Backgrounds

In my last blog post I showed you the sketches I did for Christy Tomlinson's She Art 3 Workshop. Today I'm going to show you the backgrounds I created, another assignment. I only created three backgrounds, but I hope to find the time to create a few more.

This one is a 8 x 10 canvas that I covered in paint using a brush after I had glued down some papers. I'm not super happy with it and think I will still change something. I like the white accents though.

Another canvas, this one is 6 x 6. Before covering it with paint I glued down some tissue paper that I had stamped some time ago. I used a paper towel to get the paint on the canvas, and then used a stencil and bubble wrap as well as some stamps for the accents.

This is a 11 x 14 canvas board and by far my favorite. I like the color scheme, the little dots that I sprayed on, also the torn book pages and the running ink on the right side. I used an old credit card to distribute the paint.

I love to create backgrounds, but sometimes I find myself at a loss, when I think I'm always repeating my favorite techniques or color combinations etc. Christy used a color combination of yellow, blue and green in one of her videos, and I want to try that.

Friday - I'm linking to Paint Party Friday and also JRU studio. If you want to see the work of so many wonderfully talented artists, hop on over and enjoy the ride!

And tonight - I'm going to unplug for National Unplug Day. I'll be either back tomorrow evening or Sunday. Enjoy the weekend, everybody!

Sketches

Last week I started a new online class, the She Art Workshop No. 3 with Christy Tomlinson. I did a few of Christy's online classes including She Art No. 1 and 2. So far I have liked all of her classes and I have always learned something new. She Art No. 3 doesn't seem to make an exception.

For this first week, one of the assignments was to sketch different girls and women - from images we found on the Internet or in a catalog etc. I first was very reluctant to do this, because I am not good at sketching from images, but after I did get started I actually liked it.

I chose a catalog from one of my favorite clothing companies, the Swedish Gudrun Sjöden. I had written about her fabulous clothes and her even more fabulous catalogs here. I knew I would find some special models among these pages and I wasn't disappointed. However, my girls and women turned out quite different from the images in the catalog.

There is the lady with the hat...

... the one with the umbrella and another one with a big scarf and winter coat....

... the two women who were looking at each other - darn, I think sketching a face from the side is really difficult. The one on the right wasn't looking that mad, honestly!

Do you see the model on the right in the image on top in my sketch below on the right? Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily say that I'm talented.

However, the more sketches I worked on the more confident I grew, and that is good. I guess as the class goes on we'll probably have to turn at least one of these sketches into a mixed media painting... At the moment I am creating backgrounds. More on that later.

Are you taking any online classes in the art department?

The Creative Fruit of Black Friday

Okay, I'm not a big shopper. Crowds in malls make me scream and run. Long lines at the checkout can sometimes be interesting if there are nice people around you can talk to, however, most of the time it's just a drag. So it comes as no surprise that I comfortably spent Black Friday at home with my family. The Geek was doing his college homework, Kaefer created with clay and I made Christmas ornaments.

I found the paper mache stars at Michaels - with a huge sticker on the back that would hardly come off, why the heck do they do crap like this? -, gessoed them, covered them in sheet music (Händel's flute sonatas), put a thin glaze on top of that and then painted the girl angels. I'm learning to paint faces (via Christy Tomlinson's "The She Art Workshop No. 2") and tried it out here after I had practiced on paper. Hm, not quite sure about it. I think the girls all got their very own characteristic faces, but they are far from perfect.

See those eyes? I had a hard time painting them, and you can clearly see that they aren't good. Same here with the braid-girl:

However, despite their imperfections I grew fond of these girl angels. This one is my favorite:

whereas Kaefer favors this one:

She said she likes the bun.

I was thinking of selling some of them in my Etsy shop, but I am very uncertain because of their obvious imperfections. What do you think?

Linking to Art Every Day Month.

WOYWW 104 - The Anniversary

Hello WOYWWers, so this is it! The long awaited and anticipated second anniversary of  WOYWW, What's on your workdesk Wednesday, hosted every week by the lovely Julia over at Stamping Ground. Yes, indeed, this has been going on for two years now and there are quite a lot of creative people who have joined in, and every Wednesday promises a fun journey around the globe.

I'm working on my art journal again. Recently I've been turning to it again and again for a very simple reason - I'm currently taking Christy Tomlinson's "She Had Three Hearts" art journal class, and just like her "The She Art Workshop" did, this class inspires me a lot. Whenever I watch Christy's really good and fun videos I feel my fingers itching, ready to mess around in my art journal. For a pretty long time I was a bit stuck, but now I am full of ideas. It feels darn good.

If you're interested how last Wednesday's art journal page turned out, just click here.

So - my PiF is ready to get mailed to the next participant on the list whose name has a * - I really love this idea and I enjoyed creating my PiF with WOYWW on my mind. Happy special WOYWW everybody!

