Deco Page Swap

I have signed up to take part in a deco page swap on the Scrapbook Sisters Forum. Where you create a 6"x6" page on a theme decided by the person you swap with. It is easy to sign up and join in, just join the forum, decide on a theme for your deco page and then look for someone who is free to swap. The idea is that we will each build up a book of deco pages from each person who signs up, swapping with everyone eventually!

My theme is bewitched - anything that your imagination sees as being 'bewitched'.......

My first swap was with Julie and her theme of 'Trees' (and their inhabitants). I decided to include some hand drawing / painting and I think this is something that I want to run through all the pages I do. I chose to do a tree frog using a variety of techniques including using Gesso, paper tearing and layering, acrylic paint, Glossy Accents, leaf punches, UTEE in the melt pot, and a charm from Tim Holtz.

I hope you like the end result, I would love to hear what you think.....

I eagerly await my first return from Julie on my theme of Bewitched. I have now managed to get Mazza to sign up and have a go too, so my next swap is to create a page on her theme of 'Love Ya!' Watch this space....

Comic?

The theme over at TMTA this week is comic - this has always been an area of art which I find very difficult to translate to paper. Having been taught how to draw accurately, it then becomes hard to simplify and turn an image into a 'cartoony' style. So I thought this would be a great opportunity to put pencil to paper and produce my own comic image, I went for a cat character rather than a human figure. I drew the outline in pencil, then added colour with paint, finishing by chalking the edges of the ATC to darken it down. Hope you like my little alter ego side-kick!

Fantasy.....

Is this weeks theme for Gothic Arches. I love all things mystical, magical and with an element of fantasy. I covered a plain card arch with one of the papers from the Once Upon A Time range, then I hit a mental block! It took me a while to figure out which way I wanted to take the rest of the arch and finally settled on hand drawing and painting a fairy figure and adding wings by stamping onto acetate and attaching with glossy accents so they are raised off the surface. This arch also fits the theme for CBH this week of Believe, I stamped believe down the side using midnight blue Stazon, as fairies are something you definitely need to believe in to see them.....

Pink and Brown Silhouette

I have chosen to combine the Gothic Arches theme of pink and brown with Weds Stamper's silhouette. I hand painted the pink background and dark brown silhouette of legs with a fantastic pair of heels! I completed by stamping the wording and swirl border and chalked all edges.

Fruit...

is a great thing to eat to stay healthy! And it is the challenge over at MMM today. I have chosen to share some fruit studies I did using watercolour pain, fineline pen and builders scrim. The top one is a section of a slice of orange and the bottom tomatoes on a vine.

Playing With Paint...

Is one of my favourite mediums, and as an Art teacher I get to play regularly!! For This Thurs I have chosen to share two different paintings I did a while ago. The first is a watercolour of some flowers using colour wash techniques for the background and then the flowers in detail on top.

Details of the flowers:

This second painting is done in fabric paint, layering it quite thickly and painting to show texture and mark making techniques.

Hand Drawn Elements...

I love to add my own twist to my work, and often that includes drawing or painting within my pieces. I can get quite frustrated that there are no stamps or other images out there that show what I have in my head, so I resort to drawing it for myself instead. For Arty Girlz I have chosen to share a Canvas Art piece I created a while ago at a CROP held by Scrapbook Sisters, I drew and painted the backround in acrylic paints, using an abstract pattern in creams and browns and then painted Hugo, on top. Once dry I then added the two photos and some flower embellishments.

Right, its off to get ready for school tomorrow and then to bed. It has been a long week so far, really doesn't seem like it was the half term hols only last week. Our school has its open evening this Thurs, for the Year 6's to come look around and decide if they want to come to our establishment. So it has meant a few late nights and long days at school, in for 7.30-8am and leaving at 8.30ish at night, then to get home plan lessons and have a bit of down time before it all starts again!! Hope you are all having a good week.

Dark....

This is my entry for Octobers challenge at UK Art Raffle. The theme was open to interpretation, I kind of struggled with this one as I have recently done a lot of work on the theme of halloween, which lends itself nicely to the theme, and wanted to do something different. In the end I chose to produce a mixed media piece depicting a dark force being released from a book of magic:

The background was painted with crackle paint and acrylics, with the book then being collaged on top. I covered the image with some tattered angels spray and walnut ink to darken it down a bit more. I created embellishments for the top in acetate, stamping and embossing on it and then distorting it with heat. I also added a few dark butterflies and finished with some hand written words. I am not altogether sure I like this one, maybe becasue I have looked at it for so long. Let me know what you think......

Good luck to all who entered, waiting for the postie this week and keeping an eye out for the new challenge.

Numbers

Creating with numbers I can do quite happily, but apply numbers to maths - that's another matter entirely!! I had a maths cover lesson to do this week - fractions of all things! That made me stretch my memory to help the students with the work that had been left for them. Anyway I would much rather be creating work out of numbers instead, and for the Arty Girlz challenge this week I chose to take inspiration from one of my favourite artists - Jasper Johns, and created this mixed media piece.

I began with a shocking pink piece of card, drew my numbers on so they all overlapped and were differing sizes, I then painted them with acrylics. Once dry I added pen on top, stamped the clocks and added a few gems too.

Can you find all the numbers 0-9?

Pumpkins

Well school has only just started and already people are thinking of the next 'holiday' to celebrate. Halloween. Having rummaged through all my art and craft materials and media, I have come to the conclusion that I need to invest in more halloween themed things - papers, stamps, etc. So for this weeks Make a Moo or Two I resorted to producing some hand made Moo's.

I drew the images freehand in black pen and then added colour using Twinkling H2O's. I finished the edges with a copper leaf Krylon pen. I had some difficulty photographing them due to the use of the Twinkling H2O's, when the flash went off the images got lost in all the sparkle!!! This is the best result I got. Hope you like them.

I would also like to say a big Thank You to the team of Inspirational, who have showcased some of my work on their site. Take a look, there are some beautiful pieces of work from many people highlighted there. Thank You Inspirational!

The Lady of Shalott

By Tennyson - a long, but interesting poem, and one which has been the source of many paintings, in particular by one of my favourite art movements - The Pre-Raphaelites. This is my mixed media piece interpretation.

The background is made by dragging a distress ink across the card and spritzing with water to make the ink spread, I then layered old pages froma book on top and stamped some branches and twisted leaf shapes. I then painted the Lady of Shalott and the prow of her boat.
While waiting for the paint to dry I punched out the leaves and wrote the title and a section of the poem on card, distressed these with chalk eye and cut them out ready to layer on top of the painting once dry.

And all created in the space of an hour - only just though! for my One Powerful Hour of the week.

Birds of a Feather

Phew..... It has been a while since I had the time to just sit and paint, so I enjoyed the challenge of producing something within an hour. One Powerful Hour set the theme of Birds - to make something on that theme within the space of an hour and I painted this picture using acrylic paint.

This is a section of the painting. I painted using brushes, pallette knives, rubber tipped shapers and of course my fingers!