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Evolution of a Canvas

Tuesday, June 20, 2006 @ 5:02 pm
Filed under art, collage

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I finally finished one of my canvas pieces. Firstly, I took my own advice and stopped working on so many at once! It was hard to focus! I had a lot of trials and frustrations along the way and I’m not sure if I like the finished product but at least it’s finished!

I took a few photos along the way - though I did omit a few of the uglier iterations. Here is the evolution…

I went through some dramas to get the background the way I wanted it. I really liked this (above) but I knew it needed more. This is where the trouble bagan. So I added a tree element:

After adding the tree collage piece (above) I then messed with the background colours and mucked things up a bit but I kept going. I added paper elements as well…

After a bit more playing and frustration it looked like this (above) and I liked the golden background and texture but I had ruined the lovely bird in the process. So I collaged the woman element and some other papers over the bird instead. After drawing in some more of the tree and adding the fountain, I really felt like this was coming together. Which is why I was so annoyed when I tried to outline the woman with crayon to make her stand her from the similar coloured background a little more… and I ended up wrecking her! So, more glue and another element was added to cover that up:

After a bit more work and annoyance, it evolved into the above and the theme bacame “house and home”. Sorry about the glary photo.

Anyway I learnt a lot during this frustrating process. Firstly, you really must be patient and wait for paint to dry before doing another wash or colour or it will soon turn to mud. Muddy colours are very annoying. Unless you are going for that look of course.

Another thing to realise is that no matter what happens you can just keep adding layers and if it really sucks, then you could always gesso over the whole thing and start again. I was very tempted to do this a few times but I decided to persevere, if only to learn something from the experience.

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Silk Painting and other things…

Tuesday, June 20, 2006 @ 4:23 pm
Filed under analog artlog, art, collage, tutorial

My baby girl is turning 3 tomorrow and it makes me a bit sad. I am certainly not clucky (3 children is enough, thanks!) but it is sad to walk through the stores and just walk right by the baby clothes and know that I am headed to the big girl section instead. I so love having a daughter. Emma is a gorgeous girl.

Do you remember this? This is a scrapbooking layout I did for a local art store’s competition - well, I was a finalist so I was pretty happy about that:

Recently I had a go at silk painting and decided to make something for Emma’s birthday. I have to mention that I didn’t draw the design, but I did think it would be perfect for a little girl. I framed it and it will hang in her room.

Silk painting is quite easy and fun - you wash and dry a piece of silk, stretch it over a picture frame with drawing pins, use a pencil to draw the design in and then use a tube of gutta to draw the outline. It’s very important to make sure that there are no “holes” in your gutta outline - hold your silk up to a window to check for gaps. Then you use a small paintbrush to add the silk paint and the gutta stops it from flowing beyond the lines. Once it has dried you iron the silk to set it and it’s done!

It’s a really good idea to get a feel for the silk paint on a scrap piece first.

Emma’s impending birthday (tomorrow) featured in my analog artlog entry too. At least now I understand why my own mother still calls me her baby!

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Art La La!

Friday, June 9, 2006 @ 1:11 pm
Filed under analog artlog, art, collage, painting, studio / workroom

I have been working on some arty things when I get some time. Still experimenting and playing - figuring things out. Here are a couple of works in progress:

Both of these I have been working on for quite a while now, doing a bit, stopping, looking at them for a day or so, doing a bit more. They are still not done, but I am enjoying the process.

Here is a shot from above of these and a few more that I am working on:

The only reason there are so many on the go at once is that I kept mixing up too much paint - so I would grab another canvas and slap some paint on. For me at least, this approach isn’t really working. You end up having so much happening that you can’t really think about one piece at a time. Not to mention that they all tend to have the same colours!

Maybe I should put most of them away and bring them out another day, when I have forgotten about them. That way I could focus on just one (or two) and get them finished!
This is the other work table - getting a bit messy! I just love STUFF, but where do I put it all?

Here are my latest entries in my artist journal:

The one above is from the 1st June and this one is from the 5th June:

I have been using up leftover paint by painting backgrounds in my art journal and I love the explosions of colour. Have you started your art journal yet?