Friday 27 November 2015

LifeBook Week 48: Museology

Week 48 on LifeBook 2015 was a combination of three bonus lessons.  Donna Downey showed us how to use leftover paint to make funky backgrounds and create some cool figure outlines on them, while Lynzee Lynx taught us how to create new words by fusing two others. Tam took these two lessons and turned them into a third - using Donna's figures with Lynzee's words on gelli printed backgrounds, creating a perfect combination! My version is based on all three of these bonus lessons.

I made a gelli printed background using mainly Golden's teal and quinacridone nickel azo gold and a tiny bit of diarylide yellow fluid acrylics. I'd never tried using fluid acrylics on a gelli plate before. They work brilliantly, but I felt it was a bit of a waste for such expensive paints! The colours are gorgeous! If only I had free access to all the Golden paints in the world! While the gelli plate was out, I also created a few prints with the same colours. You can see them below:




For the main page on top of the gelli print, I used some stamping and drywall tape to add interest to the background and a black Stabilo All pencil to outline the figures. I also lifted some of the dried up paint off my gelli plate with some sticky tape and applied it to the edges of my page. I added a layer of matte medium on top to decrease the shininess of the tape. The made-up word I chose for this page is "museology" as in "scientific study of muses". I really enjoyed these mini lessons and I love the results they produced.













Wednesday 25 November 2015

WOYWW #338: Introducing Oreo

What's on my workdesk today? A kitty cat! Last week I was on a mission to get a black and white kitten for my son, so he could call it Oreo. Luckily, I found one in Worcestershire, about an hour's drive from us that was still available. We got let down once before and my son was so heartbroken. He's been wanting one for so long!

Of course, Oreo promptly took over our lives and is quite a handful. We were told she was female, but having checked with a vet today, it turns out he's a boy! So I'm still the only female in the household, yay! Here are a few shots of my desk last night, while gelli printing with Oreo's assistance.




Here are a couple of photos of Oreo in better lighting conditions, the day after we got him (when we still thought he was a girl) - all dressed up in his tux!



I'm deliberately not sharing any art today. I don't want Oreo to steal my thunder, LOL! If you would like to see what other crafters have been up to, just visit the Stamping Ground for some links to crafty desks. Happy WOYWW!

Monday 23 November 2015

LifeBook Week 47: Intuitive painting

Week 47 of LifeBook brought us yet another intuitive painting lesson from Chris Zydel.  Interestingly (and alarmingly!), there was no demonstration of the technique, so that we wouldn't be influenced by somebody else's process. I totally understand this angle, however, I was completely lost as to what we were "supposed" to do! But that's the point. I guess: we are not supposed to do anything other than follow our intuition!

 I love the idea of intuitive painting, but I always expect myself to produce something amazing, or at least good. Because of these expectations, I can't really let go and I fall back into well-rehearsed practices, which is the death of intuition and creativity.

At first I thought I managed to get in the "zone" - I was smushing paint around without thinking too much about it. I kept adding layers and I was having a good time. I tried not to think about the outcome. At a crucial point, however, I had to go and pick up my son from school and I inevitably fell out of the zone. I came back home with a clear vision of what I wanted my painting to look like and lost all aspect of spontaneity. As a result my painting ended up looking anything but intuitive. I still quite like it - but it's not what I hoped to achieve.

I haven't given up my quest for finding my intuition. I know it's there somewhere! I'm just not quite ready yet to unleash it. When it's time, I'll open the floodgates! For now here are some photos of my (non)intuitive painting process. I abandoned my intuition around the time the blue layer appeared, which is when the painting became more calculated.











Saturday 21 November 2015

My Play Journal

Today I'm sharing another two spreads in my Play Journal. These are pages I make without worrying too much about the outcome. It's a cheap, ordinary notebook with ruled pages, which I stick together to make them sturdier. I also use the pages in this journal to clean off my brayer when gelli printing, so when I start a new page, it usually already has some colour on it.

It's amazing how much more liberated I feel when creating in this book compared to other, more expensive journals and I fill up the pages in no time without thinking too much. I've only been working playing in this journal for the past few weeks and it's already more than half full. Previously, I wrote a post about how I altered the cover, which you can find here.

Here are my two new spreads and a few shots showing you how my Play Journal is filling up. I'm linking this post to Carolyn Dube's blog party on A Colourful Journey.
















Wednesday 18 November 2015

WOYWW #337: Stencilled journal pages

Hello Deskers! I'm here again with my new WOYWW post to show you my work space. This photo was taken on Monday evening. Since then I have finished quite a few pages in my Play Journal using both home-made and commercial stencils. I wrote a tutorial about cutting your own stencils on the Cameo - you can find it here if you're interested. Now, let's take a look at my desk.


You can see a page in progress with a kingfisher stencil I cut from a copyright free image found on the Internet. The heart stencil above was similarly cut from cardstock. I used it on the ATC's lying next to my journal as well as on some of the pages. I sold my "artist quality" Cretacolor oil pastels and bought these inexpensive Gallery ones. I much prefer these! They're so much softer and the colours more vibrant - sometimes cheaper things are better! I showed you that Princeton Catalyst tool lying in the middle of my work space last week - I didn't realise just how much I will grow to love it! It's fantastic for spreading paint and gel medium and it wipes clean! It only cost £4.11 delivered from the US! Money well spent!

Now, let me show you the pages that I've been working on this past week. They all feature stencilling, which is a technique I'm getting quite addicted to. It's a quick and efficient way of adding imagery and texture to your pages. I'll also give you a closer look at those ATCs. They are only experimental pieces - I painted over something I didn't like. Just click on the first image to open the photo gallery and click your way through. Thanks for visiting and happy creating!