"Gnomes" - Art Elements Theme Challenge

Okay, I have to admit this was one of the more difficult themes for me. Although gorgeous illustrated children's book with wonderful tales on gnome life are a joy to look at and make me smile (Jenny, who chose the theme, shared some) - it never tempted me to create some of my own. It like with a lot of other topics. I can create cute images but they are not "me".

However, it is called challenge and so I challenged myself by starting with some sketches. Trying to find one I would like to use as base for a painting. It didn't work and I stopped working on the theme for a long time. Sure, there were other reasons for this as well, especially changing from the lab to home office.

But then I went back to Jenny's inspirational books and thought of the landscapes and houses. So here is just a picture I had to take with an old tiny dog miniature toy...

...and then I used the Easter egg I made for my Art Elements blog post yesterday and used it to create a tiny landscape as well.

The houses are simply added with polymer clay, I had some organic dried stuff lying around (my stash is enough to occupy several people for a.... very long.... time ;) ), and then I painted everything after baking.

Thank you for joining us and please have a look at everyone's creation! :)

AE team:
Marsha
Cathy
Jen
Jenny
Lesley
Claire (you are here)
Niky

Guests: 
Tammy. 
Linda
Hope
Cat
Sarajo

"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)

Cathy 

Jenny  

Niky  Jennifer

Laney

Guests

Dawn  

Hope  

Beth & Evie  

Kathy  

Michelle 

Tammy    

Cat  

Elaine

 

"Foliage" - Art Elements Theme Challenge

This month Caroline chose such a wonderful theme - "Foliage". I was surprised that I actually managed to get quite a lot done because we also were on holidays this month... and at work I had a lot to do to get the huge pile done that accumulated during my vacation. *sighs*

Some of the images you may also have seen (the cat prints) since I wrote about how I create my printing plates at Art Elements ("Printing plates and art prints").

So here are my creations. There no coherent plan but rather I simply tried to get the theme incorporated in all my work and sketches. This mixed media piece started out as some card board I used to clean my brayer on top. I love the gold accents. It is a acrylic gold paint from the PrimAcryl series from Horadam and I was surprised how nice it is.

I also brought a new sketch book and my art supplies with me during travelling including my new ceramic test palettes and also the empty make up tins that I tested for their usability as water color palette. ;)

I played less than I expected but that was due to the fact that I didn't like the paper quality. It was an expensive water color sketch book, sadly not 100% cotton because they had none but a high quality one. And nope, not usable for water color. Still, it worked quite well with gouache. 

I love vintage tins!

My muted / earthy / dark palette... there are three additional wells in the lowest row with gouache and Formentera red earth water color (not on the swatch card).

My rather bright / greeny pallette also with additional gouache in the lowest row (and also not on the swatch card). I nearly used ALL yellow gouache due to the paper problem and thankfully I had a lot of white gouache in both palettes. I used it in combination with water color to get more gouache paint because that worked quite well.

The lizards took me several days to finish simply because of all the leaves... and I had to wait in between for everything to dry. The risk running with my hand over some wet paint was... well... it happened ;)

But I so love them! They feel like summer and sunshine. I am thinking about getting some paintings done in this style as well as to scan these to and print them on thin cotton fabric.

And next to each other...

Also some simple nice studies of leaves as well as color studies.

These are the foliage inspired cat prints I wrote about over at Art Elements. My collection was short of a cat printing plate (shocking, I know!) and I combined the theme cat with the challenge theme.

The prints are done on paper as well as MDF board. The coloured backgrounds are made with gouache and the prints with water-based linoprinting ink (both from Schmincke).

The right print is without any foliage... but dots... I mean.... DOTS! Somehow they make everything better (like the lizards!).

This cat print over the yellowish/mustard background is my favorite print of all cat prints. I think I will keep this one for myself an frame it. 

I played a little bit more with gouache + MDF board + simplified foliage and am surprised how well I like this style. Sadly my camera was not able to capture the true turquoise and purple undertones so you will have to take my word that there is much more contrast in the paintings in real life (also I corrected the paint problems on the left leaf).

