B is for.......

BALLERINA. Yes I have just finished another page for my ABC art Journal/Altered Book. Am I allowed to say I am very very pleased with this one? Because I was so intrigued with the Lynn Perella 'painterly' technique I was challenged to use on the altered jigsaw swap, I decided to have a go with this journal page. I thought I would keep it pretty simple and have just repeated the same gorgeous image (from Itkupilly!!) with layers of acrylic, a bit of crayon, gel medium, gesso....

The thing is, I am basically a very simple soul at heart, and when I started off I had a lovely turquoisy blue painted page, which I stamped over in grey versamark to knock the colour back a bit and add a bit of texture. Then I placed the ballerinas etc and was actually quite happy with that - it was pretty!! Took me a week to start adding layers over the top. I am not sure what it is about my psyche but I am always reluctant to trash (OK alter) a lovely image. It seems kind of presumptious, an assertion that what you do with it might be better. Or maybe just different? I have to talk about this kind of stuff to those of you out in the ether as someone might understand what I mean, nobody here does lol. The point I am trying to make is that I find it very, very hard to do - but I'm glad I did, it's kind of liberating. There was a point about halfway through when I hated it, but after a while it all becomes rather interesting.......

Have I bored you enough now? The only bit I am not entirely happy with is the lettering, I was going for a kind of printing block style but didn't really think that one through, limited by the things I've got to use.....and it probably isn't really radical enough for a true Lynn Perella style. Still the nice thing about these pages is that I can always go back and add another layer (or two!!) if inspiration strikes. But for now, this will do.
The next letter is Z. Now whatever will I do for that?......

GIVEAWAY WINNER!!

Oh dear, think I am losing the plot, completely forgot to do the giveaway!! Anyhow, the random generator thingy picked no 2, which is Belinda so my little smiley tin will be wending it's way to Tasmania i the next few days. Now, how to wrap THIS up?

Back to vintage....

for this week's swap at Artful Ideas. The challenge was set by Maureen and was to create an ATC using an image transfer onto fabric, the theme was vintage ladies. Well, how could I resist.

I had intended to try out a new technique but in the end stayed with my usual - inkjet printer image, acrylic gel medium, water, forefinger and patience. I made a few whilst I was at it (moving from one to another stops me going too far and ruining them) but realised after some of the images were too big for atcs they will keep for another project. Did a bit of stitching but am a bit limited because my bobbin winder is broken and just can't be bothered to do it by hand and white thread is all I've got!! One of the images I used was from last Friday's ACF challenge, so will be able to post an entry on there too which I haven't managed for a long time.

More puzzles......

Phew, feel pretty good today as I finished the rest of the pieces for the puzzle swap. I really didn't want that hanging over to the end of the month as I know time is going to speed up in the rush towards Christmas very, very soon!!

This first pair had a theme of 'funky fish'. The fish on the left have been made using angelina fibres. Kinda worked, my fish stamp isn't the best for that technique, but gave me some nice shiny fish and I couldn't resist adding the googly eyes!! I did a very rough coating of embossing powder over both of them to give a watery effect.

The next theme was sparkly numbers. So, used all sorts of paints, holographic embossing powders and lots of gold and bling - hope they are OK!! We have 'Perfect 10' and '42', my favourite number.

The final theme for this swap was 'painterly, lots of layers, Lyn Perella style'. I have a book by Lynn Perella but still had to do a bit of research to try and pin down the style - I'm not sure I've got it quite right but I actually like the end result. I found it quite hard to do at this size, might try this 'style' out with a larger piece, can't really do much dripping and paint flinging on a puzzle piece.


AND FINALLY..... managed to doanother page for my art journal - Summer for the letter S. Had a real problem with this as I started the page and did some textural technique with gesso some weeks ago, and couldn't remember what exactly I had intended to do. However we got there in the end, not a bad piece but I feel this would have been better as a single page with everything closer together. Still, gave me the opportunity to practice my writing and... in the ever ongoing search for the perfect black marker.... I used a CD writer on this one. Worked really well, even my sharpies tend to give up after a couple of words over my layers of paint and inks. Not the finest tip in the world though but still pretty good, I shall have to look out for another one.



Bye for now!!

Today I have been mostly making Zetti.....

Before my little op I signed up for an altered puzzle piece swap and now I can see a lot better better I thought I'd crack on with them. In all there are 12 pieces to alter - 6 of them in zetti style - what was I thinking lol?



I love the look of Zetti, but it takes me well out of my comfort zone. I am never exactly sure what I am doing, but comfort myself with the fact that probably nobody else really does either as it kind of defies description. As I haven't done much real art for weeks (I have been sticking and gluing christmas cards but I don't think that really counts) I did a warm up exercise just filling in a piece of paper with text and colour. I used part of it as a background to the piece on the left. It's a bit busy, but I think it works.



In contrast this second pair have fairly plain backgrounds - couldn't decide if I should doodle a bit on the 'be yourself' one, but I'm not really a very confident doodler so decided aginst it as I didn't want to end up doing it again.



This third set was themed as zetti birds - again, bottled it a bit on the backgrounds but I quite like them. Hopefully all the other pieces will be a riot and these fairly staid ones will balance it out!! In any event, it's great to be getting messy again and for my new craft room to actually look like it's being used. It has been so tidy the last couple of weeks I thought that the extra space was turning me into a tidy crafter - well, that didn't last lol!!

The remaining 6 for this swap are not quite finished - may post them tomorrow if they get done today. So I'm back folks, sorry for the break in communication, and hope to get around to blog hopping again very soon.

November giveaway - SMILE!!

Had a little bit of a fright last week (nothing to do with Halloween!!) as I had to have emergency laser treatment for a retinal tear. Consequently, with one thing and another, have not really been in the mood for art or to finish what I had planned for this month. However I don't want to let the giveaways lapse so I am uploading an older piece, an altered tuna tin.



So you know the drill, leave a comment on this post if you want to take part. I will do the draw on 26th November at 8.00pm.

Just a quick post.....

on this wet and miserable Sunday morning. Sounds like a good excuse for staying in my craft room to me.

Anyhoo, just needed to post my entry for Tuesday Taggers, which this week asked us to use bursts of colour on our work. This ATC was quite simple to make, I just painted a cream card with the brightest colours in my box and after they had dried found a couple of 'starburst' type stamps (I think one is supposed to be a snowflake!) and clear heat embossed them over the coloured background. Covered with black paint and when dry removed the embossed bits with an iron to reveal the colours.I also distressed the rest of the black a bit with an emery board to reduce the constrast which was very stark. I have to admit my first attempt did not work that well, but it is a very quick and easy technique - the only thing that takes time is the drying!!



There is also sponsorship this week from the Craft Barn with a prize so join in, there's still time.

Wow, that rain is really driving against the windows, think I'm staying put lol.