"Forest" - Art Elements Theme Challenge

This month's theme at Art Elements was chosen by Susan - Forest. This gives such a broad variety of potential subthemes and inspiration. From the forest general down to the animals, plants and fungi, colors and pattern, maybe up to the feeling of life and decay at the same time. 

My first thought was actually my little urban garden on our balcony. I even have a wild growing corner with fern and a digitalis. 

As tiny as our balcony is, I try to let it be a tiny wee urban jungle! It is also my favorite play to get a coffee, read, paint (or also play silly little games on my phone - just to be truthful ;) ).

I played with my new watercolor sketchbook that I made last month. It really helps to try out different kind of papers because I was surprised. I thought I preferred the wonderful smooth surface but it is actually the medium roughness that works best for my way to paint! 

It creates more organic patterns, lets the water easier flow, hold the wetness better, and won't let the watercolor create harsh drying lines. 

You see, I played with mushrooms (due to the #mayshroom challenge that I used as inspiration). Mushrooms are such weird organisms with wonderful weird shapes!

I also wanted to make more carved stamps to use for print making. I want to go for some more high quality prints on nice paper combined with water color.

This plan is actually already for a long time on my to-do-list but I won't stress myself. I will do them one day since this is an "item" that stayed on my list for a long time now... other ideas can change more easily.

 

I was not able to finish the print blocks.I still need to refine them. But I thought I should show you a test print! I love where both of them are going to.

Since I have a lot of stress at work, I am struggling again a little bit with my routine of creating daily. I know from past experiences that these are the times I need to create more than ever to keep myself calm and sane. It is a wonderful coping mechanism and one that works for me. So I try to change also daily what I do since this helps me more than to repeat one material, technique or theme.

Making monoprints with small commercial plates works wonderful for that. I mostly use three different colors for a print: A light and a dark one plus a bright contrasting color. It is a simple recipe but it works nearly every time. If some contrast is missing, I can always add more.

I made a mix of abstract work combined with some shapes and symbols. All with the theme "Forest". I added with some markers and polychromos marks and highlights. 

And last but not least some urban inspiration that evokes such an organic feeling for me. 

My sister actually uses them now as backgrounds for her computer and phone! (so love that!) 

I am also thinking of printing them to use them as prints themselves or as background.

Please fell free to use them as well if you like.

And now please have a look what everyone else made! Thank you so much for participating! :)

Guests

Alysen

Divya

Evie & Beth

Hope

Louise

Michelle

Sarah

Tammy

AE Team

Caroline

Cathy

Claire (you are here)

Laney

Lesley

Niky

Sue

Fairies - Art Elements theme of the month challenge

This month's theme challenge at Art Elements was "fairies" chosen by Caroline. Even though I had taken time off work, I didn't manage to create a lot. The time was required to simply get back to recharge my batteries. The first days I made nothing. I had a lot of plans but my body just wanted to sleep and do nothing at all. Maybe drink some coffee...

Still, I played with different materials. Most importantly, I started my new water color sketch book! Yay! And I have to tell you, it works like I want it! Water color paper makes it easier. I may play with different brands in the future but probably will go on binding my own sketch books. The coptic binding makes it so easy to have it lay flat and paint in it.

Fairies was a difficult topic for me. Because as much as I enjoy seeing the cute, beautiful or playful interpretations of this theme, it is not me. So taking a deep breath, I thought about the other stories about fairies or the older name fae. If you are into fantasy literature, then you may know that in this world fairies and fae are actually describing different things. Not that it is "right" in the true meaning of these words. Fae is the older one, fairy rather the description that over time became the name itself (yes, oversimplifying here!). But in fantasy literature the name fae is often used for all the fae creatures, the seelie and unseelie court, while fairies is often used to described a certain type.

No, this is not important in general, but it helped me getting my ideas. I am a roleplayer since being a teenager and I also played a lot world of darkness (still doing) including changeling. So I went into the ideas of the unseelie court...

