper, acrylic paint, and souffle pen for the colour on the lollipop.

For Sleep or Death

I was trying to portray a more solemn feeling with this page. I haven't got the hang of the collaging the way I would like to at the moment, but instead I just went with my flow to see what would result. The poem by Ruth Pitter gave the feeling that I wanted and the collaged images underneath are pages from a vintage children's book about life for Victorian children. The woman is from a Dover Clipart book. I drew the line of washing and the hooded figure. The colour was a dilute wash of muddy green acrylic to start with then coloured pencils and coloured graphite on top. The words and the poetry were written with souffle pen and I went around the words of the poem again with coloured pencil.

It's not dramatic like other people's journal pages, but it contains the more sombre elements I wanted, and that is good enough for me!!

Chillies

Not feeling very chatty today - my head is a bit blank - so I won't talk. Must need another coffee. I will make one after I hang out the washing. Just posting a mixed media work on canvas. (Not the best photo, I know! In fact if you click through to the larger version you can see cobwebs across the painting!) There is tissue built up under the chillies for texture. Mainly acrylic paint with a bit if charcoal. This was a still life from my own objects with a lamp giving a strong directional light. I am a bit disappointed with the colour scheme now I have finished it, but I am pleased with the 3-D feel of the dish and the chillies. Au revoir!

Blooms

I haven't managed to get any Illustration Friday art done last week nor this week. Had ideas but not the time to do anything with the ideas. Been thinking a lot though of fibre craft things. I have been sewing beads on a felt bag that I made at a beginners class a few weeks ago. I love the felting look but I feel I need to stitch and bead it to give it some definition. I will post the final result when it is completed.

This post is to put on an artwork I did in a similar way to the bird I posted recently. It was a dyed paper that I drew on with gesso from a squeezee tube. I left this to dry for over a day, then coloured with oil pastels that I blended in with an old brush. I then added coloured pencil over that.

The idea came from a photo called "An armful of wildflowers" from "Bloom" magazine.

This is the paper after the dye and the gesso before I added the oil pastel or the coloured pencil. See you next blog!

illustration friday "canned"

Well another week gone and nowhere near as much art as I'd have liked to express! But... did manage to get an illustration friday piece done! Just a sketch and coloured pencils. Very hard to think of something for "canned". 10 out of 10 for difficult choice of topic. It was good to do this drawing, something with a little attitude!

Lake Opouahi

The other week my friend and I and our kids went on a trip up North of Napier towards Wairoa to a reserve at Lake Opouahi. There was a gorgeous reserve called "kiwi creche" which has been fenced off as a nature reserve for raising kiwis. I took over a hundred photos (thank goodness for digital cameras!) although only some of them have captured what my eyes actually saw. The nice easy track around the lake was a mossy green tangle of nature that was a joy to explore. We even took sketch pads with us to do a little art. Didn't really have enough time to relax and draw, but below is the sketch that I started there and finished at home.

The feeling of damp and beauty that I was looking for in this drawing is better felt from this beautiful scrap of prose I stumbled on thanks to a comment left behind by the author "Spot".

http://inkhaven.blogspot.com/2008/06/like-runaway-tattoo.html

I urge you to follow the link and experience it for yourself!

I will post a couple of the photos too to give you an idea of the little piece of artist's heaven that Lake Opouahi is!

The next image is a little different but it was a photo I took under a ledge of droplets of water that just begged for a little digital magic! Enjoy!!

Illustration Friday "enough"

"The little bird had travelled such a long way to get the princess' message to the young man that it collapsed onto the ground exhausted. It's tiny heart forced one last beat and said, enough."



Used dyed paper, then shellac. Drew image of bird 3-D with white gesso from a squeeze tube. Applied more colour with oil sticks and blended with a brush and with my fingers. Pushed background back with black oil stick and blended. Added detail with coloured pencil. My aim originally was to get a luminous colour shining through for the bird.

I loved the effect of this combination of media and I certainly intend to keep experimenting with it in different colour and theme combinations in the future!




For anyone interested, above is a scan of the back of the paper that I used. Yummy eh?!

Illustration Friday "foggy"

"Whitechapel's foggy Victorian streets have held Jack the Ripper's identity a secret for over a hundred years."

Well, finally got this week's Illustration Friday art done. It is the school holidays here at the moment and I haven't much time for anything. This was black paper with a ground of black gesso (I love black gesso!). Then I built up the picture with smears of interference green and metallic silver paint, then tinted charcoal and watercolour pencils. Finished off with a black liner pen. Not sure if that is the right way to do it - but I am exploring all the different media I can at the moment to see what they all do. It might look like I am jumping around with my art styles, but I haven't really got an art style yet. I am doing whatever comes to mind so that I can use the media later and have an idea of what it does. To put it plainly any art I manage to get done is great so that I don't lose my momentum!