Wonderland

This is one of my newer collages. Just finished it the other day. I really like how this turned out. Once again it was a complete accident.

I knew I was going to use the window and originally I was thinking of a theme along the lines of something deep, such as the window to my soul kinda thing.

I pretty much had this collage done (or so I thought), when I ran across the Alice in Wonderland stickers.

Seeing how the Cheshire Cat matched the decor, I put him at the top of the window. Well I liked what I saw, but he didn't really fit with my theme so I took him off. I was still hunting around for a couple more pieces, but couldn't really find anything.

Just for giggles I stuck Alice on. As soon as I did that, I knew it would be a Wonderland theme. Besides the mushrooms totally matched too. How could I not do it? As a fan of the movie and the story, it just seemed right. In fact the decorating of our house was very much influenced by it. It's sort of Alice in Wonderland, meets Tim Burton, and they go to Disneyland.

After the stickers were in place, I went crazy embellishing. The little square blocks with letters on them spell out "curiouser and curiouser". I have to say, the cat dangling the clock on a string was my husbands idea (he always comes up with good ideas) I wish I could take credit for it .

I can take credit for the window though. It is a picture I took in San Francisco a few weeks ago. I enhanced the color in Photoshop. I have a slight obsession with windows and doors now, so you may start seeing them in more of my art.

In the meantime though I'm working on a disaster. I don't know what's happening, but it just isn't working out. Part of the problem is I don't have the right colors. For some weird unexplainable reason I don't have much of anything with purple in it. And I really like that color! I can't figure it out. Obviously I will have to remedy that problem, but for now, I'm trying to use what I have, and it is giving me a ton of problems.

I think I'll stop for the night, because only time will fix this collage. I did however make a really cool one tonight, that won't be ready for public viewing for another few days (it needs to dry). Plus I still need to finish showing you the last 3 of the six I made that one night. I'm really behind on getting pictures taken and up on the web.

The good news is I now have 2 weeks worth of blog material. I should probably post more frequently huh?

Pretty In Pink

This is collage number 4! It's another 5x7. Image once again from Itkupilli, and scraps of paper from K&Company.

There are going to be at least 6 of these 5x7's as I'm using images from a collage sheet I bought. There are 8 ladies altogether, and I will most likely do them all, but I'm not sure yet.

This one was interesting to do. Like the black and white one I did, I was a little daunted at first with the all pink image. I'm so used to many colors, that this was a bit of a challenge for me.

It was actually fun to do though, and I like how it turned out. It's very "soft". Naturally, this one is titled "Pretty In Pink".

Girls Just Want To Have Fun!

Alright here's the 3rd collage out of the 6 from my very productive art day last week.

This is an 8x10 mixed media collage on canvas. The picture once again is from Itkupilli, and the papers and some stickers are from K&Company. They have the best papers don't they? I know they are for scrap booking, but I find so many cool ones, that I just buy those big books. I love them!

This one is called "Girls Just Want To Have Fun", because for some weird reason the girl reminds me of Cyndi Lauper, and all the bright colors make me think of fun and happy times, so naturally I thought of her song, which in turn reminds me of my childhood, and this collage is very childlike to me. Strange how thoughts go round in your head isn't it?

That's it for now. Right now I'm taking a break from painting to eat dinner. I've got 3 collages finished today, and a fourth one waiting to be finished. Not bad. Those 5x7's go fast though and I made two of those tonight.

Just when I thought I was in a slump too. All this week I've been sort eh about creating anything. It was fine to roam around everyone else's blogs and look at their art, but me? Nah. Didn't feel like it.

So, inspired by a show that's coming up at our local gallery I wandered downstairs and picked up an image I wanted to use in a collage. The next thing I knew I had completed three of them! Love it when that happens!!

Some Like it Hot (This one's for you Tony!!)

This piece is one of the 6 collages I did the other day. Maybe I made enough for the week, because the last two days I haven't been all that inspired. Weird. Tomorrow is my Friday, so hopefully my creative juices will start flowing again on my days off.

Anyway, this piece is inspired by the movie Some Like it Hot. My all time favorite film. I had this image from...can you guess? Yes that's right Itkupilli. It came on one of the collage sheets I purchased. I always loved the photo, but the fact that it was in black in white threw me a bit.

At first I was thinking what the heck can I do with this? Is has no color! Ahhhh... then a light turned on over my head. Let's make it a black and white collage! That will be something different!

In fact I always thought it looked just a bit like Jack Lemmon's character in Some Like it Hot. The face does anyway. :)

I am a HUGE fan of classic Hollywood. All the old films, the actors and actresses, the era, everything! This piece reminds me of that, and the whole time I was making it, thoughts from Some Like it Hot and Tony Curtis's recent illness (did you know he's an artist) were "Running Wild" in my head. So even though there are no actual images from the movie, it was definitely my muse for this collage. Hope you get better soon Tony!!

