Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Testing Facebook Feed

testing facebook feed to new facebook.

Daily Mixed Media Project Days 1 thru 4

I am posting days 1-4 together since I am finished with those layers. I will add links to some online places where you can buy the supplies I used, but PLEASE check your locally owned art store in your city first - ours here in Des Moines,IA recently closed and I MISS IT!!!!  If I could I would open one over in the East Village where many artists reside and work, but sadly not an option for me - but someone should.
I end up buying alot of my stuff at our local Michaels with the 40% off coupon and whenever I go visit my sister in Madison,Wi  I drop a few dollars at the Artist and Craftsman Supply store - they have pretty fantastic prices.
So far I like it and am MAYBE forming an idea in my head for the focal image. Comments, questions and suggestions are welcomed and appreciated.

Day 1
I am just using a bi piece of poster board, since this is kind of an experiment and I do not have any big canvases. First thing I did was I put on a couple coats of Golden White Gesso -love that brand of gesso!  Next I decided to kind of do a purple gradient from right to left. I started with some Liquitex heavy body acrylic in Brilliant Purple and mixed in some Golden Regular Gel Matte medium, white craft paint and Golden Acrylic Glazing Medium in Satin finish. As I created darker shade I reduced the white and eventually added in some acrylic paint Neopaque by Jacquard in Violet. For the most part I was happy with the blending except from   the first to second shade, but decided to embrace the imperfections ...haha.



Day 2

I wanted to add some script as a  layer so I used my Speedball  pen and nib with Bombay black India ink and wrote some words pertaining to family and love and some hearts.


Day 3
Now to cover it all up! I toned down the purple and script by using some watered down white craft paint. Then I had some bubble wrap that has big bubbles and I put some white paint on that and pounced it in random places.

Day 4
Time to add color back in. I used FW Pearlescent Inks in Sundown Magenta and Waterfall Green with a stencil I had created using Make the Cut Software and my Cricut Expression. I make most of my stencils this way rather than buying them. I do own a few Crafter's Workshop stencils in designs that are more intricate than my Cricut can cut neatly or that I can't do in MTC, but I enjoy designing my own. 





I am thinking that today will be more stenciling in different pattern and colors or maybe some stamping in black. Decisions, decisions...

 Thanks for checking it out!



Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Daily Mixed Media Project

I have not been blogging and am going to remedy that and get my self into the habit of posting more often and showing my work. I decided the best way for me to get in the habit was to start a project and post my progress everyday. So begins the Daily Mixed Media Project.....
My idea is that I will start a large scale project and post my progress and pictures everyday. My thought is that this piece of art will have many layers and take around 10-14 days to finish by adding maybe 1-2 layers or elements a day, I have no idea what the finished project will be at this point. I plan to get up each day, cruise around the internet for some inspiration( I would also welcome any ideas my followers have!) then once inspired add on to my project.
Here is a list of just some of the mediums I have available to use:

  • gesso
  • Absorbant Ground
  • acrylic paint - fluid and heavy body
  • molding paste
  • masks, templates and stencils
  • fabric
  • patterened paper
  • rubber stamps
  • alpha stickers
  • Winsor Newton Drawing Inks
  • India Ink
  • rub ons
  • tissue paper
 I in no way consider myself a professional artist and have NO art schooling at all, this is all just my own thing - which will probably be obvious to any professional - but that's OK - I LOVE IT! I have never been good at following the "rules", I just like to get my hands in there and get messy, doing whatever comes into my head or my heart and out through my fingers. 
I have the first 4 days completed  before I posted this because I was not sure I was going to do it because I am a chicken. In my next post I will show you what I did the first 4 days.