Japanese cherry tree – Crusade no.43

Hello to all! I have to apologize for not attending in crusade no. 42, but I am still in here. This time with Crusade no. 43 I had a vision of a black and white text as a background and a branch of a Japanese cherry tree in the front. So I did, as a scientist, I had old Nature journals and I cut out several text pieces of different font. I clued these to my new art journal that I bonded just yesterday (see below), then I took a tea-bag to give these pages even “old” background.

Finally, the Japanese cherry tree was painted, in my own way 🙂

Well, I am quite happy with it – I didn’t even dare to look what others have done 🙂 I will do that as soon as I post mine.

As I mentioned, yesterday I had time to bind my Art Journal, finally!

Then I made one notebook to carry on with me in my handbag – so I can write/sketch down whenever something comes to my head:

And finally one baby-album that was ordered from me.

I have had a very productive weekend 🙂

GRIDS of the SUMMER of 2010

Firstly, I wish to thank all of you for visiting my blog and for leaving so many kind comments of my work. Mixed media art is quite new to me and to receive positive feedback is very important and inspiring. Thank you!

CRUSADE No. 41 ~ Grid Lock – When the theme of that crusade was announced I knew exactly what I will do…. It did not go like planned….

Last month we moved from Norway (where we lived a little more than a year) back to Estonia that meant lots of packing and overtaking mess. There wasn’t much time for art-projects and on top of that I forgot all my materials (except the box with paints and stamps) home when we traveled  to the other side of Estonia to my parent’s country-house.

Therefor the original ideas for my grids changed. The theme of these grids is the summer of 2010.

Both grids have watercolor bases – one reminding the sun and the sand while the other one is inspired of the blue-blue sky and the sea. Size of the  holes of the grids is 3 x 3 cm.

First one is an overview of our summer and therefor it is not finished as I’m planning to add some notes of the top events of this summer. It has the colors and images that gives that special feeling of the summer.

Second one contains the images of smells, senses, memories and necessary compounds of the summer. It is  weaved in a way I used to do last time in the kindergarten.

Three days ago we went for a car-trip (I was driving after 12 years) and … :

Sääre lighthouse – it found a place in my grid.

And I found an interesting photo:

– we are growing… 🙂

Midnight art

Since my last post I have been restless – haven’t had a chance or “right” feeling to paint. I also need to finish my next Haapsalu shawl, which will be black this time and this means it is kind of depressing :).

However, yesterday when I went to bed early (23.45) I noticed those pictures from my last post. I took those together with white pencil, silver and cold pens (Uniball Signo and Scneider 271) that were just on the cupboard and went to bed. Then I started to doodle with white pencil to the backsides of my big and small art-sheets (also covered with black gesso). First I did the smaller one. There where two higher areas next to each other (from the action of tearing this peace from the old wine-box) and I felt there are two options – to draw fence-posts … or to draw bugs. Well, I chose a bug and then it kind of happened that next to it  appeared a face of a man.

Then I took the backside of the bigger page (paper bag actually, as you can see when you look closer) and my hand draw a plant. It is so fun to let your hand to move on the paper the way it wants to go.

So, there they were: a man and a bug on one and a plant on another sheet. Then I found my silver and cold pens … and so it went – silver plant and golden man & bug… my midnight art…

I’ll include these to the  CRUSADE No. 40 ~ Step on the Scale.

It is (not) all about the size

Yesterday I happened to read iHanna’s blog (that is absolutely something that I recommend to everyone) where she described how it is to paint on a brown paper….  Just a day ago I found one paper bag from the pile of junk-mail and now, inspired by Hanna I decided to try it out. In addition I had some old wine boxes that I cut smaller. First I painted these with black gesso and then I let my hand to decide what to do …. First, the smaller (9.5×7.5cm) one was made. I used white pencil, white Uniball Signo pen, white gesso and pink acrylic paint.

Then I started to follow my hand on a gesso-covered paper bag (cut in half (19.5×14.5cm) so the other half will be used next time) and quite similar painting came out. This time in addition to the white pen and pink color, rubber stamp, blue and satin green acrylic paints were used with dry brush.

Now I found out that this process fits with the  Step on the Scale project that Hanna described in her blog post.  My pages will start my very first art journal that I hope to go on with now. Definitely I will try to follow the next GPP Street Team Crusades… will see how it goes with my two active kids plus one who is active in my growing belly …

Mixed media art

One night last autumn I sketched to my journal a head of a girl, composition that just came from nowhere, but it felt right…  Now, with my new paints I decided to use the same composition and use collage. I painted the sheet of that journal with white gesso to make it stronger (that journal is obviously not meant for paintings). Sketched the image, teared some peaces from junk-mail- magazines for hears and angel wing… then started to paint.  Here is how it came out:

The sheet is still quite wavy… but I like it anyway 🙂

Black and white

In Estonian internet craft community Isetegija there was a project “Black and white” where you had to use whatever technique you like as long it is black and white – no other colors were allowed.

As black has been my favorite color for a long time and white has also followed it, then I decided to join that project. I had a plan to do a journal for my shawls that would include photos of these and all calculations and descriptions of all calculations and materials. It happened, that I wasn’t able to do the journal on time, so I made one white felted box with black hand-stitched ornament:

Still, I needed the journal and so I finished that one too. Used 2.5 mm cardboard for covers that I painted with black gesso except the area for gel transfer that was painted white. I did the image transfer using printed photo of the pattern of my last shawl, then used some rubber-stamps and used coptic binding with white waxed thread. So, here it is:

First attempts

I have been restless, for some time now…  I feel, that I want to paint, but being kind of perfectionist, I don’t know where to start and if I would be any good in this…

Last year I have discovered mixed media art that involves collage. I have made one collage years ago when I finished high school. I made one A3- sized painting that included photos of each classmate as a present for our teacher.  It came out ok, but as I had only one day to do that then it was far from perfect. However, it is still hanging on my teachers’ wall so the mission was completed :-).

One week ago, after visiting my doctor and cafeteria with my 3-year old daughter, we went to the hobby shop and since I sold my first shawl, I had money to buy acrylic paints, rubber stamps, ink pads, small canvases etc. to start experimenting with mixed media techniques.

My first attempt was made with acrylic gel medium to transfer one magazine image – an image of giraffe. It was fun. First I covered the canvas with white gesso and then painted with green satin acrylic paint. Image transfer was easier then I thought, although it came out, that green underground was not the best choice, however I played with it and the final result is here:

It is quite childish, I admit, but I think I will make a journal cover of it for one of my children (which means I need to do another similar painting for my other child 🙂 )