Thursday, January 29, 2015

Wagon Wheels

This was inspired by a group project at wetcanvas.com where the theme was wheels of any kind. Someone mentioned these Wagon Wheels and I happened to have some in my cupboard. This is 7x5" on acrylic paper.


Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Christmas is over

I can finally say I am all done with Christmas projects. One was to repaint this Christmas countdown I made years ago. I had first coloured it with pencil crayons but wasn't very happy with it. I gave it a couple of coats of clear gesso, sanded it a bit because it was gritty, then painted over it with acrylic paint and Derwent Graphik pens.

Before:



After:


The before picture shows just one window flipped and the other one shows them all flipped. Some of those little images were really challenging, the squares are only 1 1/4".

The fabric on my rocking chair seat was really falling apart so I did some sewing. I didn't have enough of anything so I used two different fabrics and just did the seat and back.






Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Art Journal Page 1

I recently decided to start an art journal, and what better time than at the beginning of a new year. This journal is a way to try new things and experiment and just have fun. No pressure to make a masterpiece, as you can see here. I wanted to keep it simple but it still took me all afternoon.

The background is acrylic paint and represents the way my mind feels sometimes, exploding with ideas, and also hope for a bright future. The writing is on painted card stock and done with black embossing powder. Same with the numbers but with gold glitter embossing powder and outlined with a black Derwent Graphik pen. The outer edges of the number cards are outlined with a gold Sharpie, which I also used in the corners. It was a good learning experience and reminder of things I already knew, like I know that red is very transparent and that I should have used the purple more sparingly.

This is a Fabriano book. The two page spread is 11 1/2 x 8 1/4".


Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Happy New Year!

A little late, I know, unless you follow the old calendar. December was a busy month with Christmas projects and making a few gifts, including this sign for my husband:






Then my son and I both had the flu for over a week which started a few days before Christmas. We made through Christmas okay but I was glad I wasn't hosting anything, I felt so tired and weak. For quite a few days after that I really didn't want to do anything, could barely even think about painting. Finally started to feel better after the new year and started feeling like painting something. The December Different Strokes challenge at wetcanvas was about Christmas shopping and I decided to focus on the temptations in the stores in December. The local Home Hardware really puts out a display of Christmas stuff and I really have to work hard to control myself when I go there. I snapped a picture and painted just a small section of their display. I still was feeling a little shaky and tired so I kept it quick and simple. Painting this way is really fascinating, just a few strokes of light and dark and objects appear.





And I am still finishing up Christmas projects. I had so many ideas in mind that I wanted to get a few of them done. A few ornaments and jewelry sets are ready for next year. Just a couple more things to do and then I can move on to different things, like my very first art journal and trying out some new products I have. For example, these embossing powders which I made samples of and glued to the bottles. I got that idea from YouTube, but I also coloured half the circle with clear ink and the other half with black.