What I did this week-end

DLP - Week 44

So here we are at week 44 of the Documented Life Project, and I am still participating and uploading my efforts into the Gallery on the website, where they often pale into insignificance against other participants efforts (http://www.art5academy.com/gallery). There are some very creative people participating in this project.

We have just done five, yes five, weeks of translucent papers for the month of October.  I had to improvise in a couple of challenges as I was not sure of what was meant by deli paper and I had no glassine. Luckily the last challenge was "Tea bags, Dryer sheets, Fibrous papers" and I have plenty of tea bags - having saved some unused, very out of date tea bags to use for dyeing at some stage.

So I steeped one tea bag in hot water, emptied several others and added them to the pot to colour up - which they did nicely. Once dried, I carefully pulled them apart so they were ready to apply to my page.

Here is the page I started with:

It was made using up leftover Paynes Grey and just dabbing the make-up sponge onto the page. I also added some alphabet stamps to use excess ink, from the same project (see Dream BIG below).

To this page, I glued  my tea bags and selected three Distress stains which I sprayed on the page. Again, AS USUAL,  the red is too strong for my tastes but I  stayed with it because that was my original choice.

Here is the page after spraying over the tea bags:

As you can see the first spray with mustard in the bottom R/H corner is very tentative, but they get stronger with the red and stronger again with the peacock.

From here, I covered the page lightly with gesso, found some paint to match the stains and used the make-up sponge again to stamp square shapes on the page. I wrote this week's DLP prompt "Just Create", added some stencil elements, and called it done.

Not my best effort, but it has several layers and the colours look much, much brighter in real life.

Dream BIG

The other page I completed this week is in the journal where I use up any leftover paint or mediums. It had some brightly coloured geometric stencils on the page which I covered up with two different paper napkins, I put a pink wash over the napkins and outlined the edges in green. I added a fern-like stencil using olive green distress stain, but it didn't show up very well - BUT when I turned the stencil over to press the excess stain onto the facing page, I got a great effect.

So I redid the stencil in Paynes Grey (hence the start of my page above), and added a rubber stamp of the Paris skyline to go with the top napkin. A couple of tissue paper butterflies, some pen work around the edge, and letter stamps to say "Dream BIG" finish off this page.







































As you can see, the reverse of the stencil looks great and I will use this page in a journal  in the future. All together a very successful weekend for me. I am happy with what I produced.

It is hard sometimes to get inspiration or even motivation to keep creating. That was one of my goals this year, and I am very pleased that I am still going with the DLP and still creating something each week ... and sometimes more that one something each week!

It is very satisfying to have achieved at least one of my goals this year.

Making more Art

I am still trying to catch up in the 2015 Documented Life Project. I have completed two challenges this week and thought I would blog about the one I did this morning.

The challenge was PHOTO TRANSFER and we were given various methods to use from four artists plus we got a link to an article from "Cloth Paper Scissors" magazine about lots of other methods. I chose a method based on what I had to hand - an inkjet printer, normal copy paper and gel medium. EXCEPT that I forgot to re-read the instructions before I started.

The consequence of this was that I left the print on the page for a bit too long and had trouble getting the paper off. I started with a photo taken in Tasmania in 2011 which I thought had potential as one I could extend onto the page. The procedure is to put gel medium on the page where the photo is to go, place the photo face down, burnish the back and peel off after a minute. Well I peeled off after about 3-4 minutes with lots of white paper, but it did rub off especially when I used a baby wipe. I just had to be gentle about it!

The original photo is on the left and on the right is what I got after the transfer. Not too bad, but with a couple of holes in the middle.

I find that the gel medium acts as a resist to such things as coloured pencils and markers, so decided to use my chalk pastels. They have a nice range of green and brown colours which I needed and I quite like the hands-on experience of rubbing colour into the page.

The art work is a bit amateurish, but I enjoyed the process and am learning along the way - and that is the reason that I joined the Documented Life Project in the first place.

Trying to find my artistic style

For some time now, I have felt the need to get back to making art - art for arts sake, that is. I have always done crafty type things - embroidery, knitting, sewing, scrapbooking - but I stopped doing art (drawing & painting) when I finished school & started work.

My first job was in the city which entailed an hour's travel on public transport to get there and then another hour to get home at the end of the day. Suddenly I had my own money and spent it on fashion and other things. I went out with friends and enjoyed myself. I bought a car, got a job closer to home, moved out of home into a flat, moved back home, changed jobs, went overseas, changed jobs again, went overseas again, bought my first house in my forties, made a garden, moved house, took redundancy, retrained and at sixty found a new job in my chosen field.

So all of sudden, I'm settled in a great job, really close to home, living in a secure friendly environment, looking towards retirement in 5-10 years, but I'm restless - why? I need a crafty/arty outlet for my spare time and start trawling the net. First stop, Zentangle (see my previous post) where I discover a whole community doing some amazing art, and although I enjoy tangling it is not really where I want to stay. But the thing about websites is that one always leads to another and another ...

I found Frieda Oxenham whose site I look at every day  and get my daily fix of flowers, quilts, art, dogs, etc. Through her, I found the ladies at Art to the 5th with their Documented Life Project  where I can get a weekly prompt to make some art and inspiration from the artists taking part. I found Donna Downey with her videos and her artist gang where a weekly video offers inspiration. Of course, I found loads more that I check often to get inspiration, but I joined the 2015 Documented Life Project and took the step to actually making art instead of just looking at how to make art.

From the very start of the Project I became aware that I had little knowledge of technique - despite six years of art at secondary school. So just as well that the DLP 2015 weekly challenges give you the opportunity to explore different mediums & techniques while documenting various aspects of life. Now more than half way through the Project, I think I have finally hit upon a style that I am happy with and can use over and over.

I used this technique in my scrapbooks a couple of times - where I cropped a photo and then extended it using free-hand drawing. In this case, some ugly weeds in the photo are replaced by branches extending out over the water.

By pure luck because I used a magazine cover as the basis for a DLP challenge, I have found a style which I can use for lots of artwork. The photo is stuck to the page and colour is added to extend the photo across the page. This challenge was to use cheesecloth and as soon as I saw the magazine, I saw that I could use the cheesecloth as a net laying next to the boat. 

And here is another challenge using the same technique. This time I used two photos from my  trip through South Australia in 2011 to see Lake Eyre. The gel medium I used to glue the photos down took away some of the ink when I swiped it around the edges. I really like that grungy look.

How happy am I? Really happy that I have a technique to use that can be altered to suit lots of the DLP challenges. Happy that when I run out of inspiration, I have a tried and tested format to use. Happy that I am building confidence in my artistic ability. And really happy that confidence means I will try new things and other ways to express myself on the page.

The only thing I'm not happy about - there's not enough time left over after work, cooking and housework to get more art done!

http://friedaquilter.blogspot.com.au
http://www.art5academy.com
http://donnadowney.typepad.com/simply_me/2015/07/art-1.html