Joyful!

So yesterday I had a seriously productive day! This doesn't happen often. Believe me. I was lucky enough to be able to spend pretty much the whole day in my studio, and I finished 6 collages!! I have one more that partially done, so that will be a total of 7. Not too shabby.

Before you think I'm some kind of artistic/creative genius (snicker), I must admit that the canvases in question were pretty small. 3 5x7's and 4 8x10's. So it wasn't that hard to finish them. I kind of got on a roll and just kept pumping them out.

It helped that I had a ton of cool images from Itkupilli who does an amazing job manipulating images and then lets people use them! How can I not love that? You'll be seeing her name a lot as I've used her images in almost everything I've done lately. Except for today's picture actually. The image of the dancing lady is from Lisa Kettell who has a very fun blog over here. If you don't already know her, check her out, you could get lost in her magical world.

This painting came about in a funny way. I had the image forever, and never got around to using it. Well one day I finally fooled around with it in photoshop to change some colors and decided I would use it in my next collage.

Well! Those darn colors! Believe it or not, I didn't have the right shades. I tried so many different things to create those colors, mixing paint, pretty papers, beads, etc. Nothing worked. I was so disgusted, that I gessoed over almost the entire collage.

What I created totally grossed me out. I let it sit for a few days, and in the meantime made sure to purchase the correct color paints.

What a difference that muted yellow makes! Man, when I started again, the collage just flew together. I just kept adding piece after piece. All of a sudden so many things went with it, where before I couldn't find anything to complement it.

Long story short, it is now one of my favorite pieces. It reminds me of Christmas! I guess it's the colors. I just really like this one a lot. It sure came a long way from the disgusting mess I made earlier!

Goth Lady

Please excuse the really bad photography. I am not and probably never will claim to be a photographer. I know what button to push to take a picture and how to turn off the flash. That's about it.

Anyhoo, this is my newest. 5x7 mixed media on canvas. Image credit goes once again to Itkupilli

Love her stuff so much! Also the background papers are mostly from K&Company. Love them too!

This one was fun, as it is the tiniest piece I've ever done. I bought a collage sheet from Itkupilli and it had 8 ladies on it and I plan to do a series of these 5x7's with those images.

Since it is so small it sure is quick to make, I think I'll bust out a few today. If I ever get downstairs. I keep lolligagging on everyone else's art blogs, now the afternoon is almost gone, and I've yet to put paint to canvas.

Oh and I'm so excited because I just recieved my shimpment of canvases I ordered online. Yea! It's like Christmas in August. Plus a few days ago I hit up Michael's and Joann Fabrics and they are having huge sales right now and I got even more canvas, paints, and fun papers to use! I can't wait to create.

I better get my butt downstairs.

Que Sera Sera

My latest creation. Yet another mixed media collage on canvas. This one is named Que Sera Sera and is 10x10. I'm slowly working my way towards smaller and smaller surfaces. This is the smallest I've done so far ever! I really do like the smaller sizes right now.

I've named this one Que Sera Sera, because I like the meaning. Whatever will be will be. Something I need to remember on a daily basis, as I have a propensity to worry about unnecessary things. Especially the future.

The girls are images from Itkupulli and I chose them to hopefully convey a fun and carefree attitude. Basically worry free.

The rest is made up of various scraps of paper, stickers (some from K&Company), acrylic paint, buttons, glitter, and colored fibers.

Anne of Cleves

Oy! I spent too much money today. I went to the scrapbook expo, and oh my goodness, did they have loads of good stuff.

Now I don't actually scrapbook, but I do use a lot of the supplies, like paper, stickers, glitter etc. So I still managed to do a fair amount of damage to the 'ol pocketbook.

It was fun though, and I got tons of cool things to use in future collages. I would take a photo of all my loot, but seriously, I couldn't fit it all in one picture, so you'll just have to see in worked into each collage.

Anyhoo, today's painting is a collage based on Anne of Cleves, Henry the Eighth's 4th wife. I'm not sure those are the colors she would have used, but the rest is all her.

In fact the alll the written words are copies of her signature, her motto, and a letter she wrote to Henry agreeing to their divorce. Pretty cool.

I don't know why but I totally took to Anne and Katherine Howard. I guess it's because I feel sorry for them. Well I suppose you could feel sorry for all of Henry's wives, but Katherine and Anne really got to me for some reason.

I did a Katherine Howard collage last year, and I really don't care for it, so I think I'll redo it more in the manner of Anne's.

As you can see, I tried using the same technique as the last one. It didn't come out nearly as involved as the Fear collage, but I still think it's alright. I especially like the beads and glitter I added at the end.

The rest is acrylic paint, heavy gel medium, gesso, beaded medium (for texture), fabric, string and images copied from the internet pertaining to Anne of Cleves.

