Posts mit dem Label bookbinding werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen
Posts mit dem Label bookbinding werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen

Donnerstag, 31. Oktober 2019

"Eyes" - Art Elements Theme Challenge



This month's theme at the Art Elements theme challenge was chosen by Laney - Eyes. A wonderful topic and one I sadly was not able to explore as much as I would have loved to. There are several work in progress projects and maybe some of them will also be finished some day (yes, I still haveUFOs that are several years old ;) ).


What I love about the monthly theme challenge, is that it gives me ideas for my blog posts at Art Elements (and hopefully may serve as inspiration for you as well). 


This time I updated one of my old tutorials to create these tiny wee eyeball earrings! They always make me smile, especially mounted on the skull card. 


Although it is not directly fitting to the theme, I also wanted to give you an update about my new ceramic palettes and upcycled/repurposed water color palettes. 


Although not a perfect fit, I managed to put the two smaller test pieces in an old tin I had available (I love old tins!). In some of the small wells I put some water color as well.


The make-up palettes worked better than I thought! Yes, the lid won't open fully so you can't use it as palette but on the other hand it is so small and light weight and allows me to bring way to many colors with me ;)


Even my glued in dividers to create more wells in the lowest row (the are for the make-up brush) worked really good.


I think the plastic itself will be stained over time but nothing that worries be too much. Oh, and I added some Beatles Moeskin sticker on top! Just... because...


The ceramic palette with the larger wells was the only one that had some crackling with the glaze. I didn't notice while using water colors, but I also used some acrylic ink with it and it stained the crackles (being acrylic, maybe it also sealed them as well ;) ). 


A reference picture with my hand so you get an idea about the size.


And the gorgeous tin from the outside! Honestly, all of it worked way better than I thought and I regularly now used it as home as well while sitting on the couch and painting. I got a lot more tins from a friend (she know me, found them on a flea-marked and got them all for me!) and I will try to create some ceramic palettes that fit them. My plan is to finish them before christmas.


Back to the theme... Here are some of my sketches. Playing around with color combinations and styles, not all worked but that is what a sketchbook is for.



And this colorful one is my favorite!


Also an eyeball creature... the people who played pen and paper with me, know these creatures ;)


And my unfinished projects... I painted some eyeball cabochons (some also with glow in the dark paint). The plan is to combine them with polymer clay and create a book cover with a lot of eyes looking at you.


I also remembered that I carved eye stamps during the Luna moth challenge some months ago...


The upper two are still some of my favorite stamps ever.


I played with them on book covers but there still needs to be a lot of marks added to the covers as well as some metallic accents here and there. Also a project that would be nice to be finished before christmas (this year's one).


Thank you for joining us on this month's theme challenge! Laney, I loved your theme even though I was not as productive as I hoped too! But I will finish some of the UFOs! :)

And please have a look at all the other participants!

Art Elements Team
Susan  
Marsha  
Claire  (you are here)
Jenny  

Guests
Dawn  
Hope  
Kathy  
Tammy    
Cat  
 

Dienstag, 30. April 2019

"Repurposing" - Art Elements Theme Challenge



This month's theme over at Art Elements was "Repurposing". Lesley chose this wonderful theme that was (should have been) perfect for me! I love to use anything I can find simply because I like the shape, the color, the texture... or the weirdness.


This is a picture of my work table... and this is nearly the clean and orderly state since you can see some wood of the table! But in a lot of the small vessels and dishes are found objects and other strange pieces that I love to use for my work. Repurposing is a big part of a lot of my creations.


I had a lot of ideas and plans... nope... didn't manage most of them. But I did finish my tin can book! I showed how I made the book covers in my blog post for this month (here). 


I painted a little bit more on the edges (and will go on with this, my sketch books are ever eveolving things) and chose my favorite red thread for the binding. I love the contrast!


This will be a wonderful sturdy tine wee book.


I went for a selection of different water color papers. I got a lot from different companies to try them out.

Since the pages are often quite thick, even cardboard like, I had to use a single page binding stitch.


It really took some time to find a stitch that worked for me. I watched a lot of tutorial videos, I have some books on bookbinding... in the end I played so long until I had my own way for stitching single pages.


Just for today, I even played a little bit!

 

The first row is still uneven, I was in the "figure it out" phase but I love how the other rows look.


And I made a second new sketch book with single page binding. At first I thought... mh... not fitting the theme... but then I remembered that I always use the leftover cardboard for my book covers. I don't think of it as repurposing although it is. I simply use what is available.


I finally used one of my favorite monoprints ever! I try not be a hoarder... but it is hard!


Again, the first row is a little bit uneven, maybe I have to fix the book better doing the first row.

 

In this bigger one I enforced the ends with washi tape. Since I used three different kinds of paper I also used the washi tape to color code them.


Since I am doing monoprints, most commercial papers lost their appeal.


By the way... the company already color coded the pages! I just didn't see that.


This was of stitching allows the book to lay completely flat when open. But of course it is also more flexible in all directions. If you don't like that in a sketch book, then I would not recommend this kind of stitching.


I need to make more monoprints like this!


 I also had some lose water color papers that I used for testing. I keep them as reference.


Can you see the different thickness?


Aaaaaand a lot of them!


So I went through my paper stash and repurposed some packaging cardboard for the back to make a little cover.


The papers are not fixed, I a not sure whether I want to bind them or not.


The outside... 


As a last point I wanted to show you my latest tools I use for monoprinting. Because in the end monoprinting is the perfect repurposing method! ;) A package piece that creates wonderful lines, two trash plastic pieces that from the lab, and another package piece I cut down to have this wonderful eight figure.


This was a wonderful challenge even though I didn't manage the projects I had planned. But so is life and the project will be done at some time. I know myself.

Thank you for joining us and please have a look what everyone made!

Donnerstag, 28. Februar 2019

"Birds of prey" - Art Element Theme Challenge



This month's theme was chosen by Cathy - "Birds of prey". I already knew it would be a stressful  month and I still struggled with my lung, but I took the chance to at least sketch, paint, and experiment with styles a little bit. 


I love how both of this sketches turned out although they are so diffeent in style! I will definitely play more with that. 


Also I try to incorporate more bold color contrast quite often. I am not drawn to realistic images but rather to expressionistic ones. Still, I have to work on both before I will get close to what I would love to express ;)


Not all turned out well... but I will show you all here!


And I don't enjoy repetitious work like feathers from wings. Nope.


I get messy with it and I don't like that... but at least I gave it a try and I know that I don't enjoy it. I don't want to spend too much time with that... but before you can get lose, you have to know how it is build up... and I don't want to!


But I so love the face of this one! You see the difference if I enjoy painting a part? I pay attention to the details, shadows and form... NOT true for wings. Ugh.


All of my coptic stitch sketch books really hold up wonderfully to a lot of "abuse".


Nature is sometimes just weird. But I love it!


I also mixed water color and goauche quite a lot.


...as well water soluble pen and a water brush with diluted white gouache I made myself, it creates wonderful effects!


To the left whit gouache with a water soluble black pen and on the left only water colors.


I love her! With the pink eyes and the mix of details and lose colors! This is the direction I want to go to more.


By the way: The best water color sketch book I have used until now is really the handmade one with high quality water color paper. I use the back ides for mixed media and the right side only for water color. If you are struggling with water color sketch books, I really can recommend binding your own one. Saves a lot of nerves!


Thank you for joining us for this month's theme challenge and please have a look at everyone's creations! :)

Guests:

Team Members: 

Claire (you are here)

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails