Art Journal - Page 3

I am having fun, fun, fun with my art journal! Turns out I enjoy journaling without words... The perfect place to experiment. Here something completely different from what I've done so far. Love it!!

On the first layer of gesso I had done a gel medium image transfer. Well, the gel medium was sort of dry and the image didn't transfer correctly, but it still gave me great background texture.

Thanks for coming along with me on my journaling journey and for all your very appreciated comments on my angels yesterday! I should have more art to show you tomorrow...

Art Journal - The First Pages...

Yesterday, I played with my first two art journal pages (I'm showing you the background I had created and then finished pages) and returned to my first love:

Faces! And it was so much fun -- seeing what they would look like, each one different and each one a surprise. These are simple and done fairly fast - more like little sketches really.

It felt so good and so familiar. I missed this.

Progressing in my art techniques had somehow taken the joy out of painting for me. When I first started out, I was so much more carefree in just painting and experimenting. Because I didn't know anything, every painting was a success. These couple of pages connected me with that feeling again and I am so grateful!

I call them angels in training. Even if this is the only entry in my art journal, it was already worth it!

By the way, I was really tickled by the comments yesterday by all of you who also don't journal, but still collect black books. It seems that there are many of us...

P.S. I just wanted to mention my giveaway! If you haven't entered it yet, click on the photo in my sidebar and then leave a comment in the post that comes up!

A Moment of Joy

A Moment Of Joy

Acrylic on 18 x 24 inch wrapped canvas

My latest painting started out as an abstract color play with a very limited palette of Zinc White, Paynes Gray, Turquoise (Pthalo), Pyrrole Red, Pryrrole Orange, Hansa Yellow Medium, Iridescent Pearl, and Iridescent Gold. And underneath the paint is probably every medium I have in my possession and some beautiful handmade papers. It gives the whole piece incredible texture! 

After sitting with the above abstract piece for a while, I kept seeing an ocean sunset with a dolphin jumping, not a subject matter I usually paint.

However, I enjoyed myself immensely and still now, as I have it sitting on my easel, I just love it when I steal a glance.

In the above photo you can see some of the iridescent color in it, which makes it look slightly different when the light changes.

I am not sure if it's finished yet. I'll sit with it for a while longer and will probably refine a few areas.

If I change it, I'll show it to you again.

And in the meantime, I wish you many, many moments of joy!!

A New Tag & A Postcard

I'm having so much fun painting these tags. Someone asked about their size - they are 2.625 x 5.25 inches, a good size to work with.

I love the colors on this one and the snippet from a poem. Months ago, I found a little old book of poetry at a thrift store. The book was in very poor shape, so I don't feel bad using it in my art (I'm funny about books and don't like to harm them in any way).

Here's the back of the tag. There's something so soothing and at the same time energizing about this blue.
I've been playing some more with molding paste, and here I applied it and then stamped a foam stamp into the wet paste - great texture!! And I love those colors!
Can you tell I'm having fun experimenting a little?

Wishing you all a beautiful day!

Image Transfers

I've been having lots of fun with image transfers on the larger painting I am working on. I hadn't played with image transfers in a while and really missed it. The process is fairly simple. You apply gel medium (I use Golden soft gel medium - matte) to both the surface you want the image transferred to and the image itself. Then you position the image on the surface, use your brayer to get it really glued on. When it's all dry, spray a little water on the paper and start rubbing off the layer of paper. What you are left with is the image transferred to the gel medium.

Click on images to see them larger.

Now, this works best with an image on regular paper rather than a photo on photo paper. I think there are different techniques for that. Here I used some pretty scrap book papers. If you transfer an image to a smooth and solid-colored background, it's easy to know what you'll end up with. In this case, however, all bets were off. My background was multi-colored and very textured. But it turned out really well!

If you click on the images you can see the faint picture of an old postcard on the first one, an old map on the second one, and a border of a pretty vine and flowers on the this image. It's all coming together nicely!
On another note, yesterday Daniel called me outside because we had a whole flock of cedar waxwing birds in our ornamental pear tree eating the tiny fruit. They migrate through here and it was so much fun watching them through our binoculars (the neighbors probably thought we were spying on them...). What gorgeous birds!

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Wishing you all a most wonderful Tuesday! I'll be by your blogs later on!

New Art!

Remember my friend Beth's birthday? Well, I did this painting for her and can now show her to all of you. It went through many different stages. Her face always stayed the same although her eyes changed color a couple of times. The background went from colorful and bright to dark to what it is now. And her hair went from straight down to being windswept to one side to sort of floating around her.

You know that feeling when you just KNOW you have to keep changing a painting because it's not quite there yet. That's how this lady was. In the end I really love how she turned out and then I knew she was done. There's a little bit of paper collage around the edges - sort of gives the painting a frame and then some fun gel medium texture.

Beth, Daniel and I all thought that she looks a little mermaid like - sort of under water. What do you think?

Illustration Friday - Wrapped

A sudden breeze and she found herself wrapped in a strand of her silken hair

I am a little late with this week's Illustration Friday painting on the theme wrapped, but better late than never...

This very pensive woman was fun to paint. I first used heavy gel medium to get some great texture for the background and then painted her with acrylic paints. I used some charcoal powder at the end to get more definition in the background pattern. The colors I used are a little different than my previous paintings, and I really like them! She is available in my shop.

