Summer of Color - Blue Blue and Green

I'm participating in Summer of Color for the first time  - it's a huge challenge, run by Kristin Van Valkenburgh at Twinkle Twinkle.  Every week there's a very loosely defined color palette.

For this week's challenge I used Pthalo blue red shade, Utrecht paint Aquamarine (a lightened Pt. Blue-green it seems) and to complicate things a bit Hooker's Green hue. A little gesso, a little white, and inktense pencils, in Chrome green and indigo. (which I think match in with the hooker's green and the blue pretty well.) Also I think green gelly roll pen which near-matched the aquamarine for some reason..

I did a journal spread in a smaller Moleskine that I've been keeping. I think my secondary challenge with these palettes is to loosen up and doodle into my work more - I want to get a bit more raw here. I like the way this one worked out.

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don't forget, you still have a couple of days to sign up for my fun summer class at Uthrive!

House of the Past - Art Journal Collage and Paint

I don't throw out much. I used to throw out mistakes, wanted to scrub them, forget them, move away from them.  Now I think mistakes are generally lying in wait, ready to be cut up and made into something that makes them even more awkward and even more terrific.

This piece didn't involve mistakes, per se, but proof prints with colors that weren't what I wanted. Printing greeting cards particularly seems to result in a lot of "oh, crap!" moments. I intend to get through this pile eventually, adding them to journal pages like this one.

liquitex Acrylic Inks and Journaling.

Hi friends.

I love to shop. I love to buy things as much as the next person.  Hence my expanding stash. Ever ever expanding.

But I am also pretty hard on products for the mixed media market.  I'm kind of a manufacturer's design team nightmare, but the one who takes me on and gives me good product will love me forever.

I've actually got more formal training than I'd like to discuss, and I tend to compare crafter's products to the things I used in school - and usually they do ok.

But in the case of pens, they often come up short. Pens, what gives?

Wanna know the *only* pens that get me hot and bothered?
1. Uni Posca. Good luck finding these babies, but when you can get them in a 1 mm tell me you're not in love.
2. Uniball signo white. But it was a bad ro-mo-ma-ha-ha because it has gummed up on a dry ground that had a tiny bit of watercolor crayon in the mix.  ET TU SIGNO???
3. PITT - but generally for lick your finger and intentionally smear that stuff applications only.

I don't like seeing people caught up in the hype of product wasting money over and over.  OK I'll speak for myself -  I feel like I did, when it came to pens which are either not archival at all  (sharpies, gelly rolls I have doubts over) OR they're just cranky and terrible to use and you go through a hundred nibs. (Sharpies! A million sharpie carcasses ALL OVER. Copic likes to die a seven dollar death over any kind of paint or medium. Coloring stamps has to be the ONLY great use for a Copic, or under watercolor or something really transparent and inky and washy and too pretty for me to have made, ha!)

 Like a lot of art journalers, I'm often on the quest for a better pen.

One that won't dry out. One that won't gum up and make you cry the second it might touch wet paint. One that you don't have to shake like a maniac.  One that covers. You hear me pens? COVERS.

 One that is KIND to my left handed chicken scratch inscrutable handwriting. Blah.

Well, I found my pen! Actually what I found are my inks - Liquitex acrylic inks, to be exact.  I use a good ol' dip pen. Why?

Control is terrific - if you're a lefty like me, you have to watch out for smearing, but other than that, your line quality gets 1000 times more interesting in just one easy installment, ha.

The white ink (how I love it) allows you to mix opaque pretty colors with great coverage - and you can get the exact shade you need without having to run out and get another six dollar pen that is only going to die the second it encounters gesso (I'm looking at YOU Copic!)

Honestly, don't be intimidated by brush and pen and ink - really. The simple speedball set which comes with a tiny crowquill pen is the way to go, for me, but I'm probably going to want some calligraphy tips too.  The sets are about 9 bucks, and the ink is about 20 in a primary color plus brown black and white set - but the life that you get from this setup seems MUCH longer than a lot of the journaling pens I've collected, all of which disappoint me except for Uni Posca.

What do you think? Have you played with traditional pen and ink? Any mileage with the liquitex inks?

New Art Journal Page - Also Available as ACEO

Got to play again the other night - I'm not a huge fan of cold press paper, but she was done on cold press. You can see the texture of the paper. Undecided on whether I like that.

It's going to get cold again, after a balmy couple of above-30 days. Blergh.  This is me, trying to cheer myself up.

She's available as an ACEO for now @ my etsy shop. 
You can request a full size print if you want!

Harbor Lights

Mixed media on paper.

Image Transfer - Hawk Image Transfers

I decided to play with some image transfer possibilities. I recently came across this magnificent page from a 1914 book on birds - my favorite raptors all on two sides, under no copyright (I researched.)  Natrually, I had to scan.

it's about to get messy

I covered some wood rounds in some decorative paper,  and augmented with pen, gesso, paint and distress inks. 

Then I used the wax paper method of transfer with my printer. Many many failures, one just about perfect, distressed but still legible. Boy that's not as easy as people make it look in the tutorials.  You really have to experiment with wetting and not wetting your surface, and different settings for the inking. I think I like the gel medium method better - it's still plenty unpredictable but legible more often.

Any tips for a better wax paper (label sheet with labels peeled off) inkjet transfer experience?

Unique Editions: Paperyum @ storenvy.com

I found some wooden shapes with some dimension, and started playing with decorative papers.

Then I started thinking about treating my own art as a collage sheet, using the epson to output different sizes of images from my work and my journals, and treating these as underpaintings.  Wow! This has really had some great results. Deco papers and hand stamping and embellishment, acrylic surface treatment and careful hand alteration and hand painting!

The best part, is that the result is a low cost way for my fine friends and fans to own UNIQUE art that is handmade! Fun!

 

Let's have a look at what's been added:

includes 7gypsies papers, my own art, acrylic, TPC studio stamps.

Are you entered to get GOLDEN paints free?

I'm a sucker for a good giveaway, and I'll make no bones about it: GOLDEN acrylics blow everything else out of the water.

So are YOU entered in the drawing that Cloth Paper Scissors is running?

Win this GOLDEN acrylics bundle @ Cloth Paper Scissors