Mardi Gras!

Time to celebrate Mardi Gras. 

Although I made this piece back in January, it was meant for today, so I will re-publish it now. 

Let the good times roll!

Journal52, Jan 2

Today, I finished two pages for inclusion in my art journal for 2014.

You may see more of my work on my Flickr Page:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bertnparker/sets/72157639280560284/

Funky Parrot Painting

This funky parrot painting was inspired by a mola that I received as a gift.  I needed a simple design for a class I am taking and, since I'm tired of painting flowers, this fit the bill quite nicely.

The painting is done with Twinkling H2Os, sometimes called Twinks.  These are a watercolor paint which is full of simmer and glimmer from the mica ground into the pigment.  The :paper: is Yupo, a plastic that looks like paper but is made from recycled soft drink bottles.  It is very different to work with, and can pose challenges and provide great fun at the same time. 

Although it doesn't show well in this snapshot, the background is a mottled pink.  The design was first drawn with a squeeze bottle full of Pouring Medium, using a very fine tip.  Then you essentially paint inside the lines.  The plan was to use India ink inside and outside the lines, but my pouring was too thick and the ink looked absurd.  I removed it and repainted the area where the ink had been applied (one of the benefits of Yupo...).  You can see the clear, shiny lines of the pouring medium.  I think if I did this technique again, I would first color the medium black, so that I could have black lines and a stained glass look without the inking and wide white spaces. 

Funky Parrot

Art Every Day

Okay. I keep hearing about events like December Dailies and Art Every Day in November and I always hear about them halfway through the month. Too late to start or participate.

SO>>>>> I am going to start my own challenge, to begin on January 1st 2014. Do part or all of one piece of art -- a post card, a tag, a painting, a scrapbook page, a CQ block section, a quilt square, a placemat, a poem. haiku -- whatever, EVERY DAY in January. And post it on your blog,  Send me the link to your blog and I will add it on mine. I guess that is sort of a doable New Year's resolution. Not a diet, not exercise, no broken promises to myself. 

Every.  Day.  Yep. A big challenge. I will win this fight with ADD.

Two things, then:

1. What shall I call this challenge? Any ideas? Maybe ADD - Art in Daily Doses ... CLOD - Create Little Objects Daily ...

2. Is anyone else willing to take on this challenge?

Steampunk Book #2 - Front

Steampunk Book #2 - Front, a photo by VTpicturesPPP on Flickr.

Here is a second Steampunk book, this one uses modeling/molding paste on a paper mache book base. Three layers of acrylic paint, finger-painted on,  make it look like real wood. See more on my Flickr page.

Steampunk Book #1 - Front

Steampunk Book #1 - Front, a photo by VTpicturesPPP on Flickr.

I had a great time making this Steampunk book, starting with a blank wooden book box. Both front and back, as well as the spine, are decorated.  There is a hidden drawer at the book's spine. Visit my Flickr page for other views.

Rainy Days

We've had a wet summer here this year.  So many days have had stormy weather that I've lost count.  The rain on my studio window inspired this little watercolor painting, now a card.

A Few New Pieces

I've had very little time in the studio this week, but I've managed to do a few cards and sketches.

My friend, Nina, got a shipment of inks from Dick Blick, so we got together to do some creative stuff with them.  We both worked on a scrap of paper, and at the end of the day, it was quite a mess.  But a mess with some potential....

Nina had painted large blocks of copper in two areas to test the opacity/sheerness, and we had both used a calligraphy pen to test the inks.  But I liked the scrap of paper and after she left, I played a bit more with it.  I added some trees with watercolors and tried out some new Old World Oak Gall Ink I'd gotten from John Neal Booksellers.  That made some fairly credible rocks, so I turned the biggest of the copper block areas into a not-very-realistic, but fun, spirit bear walking down the rocky slope.  I actually think the bear looks a bit more like an elephant (note the ink dribble by his muzzle/trunk), but what the heck --  elephants don't live on rocky slopes with birch trees.  A few blotches of green served as leaves and here is the result:

From Nina and my ink testing experiments on a scrap of paper.