Since we were on holidays, I also missed a lot of the annual gel printing challenge in September from Birgit Koopsen.... but I managed to get some done. This one fits her monochrome prompt and our foliage theme! 

Thank you for joining us this month! My entries were a little bit over the place but I have to say, I really enjoyed all my experiments with paint and different styles and love the outcome! 

Please have a look at all the participants this month! :)

AE Team
Lesley  
Susan 
Marsha  
Claire  (you are here)
Cathy 
Jenny  
Niky  
Caroline

Guests
Dawn  
Hope  
Alison  
Beth & Evie  
Laurie  
Kathy  
Linda 
Sarajo  
Michelle 
Tammy  
Divya  
Karen  
Alysen  
Mary  
Cat  
Jill 
Sarah
Anita

"Selkies" - Art Elements Theme Challenge

This month's theme challenge at Art Elements was chosen by Jenny - Selkies. The inspirations she provided at her Pinterest board were lovely and I though whether I should use the atmosphere, colors and textures as basis for my work... but actually I stuck to a rather literal approach.

I played with water colors and as much as I love this medium, it seems I need a break. Or maybe only holidays ;) But I am using my water color too heavy handed. I like the seal, I don't like the woman.... overworked. I show you all the pieces since there are a lot that go wrong. And that is okay, I still learn from every piece.

I also played with monprints and layered image transfers. If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen my latest layered prints with my brother's dog as motiv. I also wanted to create some prints for the theme challenge. 

This seal face is my absolute favorite one. I don't know why my camera was playing crazy with the colors. It is a little bit warmer, more turquoise... but I could not adjust the color even later on my computer. Still, love it! 

And there are some layered prints that I leave as they are. This is not one of them! I work on my prints after the print process with pens and paints. Here I used a white polychromos pen to lighten the area around his head on the left side, I used a Copic brush pen to enhance some dark areas at the eyes and around hhead, added the dark whiskers, and last but not least I used a uni ball white gel pen to enhance the white highlights in the eyes. They were already there but needed some more contrast.

Somehow none of my prints for the selkies theme worked like I wanted. Truth to be told, that was frustrating! But after a day rest, or maybe two, I could work on the prints until I liked them. In Htis one the seal was not perfect, so I used the Copic brush pen again to add his nose, dots, enhance some shadows... Seeing the image now in the blog post, I think I will go over with the white polychromos pen as well to add some more highlights. I like to use colored pencils for soft effects. 

Here is the third print, it also didn't work. I was too impatient and used too thick layers of paint. It is not that I don't realize what I am doing wrong. But sometimes by different brain parts seem not to want to work together! ^^ I will still use this and work with it to get the silhouettes from the seal and the woman out of the background.

Here is another example of an idea that did not work. Ok, I think it worked in principle, I wanted to carve out only the highlights of the body to create a nice light and shadow effect. But I am also in the process of using up materials I have and I had some master cut carving blocks left. I never tried them out before and I will never ever buy them again! The material crumbles while carving even with freshly sharpened Pfeil tools, it holds the printing paint badly (worse than rubber or linoleum), and even with a lot of pressure it prints badly. Maybe if I would have a printing press, it would turn out better. But I can print with linoleum without printing press quite well! So...nope... never again! Maybe I will try out this idea with a rubber or linoleum printing plate.  

Now to another stamp that worked out well! With my favorite blue rubber carving material! Made in this kind of retro style that I love to work with right now.

Thank you for joining us! I had hoped to create more prints but I thought at least I could show you some of my struggles. Most of the time I am also only showing what worked and that often gives the wrong impression. ;) Thank you Jenny for a wonderful challenge and please, everyone, have a look at all the participants!

Guests: 

Paisleylizard.com/blog

Anordinarymiracleday.wordpress.com     

Ebbeadandmetalworks.blogspot.com

Bay-moon-design.blogspot.com

AE team: 

Lesley

Jen

Caroline

Claire (you are here)

Laney

Cathy

Niky

Lindsay

Jenny