ATC - "In my dreams"

This little ATC arrived in its new home. I had a hard time to part with it but love the idea that it may inspire someone else (at least I hope so ;)). The background is made with acrylic paint and stamped with some of my handmade craft foam dot stamps. The work really great. Okay, they won't last forever but they are so easy and fast to make and the costs are really low.

The lace was painted with black gesso and then the back was painted with dark red acrylic paint. You see how it comes through. A subtle effect that creates a lot of depth. The face and butterfly are made with polymer clay and some molds, easy and fast and lovely. They are also painted with black gesso for the matte effect. This allowed me to create the clear and glossy teardrop on top.

I really like this little one... makes me smile.

ATC - "Explore more - expect less"

My second ATC for the challenge I was to late for ;) 

The house parts are really simple: I used polymer clay, impressed them with texture cut out the rought shapes, baked and painted them!

I also had to use more of the iridescent acrylic paint from Pebeo ;) I have some house parts left but not sure if I want to use them. Even though I like the result, this is also not me. But I am so into the background, that is definitely me! ;)

Also made with my new tiny dot stamp made from craft foam!

ATC - "I see you"

Paper collage from magazines and printes, combined with stencils and texture paste. She looks more beautiful in person than here on my blog but just let me tell you: I love my little warrior! 

A warrior not because of actual fighting with aggression but rather by not turning around, by not being blind. To be seen and recognized as human beings is often more important than a lot of people realize.

ATC - "Home with you"

As promised yesterday, here is one of my ATC cards for the topic "houses" - not made in time ;)

I like this one but it is not really me. One of the reasons why I enjoy playing with different material and styles so much (also in jewellery). Just to think about it is something quite different from doing it. I know what I'll take from this one with me and also what not! ;)

ATC - "Catch the moment"

The idea of creating artist trading cards (ATC) was started in Life Book 2016, or rather the arrangement of an ATC exchange. No, I am not showing you any of the ATC I'll send across the world since this should be an surprise but one of the many I started creating (also no in any order except they were all done in the last few days ^^).

I want to start with this one because I made it for a blog challenge over at Paper artsy. The topic is fabric. Actually I also made two for the last challenge (houses) but forgot the time so when I wanted to upload them to my blog I realized the deadline was over for... roughly two hours? *sighs*

I'll show you what I made in the next days but I thought rather start with the ATC for the actual challenge since I am really, really good in "forgetting the challenge time". 

I used stitched flowers from an old vest. The back of the vest was a beautifully woven fabric that will end as a pillow in the near future but I started cutting out some of the flowers. I thought they would go well with my little face and indeed they do! The doll face is made from polymer clay. The phrase is actually from a special edition "Tempo" tissues. Just sued matte gel medium to glue it on and cover it and that work surprisingly well!

The background are drawn marks, some acrylic paint and ink and pen...

Formentera - This time some mixed media...

We were for one week in spain... back where I feel at home more than anywhere else: Formentera. I always take something with me and over the years I made a lot of things there. Not too much at a single holiday but always a little bit. 

This time I worked on a collage inspired by the Life Book 2016 lesson "make it shine". I had a magazine that I used to cut out the boy and some backgrounds as well as the trees and started to paint over it, layer for layer...

This is how the table looked like! 

The gold is really glowing and reflecting the light beautifully. Just so damn difficult to catch on camera. Here I tilted the paper a little bit so you can get an idea about how beautiful the effect is!

I worked with a limited colour palette and am surprised how well this worked for me. Of course it could also be that it was due to the place, everything could work for me as long as I do this at Formentera ;)

Life book 2016 - Inspirations to play more with the background... and strange perspectives ;)

I already started to get more layers and more depth into my backgrounds but in this painting I even got one (or more steps) further. The end result is actually strange. I love the extreme contrast and how the red of red riding hoods fabric seem to glow! But I paint while sitting in a low position before a low table. Therefor my view is not straight but in an angle. That actually lead to the effect that the perspective of the trees is really good from this angled viewpoint and a little bit distorted if you look at it directly from the front (like now ;)). 

I think it is funny because a friend of me realized this perspective without knowing how I painted it! So if you can tilt the monitor a little bit, you may see the effect... or I'll try to take some photo trying to capture the effect.

What I take from this one? Use colours, love colours, be bold and bright! There are never ever enough background colour. Never ever forget perspectives (especially) while painting (I also changed the red fabric several times).

And I even took pictures again of the creation process :)

Life book 2016 - Tentacles instead of wings!

This lesson was called "Wings and roots" and I ended up painting tentacles! But since I just love cephalopodoes it had to be some image related to an octopus.

Background and the girl are not so in harmony like I would like them to be, but the tentacles are working beautifully. I love how playful the tentacles are. In the lesson some modelling or texture paste was to be used. I had none available but some sand structure paste. See the three dimensional effect? I think it worked really good for the skin of the octopus!

What I take from this one? Take a picture while the paper is still fixed on the block ;) Use more structural stuff and try to connect background and focal point more. But... in the end I just love her!

So here are more impressions of the details!

  

Life book 2016 - Effects of colours and materials

Sadly my digital camera is not able to catch all the gorgeous and subtle details of the colours, paint, texture and background. I'll look at some services that scan paintings profesionally but they all seem to be expensive *sighs*

But I started to record (sometimes) the creation process. So here we go :)

Since I take the pictures in between under not perfect light conditions, the colours seem to change more than they actually do.