SPECIAL POST - collaboration with AMARYLLIS CREATIONS

Hi everyone;

I was honored to get an invite from my dear art pal, Genevieve Crabe of Amaryllis Creations, to "test drive" her wonderful new line of masks.  It was a really fun project to be part of and I am happy to share with you the projects I created using her fabulous products.

You can find out more about Genevieve, a Certified Zentangle Teacher, along with her other arty projects here on her website:

Genevieve Crabe - Amaryllis Creations Website

There are two sets of three masks, "Sisters" and "Yoga."    Immediately upon seeing them I knew they would work so well with my kind of art.  My art almost always has a meditative or spiritual/metaphysics angle to it, so adding a these types of components was a natural fit.  Though Genevieve and I did not discuss this beforehand, I have no doubt that she considered this when asking me to try out these masks.  She's so clever!

Anyway, here are the six masks.  They are made of very sturdy plastic and have terrific definition to them.  I found working with them very simple to do and they easily stood up to all the wear and tear I inflicted upon them.  They are all around the 7" tall mark, just FYI.

The first thing I did with the masks, was to use them to cut out some shapes with an assortment of different papers.  I was curious to see how these images would work with different patterns and textures.  Below is a scan of just a few of the samples I made.  They included:  sheet music (center bottom), some vintage Asian text super-imposed on scrap wallpaper (bottom right), gelli plate print (bottom left) and a print of a close up of some rusty metal (upper right).  All of them turned out just great!

If you know my art, you know I make funky little characters to use in it all the time.  I got on a roll and took some of these mask images and created some "people" for future artwork.  Here's what I came up with, using an assortment of markers, recycled doodads and collage elements.

Next, I created a set of two finished pieces using a couple of these "characters" that I'd made using my gelli plate prints.  The quote used in these two pieces is "Reach High For Stars Lie Hidden In Your Soul.  Dream Deep For Every Dream Precedes The Goal."  

Each piece uses a gelli plate print for the background, along with other gelli prints for the sun image.  The first one has dangly, metallic gold stars done with Silks acrylics and sparkly doodads for the dangles (which don't show up well in the scan unfortunately).  

I rarely use digital print in my work, usually it's all "old school" collage, cut and paste.  In this case however, I thought I'd try adding the quote digitally and I am pleased with how they turned out.  I'm still going to go back to my "old school" collage techniques and finish off the originals that way.  You know what they say about old dogs learning new tricks!  LOL.

The last piece I will share with you was created a bit differently.  I used the mask in the true sense of what they were intended for.  I laid the mask on my gelli plate, then added a number of layers of acrylic paint and inks to get this look:

Then, I dithered back and forth, trying to decide how to proceed with this piece.  I really felt like I should do some more layers with the mask but wasn't sure how to proceed without ruining what I'd already done and liked so much.  

Then, I thought I should do some zentangle-style doodling in the white space created by the mask and continue to gelli print around it.  No, couldn't bring myself to do that either.  

So, finally, since the only things that kept coming to mind for how to finish this piece involved my old standby, collage, I decided not to fight it anymore.  Once, I made that decision, the collage came together quickly.  I used other gelli prints for the "grass" and for the border at the top of the piece.  The main character is a gelli print with a stamped image on the body and a collage element for the face.  The trees and flowers are more collage elements.  A bit of scribbly doodling with white and black pens and the piece was done.  

I must reiterate how much I enjoyed working with Genevieve's masks.  They really stood up well and I know I will get years of use out of them.  She tells me she is thinking of introducing a half-sized set as well for use in smaller art and I can't wait.  I will be the first in line to snap 'em up!

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial.  Don't forget to visit Genevieve's site for more info on these and other fabulous products!

Genevieve Crabe - Amaryllis Creations

Cheers!

Joanna

Collaborative Art With BETTY FRANKS KRAUSE

Finished Project

Hi again friends!

Here's yet another of my collaborative art projects, this time with the talented Betty Franks Krause.  Betty is fairly new to mixed media art but she has taken it by storm.  She has a wonderful style and color sense and our work is very complementary, I think.  

In the next photo you'll see the 8 X 10 wrapped canvas that Betty sent to me to work on.  Here's what it looked like when it arrived.

I was very happy to see a purple and pink theme to start with!  Also, Betty had used some tissue or other lightweight paper in her work which gave the surface great texture to start with.  The scan actually doesn't do justice to how good this piece looked to start.

First, I decided to deepen the colors by adding some more purple acrylic paint, dabbed on the sides and front with a sea sponge.  I wanted a rich purple color.  I also added some neon pink acrylic randomly around the canvas, along with some light pink, which I streaked on by coating the edge of an old credit card in paint and dragging it haphazardly across the canvas.

Next, I used some heart-shaped acrylic stamps (each about 2" across) and stamped a bunch of them on some scrap tissue paper.  When the ink had dried, I took some liquid watercolors in magenta, orange and yellow and loosely painted the tissue paper.  When the paint was dry, I cut out the hearts and using gel medium, glued them randomly around the canvas.  This is a favourite technique of mine because the tissue paper just melts into the background leaving only the image as another layer to the art.

