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!!!!

scott base acrylic painting

A recent painting I did as a gift for my Uncle who spent two terms down at Antarctica's Scott Base. This was my impressionistic and stylistic take on an aerial view of the base. Lots of fun to paint... I learned a lot as I painted it as well.

This was the original aerial photo that I used as inspiration for the artwork.

This was initial sketching using pencil, liquid graphite, white poster paint pen and green highlighter. The list was me trying to sort out the order of the layers in my head.

This was a big sketch of my painting layout to help guide the colours as I laid them down.

First layers were white gesso, then a bright layer of Phthalo Blue acrylic dropped into pools of water on the surface of the canvas. Then I lay on plastic film (glad wrap, cling film) to make patterns.

Next was a layer of white gesso all over the top, once again using the plastic wrap to add texture. I looked at lots of images of snow and ice and I really wanted to try and get that dazzling look of bright blue showing through white ice. I got a big mess in these early stages! Paint all over me!!

Needless to say there was even more mess when I started splattering dark acrylic paint over the top. The colour is a homemade version of Payne's Grey that I love to work with... Mars Black mixed with Phthalo Blue and Phthalo Turquiose. I concentrated the splatter in the are where the buildings would be because the camp appears to sit on a really dark looking gravel.

Of course I forgot to take photos at the next stages, but I used Phthalo Turquiose for the buildings, and my Payne's Grey for the shading and shadows, gesso for the highlights.

Part way through I wasn't sure if I was going to be happy enough to give the painting as a gift, and then it just came together, and I am pleased as Punch with the final outcome.

Must paint more! Very exhausting, but also therapeutic!!

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!

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.

Beckon

This is an acrylic painting on board. I used artist quality acrylic paint as well as "Jo Sonja's Artist's Gouache Iridescent" paint over the white dress. I haven't finished the eyes completely yet, but who knows when I will get around to finishing them! So I thought I would post some more traditional painting on my blog.
This is my first painting of a person. I had drawn people before, but never painted them. I used a photo of a relative as a guide.

These are close ups of two areas to show the types of texture techniques that I have used. Can't think of anything else to say! Gosh!! I am so boring at writing in my blog!!

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!

New Journal Pages

Well finally uploaded some more pages from the journal I am doing. It is collaged pictures from old books with mixed media artwork. It will eventually have a story running through it - pure fantasy - I will just make it up to suit the images. I am already thinking of the storyline as I do the pages. I might call the journal "Petite fille" - so you probably guessed the setting is France. I have discovered that I love collaging on the black journal pages a thousand times more than the white pages. Not sure why?! These pages include old book image, pattern pieces, vellum, stickers, tags, stamped images, acrylic paint, stencils, gel pen, souffle pen (think thats all).

Illustration Friday - fierce

"An old, old story of love fierce but pure."

Sorry that I have put my illustration link to a different page this time - hopefully anyone who looks at my Flickr page will come here too!

Well I finally finished some art work to post to my blog. Last week was a terrible week, as far as finding time to make art goes! I didn't manage to post to Illustration Friday's theme "hoard". I had a thousand ideas and started a piece, but I didn't have a hope of getting it finished. This week I got on top of things straight away.

This piece was created on a black journal page with acrylic paints, acrylic fluid, pencil drawing, gel pen and felt pen. Then it was tweaked on the computer. I painted the fire ball at the start and it took me ages to decide to put the heart in the centre. I was toying with fierce human eyes, then fierce wolf eyes, then a cartoon style super hero. Then I thought of fierce love and the rest was history.

I have just finished a four part drawing course that we did hardly any drawing in (traditional drawing that is). We drew with fat markers, collaged with marked paper. It was an experience that has opened me to drawing with texture, not just with line. You use the line to just pull it together. I'm sure it will help me with my collage work as well as with my drawing. Thankyou Paula Taaffe for your wonderful attitude to and your infectious optimism with art.