Etched metal book

I did a workshop last week at Scraptivate with Jen Crossley. It was etching stamped metal with chemicals. I chose to use beach themed stamps for my book. The metal we were given to work with was brass.

The front cover had little dots all over it but I liked them. I thought it helped add a little visual texture to the vast area of sky. I added charms later. The little bottle has a local sea shell that I crushed with a hammer in it.

The back cover is a set of Hero Arts tile stamps. I like the was they turned out and if I was going to do it again would like something similar.

We were given white and craft paper to use for pages but when I got home I used my own hand made paper to make the signatures and put the book together. I like the way the hand made paper looks. Some of it has shiny inclusions that make the pages sparkle.  You can never have too much bling, lol.

Mermaids...

Last week was Mermaid week on the willowing course called "Mythical magical makings". I did two journal pages before starting on the larger painting. The person who was used as the inspiration for this week was Marc Chagall but I didn't like his surrealist style and really struggled with ideas for this one. I ended up reverting to my own style and the ideas flowed after that. I think I have to really like an artist to be able to copy their style.

The first page was to give me ideas for the large painting. I thought I might put a lot of fish or seashells around my mermaid so I drew a few different ones in my journal. I drew some bubbles which gave me an idea for the final painting.

We also had to do a whimsical mermaid. I like the childish look she has. Again I was trying out a  few ideas. I thought I might put sea horses into the large painting but after the mermaid was done I couldn't figure out where to put them.

The finished painting. I did a whole bunch of bubbles instead of the fish. The red paint is iridescent and shines when you walk past it. The background was done with splattered paint and glimmer mist sprays so it also sparkles in real life. The shading is more pronounced on the painting but the camera always seems to blend the colours more. I wish I could scan these big pictures instead but you still get the idea.

Christmas cards.

A few more cards I made with the Kaszazz demonstrator. These ones have embossing as the main technique. My favourite is probably the first one.

Angels

As promised I have finished my angel pages in my journal and also the painting. I like doing the online courses, it gives me ideas on what to paint as well as teaching me new things.

The inspiration this week for M3 on Willowing was Alphonse Mucha. I have long admired his paintings and have used some of them in my crafts before I knew who he was.  I think his clean, soft style is closest to mine.

This was my first attempt in my journal. I was playing around with the layout, colours and the pattern in the frame. After it was finished I decided I didn't like the halo behind her head.

 

Then I decided to make the background more like a Mucha image with a lot more detail. I wanted to use Australian plants to make it more like my painting rather than a copy of Mucha's work so I painted some Eucalyptus leaves and blossoms with Kangaroo Paws on the ground. I liked the way they looked so they became part of the finished painting. 

 

I was very happy with the final piece. It is a watercolour. It is hard to see in the photo but the gold paint is quite shiny. I also painted the wings with white H2Os so they shine as well. I am going to frame this one.

ATCs

I made a bunch of ATCs yesterday using my paintings as the focal image. The technique is to clear emboss an image over a dark background and then colour with metallic creams or paints.
 
These ones were stamped on the background with versamark and then embossed with clear embossing powder.

Others were dry embossed with a cuttlebug then I heat embossed the raised parts with clear powder.

After that a little Viva Inca Gold paint is rubbed over the top. It sticks to the clear embossed areas very well. I used two colours on each background. It was a little difficult to only do the Viva on the raised areas of the stamped images so I put the metallics over the whole background. It still makes the images stand out, I like the effect.

This card was green instead of black. I like the way it looks and it has a lighter effect.

I think this technique might be an interesting background for an art journal page. I might give that a go sometime soon.

Magical Mythical Makings

I am currently doing an online course at Willowing about mythical beings. The first two weeks were about Goddesses. We had to do a canvas painting of a Goddess in the style of Klimt. I had not heard of Klimt before but looked at his work and used collage and acrylics to do my Goddess.

I tried my ideas in my art journal first.

 The finished painting took a long time because the dress was so detailed but I am happy with the way it turned out.

More Cards

A few more cards I made with friends. Too many punched flowers for me but I like the finished cards. I just won't be making them again any time soon, lol. Click on each image if you want to see them in more detail.

I am busy drawing angels at the minute and I will share them when I am finished the painting.

Some masculine cards

I went to a friend's house to do a little cardmaking the other day with a Kaszazz instructor. Kaszazz is an Aussie papercraft retailer. The first set we made were masculine easel cards. It is a fun technique that can easily be adapted to any theme you want but you will probably need to show the recipient how to stand them up.

Faux encuastics with Jodi Ohl

I recently did an online course at creative workshops. It was faux encaustic with Jodi Ohl. The link is http://www.shabbycottagestudio.com/  I changed the design for mine. I don't like to make exactly the same thing as the teacher when I take classes and if I can will do my own work.

I used the same techniques but used images from Flickr that people have allowed to be used in art works. I will put the links for the photos underneath so you can download them if you want to. I won't go into details of the technique because that is not fair to the teacher but basically it is many layers of paper, drawing, stamping and mediums. It gives a look of wax encaustic without using wax. I still have to do a final layer of matte varnish but you get the idea.

 flickr.com/photos/fftang/4316126962/in/photostream/

 flickr.com/photos/amynkassam/2866419139/

flickr.com/photos/tubagooba/365796347/

flickr.com/photos/lipkee/2281219861/

It took a while to complete the canvases but I am happy with the final result. Even my husband likes them, lol.

Playing around with art journalling

I tried to load these photos the other day and for some unknown reason I couldn't. They are a couple of experimental pages I did using acrylic paint and alcohol. You start with a base of paint that you allow to dry (I added texture to the page first with paper and gauze). A different colour is put on top and while still wet drops of alcohol (I used rubbing alcohol) are applied randomly. The alcohol removes some of the paint and it makes an interesting pattern. I then went over it a third time with an interference colour but it covered a lot of the previous work. Next time I would only do a watery final layer.

I had some butterflies already cut out so I decided to make this a collage page. I drew the sunflowers on with alcohol markers.

The sunflower image is from a sheet of images I bought at Stampington magazines shop.

More Art journalling

I have not been updating this blog very often in the last month or so. I have been creating but just haven't got around to showing them here. I will try to post more often but in the meantime here is some of the work I have been doing.

This picture has textured gesso, acrylic paint and markers. The face is a little darker in real life. I like the way it turned out. It was done for acrylics week of the Supplies me course.

This one is the final piece for the Supplies Me course. The whole page is done with waterbased markers except for the original sketch of the girl that was done with a pencil.