Winged crocodile - Playing with mixed media (Wanderlust 2016)

There are another year long mix of mixed media classes I had to join: Wanderlust 2016. A different kind of atmosphere compared with Life book 2016, but both are special and both have parts I am not into. But they are so minor, otherwise I really enjoy both! Most of the time I don't have to do the shown project but rather take the inspirations. I love to see other people work, how they use their material and how their creation process is. Together with the small tips and tricks that can't be shown with only pictures and text.

This lesson was from Finnabair and actually the reason why I joined Wanderlust (a little bit late but since you can watch the videos whenever you want, that is no problem). A mixed media collage with all the pieces you can find ;)

If you would know my crafting room (and the rest of our flat) you would know that this is not a problem at all! A piece of cut wood was the basic and on top are lace, plastic wrap, glass, pepper corn, metall, wood and a lot of polymer clay pieces I made and was not happy with (for whatever reason).

The crocodile was from a Kinder surprise egg and the wings were originally polymer clay pendants I made.

Sorry for the little bit blurry images of the creation process. But I just remembered last minute to take at least some pictures!

On top of black gesso I used: Reeves acrylic paint in copper, bronze and gold (in this order) and afterwards a lot of different Pebeo iridescent acrylic paints. 

So difficult to capture the shimmer and shine but the end result is: Bettle wing colour! ;)

I went a little bit overboard with the colours but sometimes one just has to! Maybe the next ones will be more subtle...

Or maybe not....!

All the tiny dots - another craft foam stamp

Again a very simple handmade stamp to show! I already made different versions of stamps with these tiny dots but needed a new and bigger one. They won't hold forever but in my hands I was able to use them for several years. So that is good enough for me. Also it makes a difference whether you are just using stamping ink pads or also acrylic paint. Acrylic paint will reduce the life of such a craft foam stamp since it will stiffen the foam over time. I still use both and love also how the texture changes over time due to use. But if you only use stamping ink this kind of stamp will be useable for much longer (don't know how long because even my first ones are still working for years). 

I used a piece of scrap wood. Since I am a member of the Makerspace Leipzig which has a wood working space and a big bin with wood scraps, that is not a problem anymore for me ;) I drew a grit on top to know where to place the craft foam dots.

In theory they are craft foam sticker. But a lot of them are not really holding well may also be due to the fact that these stickers are for years in my stash. For this kind of project I like to use UHU max repair since it is really strong and flexible. Yes, a little bit expensive but you don't need much. 

I am not only using the dots but also the "surrounding" pieces. They also make cool background texture.

I also made one stamp with the tiny wee dots. For this I glued some paper with a grid onto the wood since this was easier than to draw all the lines by myself. I just enhanced the lines I wanted to use as guidelines.

Now I run out of the small craft foam dot stickers. Any ideas where I can get new ones?

"Penumbra" - Romantic and rustic earrings

After all the paintings some earrings again! I love the colour combination, bold and bright and still... with a dark gothic feeling :)

The czech glass beads and the tiny metal spacer are from Rebeccas "The Curious Bead Shop" and the lampwork beads are handmade by Sue Robinson.

They dangle of course! Earrings have to have some movement for me! ^^

You can find them in my etsy shop here :)

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. 

Life book 2016 - More mixed media experiments

Normally not my style with the words "True romance". But I found these word in an advertisement for rugs and had to cut them out. I made an image transfer using clear tape and glued the tape on the painting. The letters itself were originally white, so as an image transfer clear. But the contrast was not high enough so I rewrote the letters with some Neocolour II. 

The image started as collage but developed a life of its own. What I take from this painting? Use more contrast and/or interest points, love the colour combinations, use the marks again and enjoy layering! :)

Life book 2016 - Happy traveler

I started only in april, four months into "Life book 2016" and also in the middle of the night in a small sketch book (both pages together maybe roughly DinA5). I see all the details that somehow went wrong, but it way the one to start painting again :) 

There are a lot of elements I'll use again: Colour combination, written and dotted background, organic structures.