Life Book 2014 Week 6 Pt 2

As promised, here is my version of the main exercise for week 6. My first attempt was a disaster but I gessoed over the mess and started again – being too mean to discard the Fabriano paper. The Brusho paint worked really well over the gesso and I got some really good streaks going. Loved how they mixed – even yellow and purple – together and didn’t make mud.

We had to make a list of our positive attributes before we started but I preferred to do mine on the fly. I wrote them in the third person as I couldn’t bear to write I, I, I, me, me, me, all over my art.

Life Book 2014 positive qualities

 

 

 

Life Book 2014 Week 6

Week six was another couple of exercises from Tam – she’s always fun. This week we were dripping and flowing ink. She used Dylusions; I haven’t got any so I used my diluted Brusho paints. Brusho is a powdered watercolour/dye that can be used in many ways on paper and fabric. It can be diluted and kept in spray bottles – you only need to use a little, or you can sprinkle it onto wet paper for some lovely effects. We had two projects; here is the first.

Wk 6 inksplash sml

I used homemade tape, fabric tape, rubber stamps and my Brusho paint. I’ll post the second piece as soon as it’s done.

Life Book Daisy Diva

Here’s my girl. I thought she’d be a nice ‘Daisy Diva’. I don’t like cupcakes and sweet stuff much (‘cept chocolate), so couldn’t bring myself to use sugar as an art theme.

Life Book Week 5 Diva

The background was painted charcoal (white gesso mixed with black acrylic paint as I have no black gesso). Then a fuscia pink layer over that. Some fabric tape for a border, plus loads of Neocolor ls. More gesso, more paint  – this time teal blue.

I collaged my girl, gave her a fabric dress, cut out some shapes vaguely resembling arms and legs. Coloured them with pen. Doodled on her dress and daisies all around. Some more Neocolors and that was it. Much fun, although I wouldn’t want to hang her on a wall – too scary!

 

Divas

Last week our Life Book 2014 lesson was given by the delightful Marieke Blokland She introduced us to her quirky divas – cute fantasy portraits with exaggerated features. They are great fun to create. Lots of layers of acrylic paint, pencil and a little doodling with a Sigma. Here’s mine…

Sugar Diva

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She is going to be collaged onto a background – Marieke’s is a sugar diva but I don’t like sugar much, so I think my girl will be a flower diva.

More Life Book 2014

Had lots of fun with these exercises…

Mickie Wild was our Week 2 artist and she gave us a short bonus lesson. The journal page focused on making an affirmation – what we want more of in 2014. At first I thought I would hate to work with a grey background… I mean, who’d want to. I decided to go with it and as I did, the paint seemed to have a life of its own. Instead of the neat, matte background I’d envisaged, I began to let the paint drizzle and drip until it looked like some crazed, dystopian landscape. I turned it upside down and it was obvious to me that balloons were required. It ain’t pretty, but it wasn’t meant to be.

Abstract drippy paint journal page

The third week was Carla Sonheim (she’s so cute!) and her blobs, non-dominant hand doodles and crazy collage creatures…

Accidental creatures

For the fourth week, we were introduced to Kelly Hoernig. I love Kelly’s stuff because she works in a lovely, deliberate controlled way – the opposite to me. I am the sort to slap paint, glue and collage down where it wants to go. Kelly is a planner. Her collage was simple and stunning.  We had to choose collage pieces to represent things we love. I chose an Alice in Wonderland tag, some black and white scraps and diamonds (not that I own one single diamond!).

Kelly Hoener's Life Book Lesson

There’s lots of texture and layers built up with gesso. I  made it a bit more 3D by outlining with charcoal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

LifeBook 2014

I’m really pleased to be part of Willowing Art‘s (Tamara LaPorte) latest LifeBook offering. A year log course featuring 23 fantabulous mixed media teachers.

The first lesson was posted this week and there’s a whole year of fun, learning and delicious, messy mixed-media delight ahead. Get yourself over there now and sign up.

This week we had a warm-up exercise followed by a portrait of our guardian angel to complete. The warm up used several techniques, such as applying Neocolor ll, collage, spattering, dripping paint and these were then carried through to the main event – our guardian angel portrait. Tam even posted a guided meditation to help us discover who our guardian is, though I allowed mine to emerge on the actual piece.

We were encouraged to do some journaling on the warm-up to get rid of negative thoughts and feelings about our worthiness as artists and human-beings. My biggest problem in this regard right now is feeling scattered and directionless. So I chose to add positive thoughts about being focused. We also had to ask our guardian for a word to carry us through the next year… mine is ‘release’.

LifeBook 2014 Warm-up

My wk 1 lesson

 

 

365 A Daily Creativity Journal – Day 81

Zentangle Zendoodle Delights

I love this doodle-y art form, despite all the controversy surrounding it. I have made tons of pages and content relating to them, but lately have been too busy to actually enjoy creating Zentangles for their own sake. What do you need to make them? Paper, pen, pencil and an eraser. What could be simpler. If you’d like to try for yourself, click the image.

 

 

 

 

 

365 A Daily Creativity Journal – Day 80

Painting Rocks

Did lots of these last year and had the sudden urge to do another. Found some great photos on Flickr. One cat’s owner had posted lots of their beautiful Neska, so I decided to take advantage. We have got four cats of our own, but they are hopeless at sitting still for the necessary stone pose.

Basics: Rock, paint brushes and spray varnish. Easy, right? Click the cat to see how it’s done.

 

365 A Daily Creativity Journal – Day 79

Doodle Painting

After a long, long hiatus, I am back and ready to restart my 365 project.

I am really enjoying making these doodle paintings. I love the fact that the painting process is quick and easy but that I can spend hours (or not) playing with the doodling. There will be more of these, I’m sure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Materials used: watercolor paint, watercolor paper or pad, black fine liner pen, whit gel pen. Click on the image or see “How to Paint a Doodle” for a step-by-step.