A Little Side Project...

Welcome to day 5 of Blogtoberfest!

I am going to take a small detour at this point and leverage the owl painting I did yesterday into another small collage. I liked the way that extra canvas turned out, so I will collage an owl to finish it.

Here, I have reduced the original drawing down to 75%, a size that fits my 8" X 10" background, and have it  on my clipboard, along with some graphite transfer paper and a piece of watercolor paper. Since I plan to paint and collage, I need something heavy to work on. Next I trace the owl onto the watercolor paper. Now, I only need the most basic outlines here, this is to be more of a pattern than a painting. Eye and beak placement, just a suggestion of the branch and the feathers, especially, as they are the pattern I will follow for cutting the scrapbook papers.

Here I have blocked in some color, no detail yet, and started piecing in the feathers. I won't collage the entire owl, just the feathers, eyes and possibly the beak. I am using colors that blend nicely with the background I made yesterday, so this is not an attempt at a realistic representation!

I have errands to run today, so I will have to leave this project for a bit. Pop by in the days to come for further step by step progress on this and my larger painting...

Until next time...enjoy!

Layered Background Canvases...

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am working on another 50 blocks for the Art-o-mat Project . Somewhere about block 29, I realized I was going to need a larger variety of backgrounds to work with. I really don't like the idea of sending in 50, or even 10 exact same pieces of art. So this week , besides harvesting more veggies from the garden, battling a swarm of hornets at the cabin and cleaning out yet another rental, I decided to focus on background canvases. The plan is to scan these into my computer and assemble collages digitally, using my own art work and some elements from my collection of purchased royalty free clipart. I kept the colors compatible with the MDF blocks that I already painted, and am pleased with the diversity.

  Deciding it would be more convenient to keep the originals small, for purposes of resizing, I dove into my stash of 5" x 7" canvas panels. These are very economical, and make a sturdy piece that is flat enough to scan beautifully on my flatbed scanner. I could have also used the 4" x 6" panels. The 4" x 4" are nice, but being square, I end up cutting off much of the fun detail in order to get them to the finished size of 2 1/8" x 3 1/4" required to fit the blocks. I also made a couple of the backgrounds on heavy watercolor paper, and even though they curled just a bit, they still scan just fine.

I watched the movie Clash of the Titans this week, and that got me reading my Greek Mythology again. I had the idea for a larger canvas, featuring the Greek Goddess, Athena. After all, she was in charge of not only wisdom, but also creativity, art and handcrafts. Here is my initial sketch, which will eventually be transferred to a layered canvas and painted. The sketch will change drastically, but you got to start somewhere, right?

The theme for Every Inchie Monday is "wind", and I found it a difficult challenge. I mean, how do you paint something you cannot see? Then I realized that, though you don't see the wind, you do see it's effect on objects. Since the wind singing through the trees is on my list of favorite things, that is what I painted.

Until next time...enjoy!

Garden Inchie for EIM...

Happy Spring!

Yes, I know, it is a bit too early for that, but the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and my cats are shedding, so...

Today I decided to get back to doing Every Inchie Monday. This week's theme is "Garden". I have let it slide for a few weeks now, but needed a break from my other tiny art that I am working on for the Art-0-mat project. Since I am currently trying to learn my way around Photoshop and Gimp, which are both digital editing programs, I thought it might be fun to try my inchie digitally. Above are the results, a hand painted background, and a graphic that was scanned and duplicated. I love the results, and this project was fairly simple to create. However, as I prepared to submit it to the group, I realized that they may not allow digital art, I mean really, the challenge is making such tiny art, and isn't it cheating to use the computer? I wasn't sure, so I sat down again and made another, in the more traditional cut and paste method...

I think both turned out cute, though the second one doesn't scan very clearly, because of the brad in the center of the flower. I will wait to hear back from the group, regarding digital art. Now I must get back to work, I am about 2/3 way through the required 50 pieces of art. I am getting faster as I go, and streamlining some of the process, but it is still hard work. I guess the garden clean-up will have to wait for the next sunny day. Until next time...enjoy.

Gadabout Artist: Home Again!

After a rather uneventful three day trip, we are finally home, safe and sound. The last few days have been all about emptying out the motor home, getting paper work together for taxes, and just generally trying to catch up on everything, and with everyone. The kitties seem to have fared well, they either missed me or not, cats are so sphinx-like, it's hard to tell. I haven't spent a whole lot of time in my studio yet, except to unload all my art supplies. The place is a bit of a mess, but I did stop long enough to make a birthday card for mom-in-love...

My main focus, now that we are home, will be to finish putting together my submissions for the Art-o-mat project. I am still trying to learn how to better leverage my art, but haven't had as much time as I would like to learn more about digital art, so I am using a bit of both new tech and old. Here is a raven I painted, and scanned into my computer...

I then reduced the size, printed it out and cut and added it into my finished piece...

The words at the bottom read... "Tempus edax rerum"...meaning; "Time devours all things"...which is a somewhat  theatrical way of saying time marches on...

I will start posting some of the works I made during my travels. Until then, enjoy...

Learning to Leverage my Art...

I first heard this phrase while watching an art tutorial video online, in which the artist was explaining how you can get more mileage out of your art work.As I understand the meaning, after creating a piece of art, on canvas, paper or even cardboard, you can then scan, copy or photograph that work, and print it out. This gives you an unending supply of your own original work, to tear, crumple, paint, tint, layer and paste to your hearts content. I find the concept intriguing. I decided to give it a try;

This piece will eventually become a background image for some of the tiny art I am currently working on for the Art-o-mat project. I have been learning my way around Pinterest, and got caught up in some posts using paint chips as art components, so this influence has made an appearance here.

 I am also just finishing up Traci Bautistas Doodles Unleashed Strathmore Online Workshop, so the colors and the free style are also making themselves known. What I didn't realize while working on this one, is how much it was also influenced by my current location, out in the Arizona desert. Mr. How2 took one look and said he loved my cactus picture! I never even noticed, but it does rather resemble a desert garden, doesn't it?
I guess you could say my mind is a bit like a crowded attic, the last thing dumped in there, is the first thing you see when you open it up!

Back to leveraging your art; I also came across this video, and the concept really started to come together for me while I watched it, thank you to the artist Zorana!
 When I get back to civilization, and can plug into an actual outlet, instead of a cactus, I will scan these backgrounds into my computer. From that point, I can print them out in pieces, in their entirety, in different colorways or intensities, and use them in a variety of ways. I wouldn't want to overuse the same art, but I can certainly do much more with it than just one painting. I am currently working on a full page of faces, and another of birds and flowers to use with these to create mixed media collage art.
So go ahead and look at your art again, but look in a different way. You may find a whole new world of art in there! Until next time, enjoy...