I enjoyed all the fun comments I received on the little toad picture from the Wordless Wednesday entry. To be honest, I was feeling less than my usual chipper self yesterday and a wordless post was just perfect! Just one comment on the photo - that hand is Daniel's and definitely not mine! I don't think I could have picked it up myself. Daniel on the other hand loves picking up all sorts of creatures, even tarantulas when we still lived in the southwest !

Tomorrow I'll have some odds and ends for you! Now I've got to get knitting a couple of scarves and then visit your blogs!

Art 'n' More

I've been busy painting and have a few more ladies to share with you. Today, this lovely woman. Painting her just flowed with ease - no revisions, no touch-ups and love at first sight. I did the texture with heavy gel medium, which was very different to work with and paint on than light molding paste - less porous, smoother and more defined. She's available in my Etsy store, so make sure you visit if she speaks to you!

Now, to something else... I noticed that I have over 100 followers. How is that possible?!? I remember when I had my first three followers. I felt ecstatic that there were three people who liked what I had to say. And now more than 100. To think that five months ago I was neither painting nor blogging... I am amazed and and my heart is overflowing with gratitude and appreciation for you all!

Well, add this milestone to my upcoming birthday next week (we Leos are never shy about announcing our birthdays, are we?) and I feel a big giveaway coming on. I am thinking of either a print of one of my existing pieces (i.e. the Summer Maiden) or creating a painting especially for the occasion. What do you all think?

Last, but not least, I baked another one of those wonderful loaves of the no-knead, slow-rise bread. I again used the recipe you can find here, but increased it by half to make a higher loaf. I also, again used half whole wheat flour. Excellent!!
I'm feeling chatty, but I know you are all busy people, so I'll sign off for now. I must leave some time to visit your blogs after all...

Art and More Awards

Finally, I have finished some more art and am working on another piece. My temporary creative ebb seems to be over. I am entering this piece into Illustration Friday for this week's theme of modify.

You won't believe how many times I had to modify this little painting before it worked for me. Not the young woman - her I liked right away, but the color scheme of the background and then the dog. First is was brown, then blue, then big and cuddly, then skinny. Finally, now, I like it ... a lot! She is now available in my Etsy shop...so make sure and check if you like her!

In other news...today I made my own homemade concentrated laundry powder, which was incredibly easy and so inexpensive compared to the brand name detergents you can buy at the store. I found the "recipe" for it here. I intend to make some of the other cleaners as well. Also, hopefully soon, I'll try making some soap, which seems to be a little more complicated undertaking, but looks like so much fun and would make for great gifts! Have any of you ever tried it?

And, finally, I would like to thank the fabulous Shelly, the BlueRidgeLady, for giving me these two much appreciated awards. I am so very touched, Shelly!!

Make sure you visit Shelly's blog - she makes the most incredible collages and her posts are simply inspiring! Plus, she lives in a part of Georgia that intrigues me...

I know I am supposed to make a list and pick out blogs I'd like to give these to, but you don't know how hard that is for me. I am an includer, so I am going to pass this on to all of you who so regularly visit my blog and leave me such encouraging comments! I consider you my friends and you all make me smile. If you feel so inspired take these awards and pass them on to make someone else smile...

Happy Anniversary!

I dedicate this post to my incredible, loving, inspiring, talented, very patient and handsome husband of 19 years today! He truly is my best friend. I was thinking of doing a long and deep post, but I don't feel deep today. I simply feel happy.
To celebrate the occasion, I did this painting, which was somewhat of an experiment. (I tried to take photos that showed the colors correctly, but it was hard). I played around with heavy gel medium for the waves and also the sky and houses. It gave it really great layers and texture (which again reminds me of our marriage).
I also discovered that when I use a thinner layer of gel medium, you can still see the background through it. You can see it in the sky - all the color is from the first paint layer, under the gel medium. I used a plastic knife to get the wave texture and really love how it looks.
And here a couple of pictures from our wedding in California. This was our first wedding - the second one was in Germany a month later. We got married outdoors followed by a potluck - it was a perfectly happy day filled with love, family and friends! We were so young... (and my hair was still so long and dark!)

Wishing all of you much happiness!!

An Experiment

This was simply an experiment in using heavy gel medium over an already painted background. I wanted to see if the gel medium dries clear and you can see the background color through it. Well, it doesn't. It was opaque and so I had to paint over it.

The colors I chose aren't my usual candidates, but I wanted to experiment to the end. The resulting 5 x 7 piece is actually not as bad as I had first feared. In some strange way, it reminds me of all the cacti we used to have in our garden in New Mexico that would get the most gorgeous red flowers in the spring. The bees would dive into them and take a long bath in the ample pollen - so fun to watch!

Oh, I love living by the ocean and I will always crave the desert. They both feed my soul! What are some of the places that make your heart sing?

P.S. If you haven't yet, be sure to enter my giveaway before tomorrow evening!

Illustration Friday - Parade

This week's theme for Illustration Friday is "Parade" and I entered this little painting. I had so much fun with this piece, working with heavy gel medium for the first time. I pasted it on quite thickly, created random patterns, and let it dry. Before painting it, I rubbed some charcoal on it to help me see the patterns more clearly. Looks cool, doesn't it?
I liked the tactile quality of working with this sort of background, the abstract quality of the finished piece, the colors and, of course, the little parade!