I'm fairly new to believing I'm an artist. I made a commitment to myself several months ago do something creative everyday. Most of the time I work in my art journal or my altered book. I'm very comfortable doing that. I've worked consistently for several months now and that work is paying off for me.
I've wanted to do a canvas for a while but I'm afraid. I don't know why a canvas is scary. It just a flat surface and I can gesso over it if I really screw it up. Today, I decided I wanted to do something a little larger than a book page. I really wanted to work on canvas but chickened out in the end. This is done in a "book" I recycled from a job years ago. I worked on it "as if" it was a canvas.
I began by painted the page with gesso. Then I used a light purple paint over the gesso leaving some white peaking through. I cut the vase from a page I'd taken out of my altered book. I folded the paper in half so that I could get my vase to be the same on both sides. I lightly painted the vase with a shade darker purple than my background. I gave it a couple coats. Finally I finger painted the stripes with a darker purple.
The flowers are cut from two Sizzix dies using chipboard. I gessoed them and then painted them with craft paints. After they were dry I peeled one of the chip board layers off the back of the flowers so they would not be too bulky in my book. I used a round brush to paint the greenery and stems and then arranged the flowers. Scotch Quick Dry Glue was used to attach the flowers. I used a Hero Arts background stamp for the text background in a purple and then in white. I used a black Stabilo Pencil around one side of the vase for a tiny shadow. The final touch was to outline the flowers with a white water based Sharpie Paint Marker.
I am amazed that I did this piece. I'm so pleased with my progress. I now believe that I can do a canvas. Thanks to all of you who visit my blog and encourage me. I treasure your comments. I appreciate your encouragement so much.
Link : Artist Play Room, A Year in the Life of An Art Journal , Creative Everyday
This is another page in my Things That Fly book. I seem to be on a dream kick. I realized today that several of my pieces mention dreams. I think there is something about flying that makes me think of dreaming and being free.
Someone asked me how I did this page today. I started out with two pieces of sticky back paper that Joyce & I rescued from a trash bin. It was a great find until I realized I couldn't get any ink to stick to it. Even Stazon didn't want to stay on it. I thought maybe gesso would help so I gessoed several pages and this is one of my test project.
I have so many kinds of ink on these pages. I haven't worked a lot with distressed inks in my books because they are not water proof. Neither are Adirondack inks... At one point I had words stenciled all over the background of this. I forgot I used distressed ink and now most of the words are gone. The color was much darker but when I used gel medium to glue the butterflies the ink all move around again. Note to self... use paint next time. I just don't have all the yummy colors in paint that I do in ink. I know there is something I can to to fix the ink... I'll ask the M3 girls.... they will know what I need to buy.
The Show Off Butterfly and Branches stencil is done with green stazon refill ink that I stippled on with a brush. The gesso had enough tooth to hold the stazon. The oranges are Adirondack and Distressed inks. The yellows are Stampin Up and Distressed inks. The bird came from Vintage Printable. The two butterflies are Stampin Up punches and the sticky back paper.
I started by stenciling the green flower branches. Then I stippled the oranges and yellows on the pages. Next I used the Crafter's Workshop Art stencil for the words. I also used a couple of homemade stencils to add texture to the background. I lost a lot of that to the moving colors during the gluing process.
When it was all dry, I outlined the butterflies with a brown Stabilo All Pencil and the bird with the black Stabilo All Pencil. The words are done with a chisel tip Sharpie. The most interesting thing is how the white outline came about. The gesso is not very thick on the slick paper and all I did was scratch away all the paint colored gesso around the letters with a wooden tool the I assume is for blending. I've had it forever and never knew what to do with it. I'm learning to use all kinds of things I bought in the past and never learned to use.
This page was a learning experience and at times frustrating. The next thing I purchase is some kind of workable fixative for my water color inks!
Linked to: Artist Play Room , The Sketchbook Challenge , Mail Artists Corner Challenge
I made a mini book last night out of a piece of brown paper. The book measures 1.75 inches square.
I used deckle scissors to trim the edges and a colored staple to bind it. I gessoed this first. I didn't like how the images I stamped so I gessoed over that making the surface rough and uneven. I used Stazon to stamp the flowers and the butterfly. Maybe it was the rough surface but I couldn't get clean images. I used sharpies to color my little flowers. Then I stamped some tiny words using Latte Adirondack ink. I used a damp stipple brush to add a little blue to the background. Of course, that smeared my Latte in places. I also put a little sepia around the edges of the page.
I'm posting this because I read a blog post by Julie Fe-Fan Balzer about Art Journaling everyday. She asks people to post what they are working on even if they don't like it. I don't like this page. It's one of my least favorite pages I've ever done. That's ok, because for me, the point is the process. The point is to do something creative everyday. I also learned about stamping on a rough gesso surface.