 Another day, I was looking out the studio window and saw a clump of birch trees half-buried in snow.  I am so tired of winter, that I decided to make a bit of spring.  So...out came the tags, my brushes, some watercolors, and this was the result:

Wishing for spring.

I was working with some Silks Acrylic glazes one day, and decided to stop wasting the beautiful paint that was left on my brush when I changed colors.  I got out a piece of 90# watercolor paper and started cleaning my brush off on it.  I liked the result, so when I was all done painting, I had a big enough piece of "cleaner" paper to make these two postcards.  I know I will be doing this again!

Cleaned my paintbrush on watercolor paper...now it's a postcard.

This is the other half of the watercolor paper...another card from just cleaning my brush.  Silks Acrylics are so much fun to use.

I'm always finding ways to make postcards (yes, I mail a lot of them) and if I can use pieces that didn't work out as planned, I'm even happier.  I was working on a watercolor background for my March Calendar Journal pages and it was darker than I wanted, so I put it aside.  Then, I decided it would be good as postcards if I added more paint.  Layers later, these postcards were the final product.

I got some fantastic new stencils from Joggles, and used one of them, with a couple of colors of Lumiere paints, to liven up this leftover hand-dyed scrap of fabric.  Naturally, it is another postcard!

 


And, last but not least, I have a new book that is great fun.  It is called "Drawing and Painting Imaginary Animals: A Mixed-Media Workshop with Carla Sonheim" and today I tried my first drawing from the book.  I dropped some yellow liquid watercolor onto paper and when it was dry, dropped some blue-green on top of it.  After both were dry, they seemed to suggest bird shapes so I gave it a try.  It was fun!  And totally silly!  

 I really wish I had more studio time.  But then, don't we all?

Dabbling with Color

Sometimes, I don't feel particularly energetic and enjoy colorizing rubber stamped images.  Here are a few of the ones I've done recently:

Watercolor background with rubber stamp which is then colorized.

Embossed a rubber stamp, then added watercolor.

Intricate stamp, used Inktense Pencils then water.

An autumn-themed  rubber stamp with watercolor.

This bamboo with birds was fun.

Another intricate rubber stamp and the Inktense pencils with water.

I love this little bird stamp.

Of course, I love to fiddle with paper almost as much as scraps, so here are a few paper and paint creations:

Watercolor on Suminagashi

Watercolor on hand-made paper

Watercolor and acrylic

Playing with Manilla Tags

Manilla tags are a wonderfully fun surface for painting, stamping, and making art.

I've been experimenting with many techniques on tags, and here are a few results.  In this first set,
I played with marbling a few manilla tags:

And dabbled in all sorts of media.  Here are a few more:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have assembled all of these tags onto a book ring.  It is a fun mini-album.

A Quiet Week is Such Fun

When things are quiet around here, I have time to work on projects.  But sometimes it is a long time between the last time I painted/stitched/dyed/doodled and the next time.  To "limber up" my hands, I always do some practice projects first.  This week, I've had some quiet time and I have spent some time doing watercolors.

First, here is the cover I made for my journal.  I prefer a larger format for my journal, so the cover measures 9 x 12 inches.   Since I actually started the journal last fall, I did the cover in autumn colors with drifts of rubber-stamped maple leaves floating across a watercolored rusty palette.

Next up, a more spring-like page.  A pair of watercolor plants in early spring greens, graced by a paper butterfly.

I went back and finished the painting of the stargazer lilies that I posted for Easter, added the ombre band of pink on the right, and the hand-lettered name.

I did this batch of watercolor postcards all in one afternoon.  First, a whimsical splash of colors to celebrate my GD discovering that she likes watercolors.

Next, a watercolor abstract map.

Then, whimsy took over, and I doodled this card, which simply started as a rubber-stamped hydrangea blossom on a twig.

More whimsey and rubber-stamped work, bits of writing, a few circular stains, and some blobs of pale green gesso.

While I had the gesso out, I did this grove of birch trees.

After that afternoon of drawing and painting, I'd better get back to work while it stays quiet.