Next, I outlined the hearts with a black grease pencil and smudged them for a grungy look.

The next step was to choose a central image for the piece.  I had recently made the collage figure you see below.  She was made from a couple of different pieces.  Her head, hat and collar are one piece (recycled from an old catalog) and her body is a separate collage element.  I loved that she carries a paint palette in her hands.  How appropriate for this project!  I mounted the image on hot pink paper and cut her out with a skinny border so that she'd have a bit of an outline and stand out against the canvas.  Then I glued her to the canvas with gel medium.

In the bottom left you'll see where I stamped the word "Illusion" onto a scrap of tissue paper and then adhered it to the canvas.

Now, I felt I was getting close to being done.  I love to use dangly hearts and stars in a lot of my work lately and felt that this would be a good idea for a way to finish off this piece.  So I drew a few small hearts on either side of the central image and painted them with a lovely sapphire blue color (Silks acrylics).  You can't really tell from the photos, but it is a bold shimmery jewel tone.  This photo only shows one coat of the Silks, but I ultimately did two coats to get opaque coverage.  Fabulous!!

And lastly, I added some salvaged sparkly doodads for the hearts to hang from.  They are a shiny metallic blue.  A coat or two of sealant and I called this piece done!  Here are some close-up shots of each quadrant of the piece.

I hope you enjoyed seeing this project.  Betty, thank you SO much for sending me such a great piece to work on.  I love how it turned out!

GELLI PRINT ART TAGS with Phyllis Terrell

Gelli Printed Art Tags By Phyllis Terrell

One of the great things about teaching online and having an online presence through this blog, Facebook and other sites, is the opportunity to connect with like-minded souls.  I so enjoy that!!

Case in point, my recent online workshop "Gelli Jam" with Artful Gathering Online Art Retreat in the summer of 2014.  I met such wonderful people through this event, including the lovely Phyllis Terrell.  One of the projects Phyllis and the other students took part in was making a mini art journal with gelli printed shipping tags.  

The image above is a scan of just a handful of the tags that Phyllis so generously sent to me for me to use in my own mixed media art.

Below are a couple examples of what I did with Phyllis' tags.  You all know how I love to create little characters with bits of pieces of this and that.  This practice of creating little "people" lends itself well to tag art.  It's also an opportunity for me to use up other scrap bits and recycled elements including those funky fibers that adorn the tags.

The very last tag uses some recycled scrapbooking stickers that someone was going to throw out.  They are metallic silver and really pop against Phyllis' awesome tag.  I'm going to send her this one as a thank you for her generous gift.

Hope you are having an awesome, artful day, my friends.

Cheers!
Joanna

Collaborative Art With Belinda Dworak - Part 2

Last week I shared with you a piece that my art friend Belinda Dworak started and that I finished.  This week we'll do the reverse.

I started this piece a very long time ago.  The substrate was a piece of scrap matboard about 8X10.  I did some different mixed media techniques on it in paint and spray inks, along with some collaged elements in the background (vintage text and scraps of paper).  Then, I covered it with some sheer ribbon that was about four inches wide and which had a beautiful metallic swirl pattern on it.  I used Mod Podge to adhere the ribbon to the substrate and then painted some glitter glue over the surface for a bit more sparkle.

The angel is an ornament I made from a recycled Christmas card.  If you check my blog posts from the end of 2013 (around December 27 or so), you'll see I posted a tutorial on how to make these ornaments.  It's hard to see in the photo, but it is 3D and the arms are folded a bit forward.  Her head is made from a flattened bottle cap, stamped face image and a circle of resin.  Ribbon and sparkly embellishments finish off the angel and she was glued to the substate with white glue.  And then this piece sat for many months until I finally exchanged it with Belinda.

Here are Belinda's notes and photos about what she did with this piece when she got it:

Belinda:  I first attached Joanna's art work to a canvas board using Golden Heavy Gel Matte Medium to help keep her piece from curling.  I use a lot of liquid paint and water when I work on my own art and it can cause the edges to roll or curl.  By attaching her piece to a canvas board, it stabilizes the piece.

Belinda:  Next I added some Golden Matte Medium.  I then started adding a tree using Liquitex brown for the trunk and a mix of greens and off-white for the tree top.

Belinda:  I then added more outline around the tree trunk and more greens to the top of the tree.  I wanted to make the angel's wings pop, so I mixed together some neon greens with white acrylic and some paint that has a bit of shine to it.  I really liked the color once I applied it around the wings.  I then mixed some golden yellows and white to paint around the bottom of the angel and canvas.

Belinda:  At this point in my process I am continuing to fill in and paint the elements I have already created.

Belinda:  I stopped at this point and left the painting sit overnight to dry and to think about what I was going to do next.

