Thursday, March 11, 2010

Too Funny

Nothing major to say again today but I did just find something that I found funny so thought I'd share. I was talking on the phone, sitting right here at the computer and as usual doodling away....making doodles over my notes and doodles on doodles. You know how it goes and I've shown what happens to my desk pad. It never lasts long. So there I was doodling with the ink pen and pencil, can't stop doing any faces now thanks to Sharon; and trust me, she teaches better faces than this. LOL!
But I went to walk away from the computer and this face caught my eye again and I thought, hey, that's not a girly that's a guy and who does he look like? Tell me if I'm wrong.....Stephen Tyler with maybe a hint of Mick Jagger (love of my life) thrown in. Too funny but thought I'd give everyone a chuckle. I have his 'groupies' down below. They were there waiting for him to appear!
I know, I better go find something to do......




Monday, March 8, 2010

Sometimes

Sometimes a piece of art meant to be just practice and learning turns out surprisingly well and you dare to show it! Such was the scrap art on the waxed paper. Today I'll show a page from a little sketch book. I did it while watching the Nascar race and then the Award show last night. This started out a few nights ago just sketching some small faces but then I started to add color and play.....ended up playing a bit too much and I just never could pull the whole page together. But staying with showing the Good, the Bad and the Ugly....I'm showing it.
The faces were done in pencil and started out not too bad, then used derwent watercolour pencils to lay down some color. It wasn't going too bad until I got the paper too wet (remember it's a sketchbook; not meant for wet work) and it started to rip apart layers. Then, too, as I continued to lay on color and blend the facial features kept growing. Sheesh! I finally added some ink lines; only of course I didn't pay attention and grabbed the wrong size pen so the first lines were too thick. Switched pens and gave them some hair. Then I was just going to do another line of faces but decided the page needed some background color even if it wasn't meant to be seen, just drawing faces. I got the Twinkling H20 paint and added color to the page. Thought then it looked like sky and clouds.....forgot I was just going to practice faces and added some strips of script.....didn't like the strips but too late because they were glued in place....still forgetting I was going to do more faces, I grabbed a new bird stamp and put birds above the faces and started to give them some color with derwents and markers, added some leaves and then had this thought.....those pretty little birds are going to be pooping on the little heads below! Too late now! I added the napkin border top and bottom, added dots and then the words because it needed something up there and finished with butterfly. I never did get to practice another line of faces. So it goes......next time!!

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Scrap Art

This is getting to be old but again, I still don't have anything good to show you or even talk about. But, I did do a piece of scrap art the other night while watching TV. You know, one of those things where you're watching tv and just reach for whatever scrap is nearest you and start doodling or sketching or something?
In this case, I reached for the Portrait Pastels that were sitting next to me because I thought I'd just play with blending some colors and see how they blended with a wet brush after finger blending. That led me to thinking about something I saw SHARON (All Norah's Art) do on her blog one time. Rather than sketch out a outline for a face, she just laid down some smears of paint where the facial features would be and started painting from there. I grabbed the only thing in front of me, which turned out to be a piece of used waxed paper that I use to protect work from sticking in a book. Anyway, not really giving it any thought I laid down some fleshy color with a pastel for the area of eyes, nose and mouth and from there just played with layers of colors and eventually outlining the face and a neck. I sit next to a heater because my legs and feet get too cold, so for some reason I got the bright idea just to see what would happen if I took that scrap of waxed paper with the colored face on it and put it in front of the heat for a bit? Well, it melts and blends together FAST! Luckily for me, it also cools very fast. Now it had blended away some color so I went back and added more and being just play I started on her hair adding more and more colors and heating now and then to blend. I got to a place where I decided I was rather surprised and thrilled that I actually had a pretty good face. I wanted to scan it because you always see so many more mistakes and good points, even, by scanning and looking at the picture. I was thinking being on waxed paper I probably needed something behind the face so I reached over to my pile and took out a piece of script background paper and now I'm thinking that if it shows through the wax paper it just might be pretty cool.....maybe. While setting a piece of the torn paper to the side, my hand brushed a pkg. of new clear stamps that had just come! So, yup, decided I'd see what the scroll stamp looked like on the top and bottom and at the last minute also tried the bird stamp. I forgot to say that first, I used gel medium to glue the script to the waxed paper and then went over the top with gloss decoupage medium which politely bubbled and buckled! So I let it dry and then turned it over, pressed it down and smoothed it out. It left flattened wrinkles but it could've been worse!
After all the play and what ifs....here is what I ended up with. I sort of wish now that it was done on a good piece of paper or something. Maybe it can be used on a journal page or collage sometime.....maybe not.
I forgot to say that is was all finger blended and until the end and then I got a pen and did some definition.