Girlfriends

It's Kaefer's birthday on Easter, and a day later she will have four of her girlfriends over - so convenient that there is no school this Monday (one of those darn furlough days the State of California has ordered for the current school year). It will be a pretty low key "party" - there will be a scavenger hunter, cake and just time for the girls to hang out and do whatever they like. A good start for the teenage years!

There won't be "goodie bags" or anything like that, but the girls each will get a "girl tag" as a party favor to take home. I've tried to represent each girl in her tag by the color of her shirt and her hair. I liked painting their hair the best, and I mainly used Golden fluid acrylics for that. And of course, those of you who are regular visitors to my blog certainly recognize some She Art here!

And since it's Friday, I'm linking this to Paint Party Friday and Sneak Peek Friday. These are all wonderful artists, and you can find some amazing art work on their blogs. Go and take a peek!
.

The Girl in the Garden

Yesterday, I finished Girl #3 that I attempted as a result of the She Art Workshop - you know, that wonderful online class I rambled about all the time. I've finally finished watching all the videos and just love to play around - I have several ideas for different girls in my mind and I hope I get over my lazyness and create a little bit more. Well, I just need to kick my butt and keep all the other things out of my mind.

This is my "Girl in the Garden" who turned out a little bit different than I had imagined. Some accidents happened that I worked around, and I still don't know how she got a nose - I didn't put it there! I can't draw noses, but somehow this perky little thing suddenly appeared in the middle of her face. Perhaps I tipped the pen or had paint on my fingers - whatever, it's there, and I like it. It makes her way younger though than I intended her to be which is just fine.

Yesterday I also started a 5x5 canvas for a friend and I'm quite surprised that I'm already done. Perhaps I'm getting more confident in what I'm doing. My difficulty is to get started - after that I can work myself "into the zone" very quickly when drying times become a real challenge for my impatience...

The butterfly didn't quite turn out the way I wanted it to be, but in the end I'm okay with it. Glimmer Mist might not have been my best choice here, however, I like the color and how it blends in.

As it is Friday, I'm linking this to Paint Party Friday and Sneak Peek Friday which this week is on the (in)courage site, as well as to Creative Every Day. There are many more brilliant artists to visit.


.

WOYWW 93 - Another Girl

Hello WOYWWers, thank you so much to all of you who visited my desk last week and left those super nice comments on my first Girl. You are such a sweet crowd! This really is the encouragement that I completely appreciate and each one of you really made my day!

Today I just finished my second Girl - she also is a result of the wonderful She Art Workshop with Christy Tomlinson. This time we added a scene to the background, and I totally loved it. This is already the last week of the class, I'm really sad that it will be over so soon. The good thing though is that the classroom is open for another two and a half months - until the end of May. This is exciting.

If any of you think about taking this class, I can highly recommend it. Registration for the next class is open, and all the information about it you can find here.

Now go and hop over to all those other desks - you can find a list at the lovely Julia's blog.

The Second Girl - WIP

I'm late this week for Sneak Peek Friday over at JRU Studio. All morning I was reading and trying to get more information about the enormous earthquake and devastating tsunami in Japan. Living in earthquake country myself, every earthquake hits home with me. Christchurch in New Zealand only a short time ago, and now Honshu. My heart goes out to the people in Japan, my thoughts are with them.

Therefore, I went to my blog only half-hearted and then decided to leave it all together. In the afternoon, my husband's company had an Open House for the families of the employees, there were tours and demonstrations about the products they are developing. Interesting enough, they talked about GPS that have the ability to measure along fault lines that can trigger earthquakes like the San Andreas fault. I wish there was a device that could give us an early enough warning of earthquakes, more than just a few seconds (although, if you get a signal for example through a special tone on your cell phone, 10 seconds would be enough to dug under a desk - an early warning system, by the way, that is already practised in Japan and unique in the world).

Compared to this disaster, my efforts of creating some art appear meaningless and small. I was struggling all day whether I should even blog about it and then decided to do it, against all odds.

This is my second girl I'm creating as a result of the She Art Workshop by Christy Tomlinson that I am currently taking and that gives me so much joy (you can find my first girl here). As you can see, this is a work in progress, the girl is not even glued down. I enjoyed making the background on a 10x10 canvas and getting my hands dirty again. I think what I really like about this work is how my hands are getting into the paint, how messy they get, it's downright dirty and incredible satisfactory. Honestly, I feel like a child who got permission to play in the mud to her heart's desire. I used some stamps (the houses, tree and flower heads) because I'm not good at drawing/painting (which would be the right word?), paper and acrylic paints. Next I'll work on the girl; I wonder how she will turn out in the end. I'm a slow worker, I really enjoy the process.

Actually - I'm really glad I blogged about this. Somehow I feel better now. Thank you for your patience.