Belinda:  I decided to put an inspirational balloon of sorts above the angel.  I used my own art sheets to tear strips from and then proceeded to stamp words on each strip.  I layered the strips above the angel's head with Golden Matte Medium.  Not knowing if this was going to work, I just continued on.  Once all the word strips were down, I filled in the balloon with tiny plain strips from the same art sheet.  I then went back and painted where there were no strips to form my balloon.  I used a white signo pen to go around the strips to shape my balloon.

Belinda:  You will see in the finished painting that I used some vintage linen thread to attach to the bottom of the balloon and wrap around the angel's hand.  I also added some blue at the top to create a little sky effect and reshape the tree top.  The tree trunk or base was a little too dark for me.  I added some stamped words with white ink to lighten it up.  I carried the stamping to some other parts of the canvas too.  This is the final finished canvas.

I think Belinda did a tremendous job finishing off this piece of art, don't you?  It has been so much fun to work with her on these projects and finally see some half-finished works complete.  Stay tuned for the coming weeks as we each have one more piece of the other's art to finish off and I'll be posting about both of them soon.

Have a great week, my friends!

Cheers!
Joanna

COLLABORATIVE ART WITH BELINDA DWORAK - Part 1

Hi everyone;

Here's another fun collaborative project I was involved in, this time with the lovely Belinda Dworak.

Belinda sent me a small piece she had started on canvasboard.  It's 6" X 8."  Here's what it looked like when it arrived.  She'd used some beautiful butterfly images on sheet music to start the piece.

My first step was to take some pink acrylic paint and do some mark making on the piece, using the edge of an old credit card.  I love this effect!

Next, I added some neon yellow acrylic paint with a sea sponge, some neon green paint using a rubber stamp sheet (crackle pattern), followed by some neon pink with the sea sponge again.

After that, I used some cheap, Dollar Store number stamps with purple acrylic paint and a bit of doodling around each number.  On the right lower side of the piece, I collaged a bit of a border (Teesha Moore image), along with one of my gelli print images (the flower face) in the upper right.

Next, I added another of Teesha's collage elements (pink flower in lower right) and did some doodling around my gelli flower face.  I made the central image from assorted bits and pieces (gelli print scraps, recycled office supplies and some collage elements I had scanned from previous art I had made).  Then more doodly outlining.

My next step was to collage on to the piece the upside down number border at the top of the piece.  I also added the joker image (a scan from a playing card that I aged with a bit of walnut ink) and the alphabet text in the lower right.

I added another of my gelli print flower faces to the left side of the piece, over another collage element courtesy of Teesha Moore and more of my gelli scraps.  More doodling followed.  The pink flower in the lower right got a visitor about then too.

Next, the joker got some color added (Pitt Pen brush markers) and I did some doodling in the background of the lower left with gel pens.  I created some 3D flowers in the lower left using handmade polymer clay beads for the flowers and miniature checkerboard paper for the stems.  Our central image got a crown.  Red stamp ink around the edges of the piece give it a finished look and I called it done at this point, feeling that it had become busy enough.

I really had so much fun with this piece.  It took me a while to get going on it but once I was on a roll, it came together quite quickly.

Join me again next week when I will feature one of the pieces that Belinda transformed into something very special.

Have a great week, one and all!

Hugs!
Joanna

COLLABORATIVE ART PROJECT WITH JUDY WOOD

Hi again everyone!

Like my post last week, this project was another collaborative one, this time with my arty friend, the talented Judy Wood.  

Judy sent me this beautiful background to work with.  It's about 8" X 10" on watercolor paper.  The colors are just gorgeous and the scans really don't do it justice.  It has a beautiful metallic sheen to it.  It's also highly textural.  Judy said to me that she saw a beach scene when she looked at it (in landscape format, obviously).  I turned it to portrait format and began to see possibilities of my own.

The first thing I did was take some of my gelli print scraps and collaged them on to the background (far left and far right of the piece).  Down the center, I added some collage elements (courtesy Teesha Moore).

Next, I added a couple more of Teesha's collage elements to the bottom right and upper left.

The next step was to use an old credit card and white acrylic paint to get the streak effect running vertically down the piece.

 I added my central character next.  Her body is another Teesha collage element and her head is an image from an old catalog.

More collage elements (upper left corner and upper right of the piece) and some additional elements added to the body, including a black outline in china marker to make the central image stand out a bit more.

In the next step I added another character to the right side of the piece (she's made up of a couple of different elements).  I also added some of my own handmade art doodle circles. 

Next, I painted the stars in gold Silks (shimmery acrylics) and used some recycled scrapbooking supplies for the dangles the stars hang from.  And finally I added some doodling to highlight areas of the piece.

I was amazed how quickly this piece came together.  Very often when I am working on collaborative pieces with other artists, it seems to take forever to get going on it.  This one came together in a matter of a few hours and was done.  Obviously, I was in "the zone" when this opportunity came my way.

Thank you, dear Judy, for this fun project to work on together. I  hope you like the final result.

Thanks for looking and I'll see you all next time.

Cheers!

Joanna