Flower painting

I started the background on this painting over a month ago.  I didn't care too much for the coloring so I set it aside.  Yesterday, I painted over the background several times and finally got a color I liked.  As I did in the previous post, I traced a black and white picture of a flower from a Dover clip art book, and adhered it to the substrate (wood).   After painting the flower and adding embellishments of paint, stickers, and tape, I sat it aside to dry for a few hours.  I then covered it with the leveling gel and got the result I wanted with no puckering of the paper.  This photo was taken before the gel, because it is hard to photograph with the gel because of the glare.  I'm happy with the result.

Weekend work

Hope your weekend was fun and artful.  I took a short class on Copic markers on Saturday.  The class was fun, and informative.  I haven't used Copics in the past, so it will be fun to add another medium to my art.  I did another painting, in between cleaning/reorganizing my sewing room. The canvas is 11x14, very large for me, but I wanted to get out of my comfort zone.

The birds were done by tracing them from black and white enlarged images from a Dover clip art book.  Once traced, I adhered them to the painted canvas, and then painted them using acrylic paints.  I added more collage pieces and once dry covered the piece with Goldens' self leveling gel.  You may not be able to see it from the photo, but some of the collaged papers buckled under the leveling gel....UGH!  Perhaps next time I will wait a day or so after adding collage pieces to make sure the piece is totally dry before adding the leveling gel.  I really prefer a wood surface to canvas, and will use that surface next, hoping to avoid the buckling.  BTW the piece was painted with Goldens' Violet Magenta, but the photo makes it appear reddish.

Another painting

It has been raining a lot here in Maryland for the past few days...UGH!  Well since I might melt if I go outside...lol  I spent yesterday working on this painting.  I was talking to a friend last week about how daunting a blank canvas is and we both agreed that it is best to just lay down a color on all of them and come back to them when more inspiration comes.  My plan to to do just that, but I decided to try another collage instead.  It was such fun, that I started another one this morning.  Here is yesterdays' piece and hopefully I will have something to share tomorrow.  My not happen since it is warm and sunny here today, and I am getting out of here to enjoy the first nice day in almost a week.  Hope your day is bright and sunny as well.

New Collages

I have been working on two collage paintings, one on wood and one on canvas.  I dind't start the paintings at the same time, so I was surprised to see that I had used the same color both times.  They both are a bit darker than I usually paint, but I think they came out fairly well.  These two paintings are a result of the Complex Collage class offered by Julie Pritchard and Chris Cozen on Lost Luggage Network.

Beautiful surprise from wonderful neighbors

A lot of people believe in karma, and I guess I am one of them.  While checking out of my local AC Moore yesterday, a woman in line behind me wanted to know where I got my AC Moore coupon.  I told her that it had been in the Sunday paper.  I told her that if I didn't use it (turns out all of my items were on sale) I would give it to her.  When I gave it to her she was very appreciative and said something good was going to happen to me for being so kind to her.  I smiled and said that would be nice.  Well later in the evening, our door bell rang and it was the sweet young girl from next door holding a hand full of beautiful Peonies.  She was beaming and said they were from her garden and she wanted to share some with us.  I told her she had made my day, and they were sooo beautiful!  I wanted to share the loveliness with you as well!

Zentangle Coasters

If your art stash is anything like mine, you have things you have purchased and forgot that you have.   Or worse still you have items that you have lost interest in until you have an Aha moment.  The Stampbord coasters were a"find" while I was doing some spring cleaning.  Stampbord is a great surface for Tangles!  I did a set of four coasters and I also have a Stampbord box for them.  I posted the box top several weeks ago, but held off on sharing the coasters because there were a few uh oh moments.  Once the Tangles were completed, I sprayed them with a fixative.  My error on one of them was not giving it time to dry before picking it up, thus the smear on the bottom left.  Then I decided I wanted to color them with Stampbord ink.  I tried the ink on the one that was already a bit messed up, and didn't like the color so much, so I decided to stick with the originals.