...and went on to the wild hunt. Keep in mind, this is all in my sketch book. There are no perfect paintings but rather ideas and experiments. For my wild hunt I went on to playing with layering to the extreme. There are a lot parts I went overboard (no going back with water colors) but I embrace them because they help me learn.

I also played a little bit with clay and made some new faces (I use the sculpey face mold, I think the most used one worldwide for faces? ;) ).

I had a lot of plans for them, since I wanted to create some earrings with the tiny ones and some beading with the bigger ones (yes, seeing all these gorgeous beaded creations of Art Elements members made me give it another try!)... but... somehow the time was gone. But as soon as I have used them, I will show you the results!

My husband and I managed to at least take a few days off for a small trip. We went to the Scharmützelsee and there we stumbled over this little place. I think it is magical.

Then a few days later back in Leipzig I stumbled over this place. It is not really as green as the one above since it is simply a green corner next to buildings but it made me smile!.

Last but not least I wanted to show you an old project that I still thought was fitting for this month's theme. I so love to use beetle wings in my work and I have made quite a lot of earrings with them. The colours look gorgeous especially in the sunlight.

I hope you enjoyed this month's theme challenge and please have a look at what everyone made!

Guest Artists
Vic
Divya
Alysen
Kathy
Tammy
Kimberly 
Hope 
Alison 
Cat 
Sarah 

Art Elements Team
Jen 
Jenny  
Niky 
Laney 
Claire (you are here)
Cathy 
Marsha

"Magical woods" - Earrings

I made the little polymer clay charm before christmas... before christmas 2013. I went through my own polymer clay bead stash and forced myself to finally use it piece by piece...

They were made with a negative mold I created from a stamp. The whole stamp I used for pendants and christmas tree decorations. The deer and owl are made just using small pieces from the stamp mold. 

...or force myself to part it by giving it away or putting it up in my etsy shop. Either way, beads are not meant to be hidden in the dark, they should get their chance to tell a story and be loved and worn :)

They are long, really, really long but I love wearing long earrings myself. Combined with czech glass beads and copper ear wire. All of the beads are from Rebecca's The Curious Bead Shop. Some are even of one of her monthly bead kits (Curiosity Club). It also just took a long time before I used them ;)

Did I say how long they are? ;)

You may get them here in my etsy shop :)

Critters at the hotel (Jeju island, south corea)

The hotel at Jeju island was really beautiful and also a little bit over the top but in a way that made me smile. The service was perfect, as well as the food and everything else. I don't like to go around an expensive hotel (with a Louis Vitton and similar shops inside) and take pictures. But seeing the critters I just had to! :)

For a boy... for a girl... and one for a friend...

This stamps I made for a friend. He wanted some stamps for his niece and nephew for christmas. For her everything connected to ballet and a princess... and for him all the things connected to farming. So here we go...! 

(the background of the ballet shoes I stamped with textured wall papers!)

Of course a farmhouse...

...and ballett shoes...!

...a dancer...

...and a crown...

...next to a John Deere...

(Yes, this is for the same boy who got this T-shirts!)

You see, the dancer can stay on her tiptoe...

...either with her hand going up or just dancing in a round...

...the stamps for the niece...

...and the ones chared...

...every farmhouse needs a little fence...

...and a tree...!

...and someone has to wake every one up in the morning...

...a tiny tractor stamp...

...all of the stamps can be combined...

...looks nicer with a cloud at the sky...

...a horse is liked by both!

...the measurement is in cm, so you can get an impresson how big (or rather small) the stamps are...

All of them together in one box... 

...yes, some of the stamps are really big ones!

This time my hand for some kind of size measurment ^^

The last stamp I show you was not for one of the kids but a friend if mine. 

You see the surface? This is not an effect I created by controlled carving... but by just cutting over the same space again and again! Love the effect, sometimes the best is not to be too controlled...