I put that string gel on it, and for some reason the painting seems to be a bit glare-y. Which bums me out, but in certain lights it's not so bad.

I really like this kind of collage, it's a lot of fun to make a big mess, and see what come of it. Plus it's pretty easy to cover up mistakes! I think I'll be doing a lot more of these. I'm still trying to find my groove, but I'm slowly getting there.

Now tonight I get to play with all my loot!

Face Your Fears

And now for something a little different. This is a collage I did last night. Another happy accident! For a long time, I have been wanting to play around with this kind of collage, but no matter how I tried, the backgrounds always came out "pretty" and not very well blended.

With this one however, I told myself I would concentrate on building up the background with layers and textures, and not worry about "ruining" the picture. This seemed to work well for me, probably because I didnt' even have a picture to ruin! I had no idea what was going to go in the collage, ahead of time. It was a great experience, and pretty soon, I was lost in the process of creating, and amazingly not worrying about messing up. If I didn't like something I just covered it with more paint!

The way I did this was, first I slapped some gesso on the canvas with a palette knife. I didn't spread it everywhere, and left it in big chunks. Then I stamped some images into the gesso, which you can't reallysee now, but I'm cool with that. I drizzled some red paint on, and smeared that around a bit, and then just started adding papers, stamps, tissue, dyed paper towels etc.

I used a lot of the heavy gloss gel and that beaded gel too for more texture. I don't think I used a paint brush at all, except at the end when I spread on the string gel, which is like honey and apparetnly is great for this kind of collage. It brought it all together and glued everything down that might have been sticking up. While the string gel was still wet, I stuck on the thicker embellishments and dumped glitter in some sections.

I wish the picture was better, but after about 20 different attempts this was the best I could get. Obviously it doesn't show the detail real well, and there is a bit of glare. It's not a sunny day today, so the light in the house isn't great. Oh well. You get the idea right?

Overall, i'm pretty happy with the results. In fact I think I'll go try to do another one today!

Dancing Queen

My newest collage on canvas, which I actually gave to my grandmother today for her birthday. This one is done in the same manner as the last one I made, and I'm really liking the whole sketch the subject on paper and then pasting it on canvas thing better.

I actually had a really tough time with this one as opposed to the last one which was done quite by accident. I guess I was expecting the same thing to happen, and boy it sure didn't!

The collage backgrounds are mostly fabric, some decorative papers and stickers from K & C company, the crown is a generic google image, and the "queen" is drawn by me, and painted in acrylic paint. The face is colored pencil and pen, which is probably why it doesn't really show up well, but in case you are wondering, yes, it is colored!

Anyhoo, after all that hard work, I'm actually gonna miss her. I sure hope she likes her new home!

I wonder if all artists feel this way after giving away their artwork?

Betty Buttons

Well, here is my latest collage. I did this one last night, totally by accident. It's true, I wasn't planning to do art at all last night, as I was overstuffed and lazy from a gigantic burrito I had for dinner. All I felt capable of doing was sitting around and checking out everyone else's art blogs.

Somehow around 11 pm I happened to waddle downstairs to the studio, purely for the exercise of course, and within seconds I started fooling with a drawing I had made, and before I knew it, I had made this collage! I love it when happy accidents like that happen.

As you can see I have tried a different technique. It's not perfected yet, and now I wonder if I should have blended the background better. I keep trying to master the layering/blending background technique but so far I haven't figured it out. I think this is the closest I have come. The problem is if I were to blend the background better, it wouldn't be as colorful, and we all know how much I like my color. Oh well, I'll get around to trying it someday. If I'm brave enough.

So like I said, I used different techniques. For this painting, I did an acrylic wash of teal all over the canvas. Once that was dry, I started gluing random scraps of paper, magazine cutouts, ribbons etc. everywhere. For the first time ever I didn't think about what the images were! I didn't try to make them fit into any theme, I just grabbed and glued. Though, I did try to find scraps with my color theme, but that was it. It was so much fun!

Then when I thought there was enough junk on the page, I added the drawing of the girl, which I had already sketched and cut out. This is new. It never ever occurred to me before, to draw the subject on another piece of paper, cut them out and paste on top of the background.

I always would paint the subject and then piece the background pieces around it. It never really worked out the way I wanted and always looked choppy. Pasting the picture of the girl on later, was a much better idea.

I have to say I stole that idea from a few other artists, who I noticed did the same thing. It was like a light bulb went off above my head. I should try this! And I did, and I really like how it worked out. I'll definitely be doing this more in the future.

After she was pasted and painted, I dabbed a little lime green paint around (my attempt at blending), sewed on embellishments and viola! Betty Buttons (husband named her)- not to be confused with belly buttons which is what I keep seeing every time I look at the title,- was born!