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!

A little behind in being a good blog buddy

Your comments are making me so happy - I hope that every visitor is enjoying him or her self, and that there's at least a little useful information tucked away here for everybody.

I'm so behind on blog visiting! I'll make a point of doing some tonight.

Here's a little fast fun in watercolor, inktense and graphtint pencils, and a brush. On Fabriano Studio Hot press - which is like bristol that doesn't suck for wet media. Lovely!

 One of my less frustrating moments.

Journal Page - The Difficult

I got out the gelli plate the other night - monotype with a press is my "thing" - years ago I had an artist residency at MN book arts for my monotype work.  It's completely different without a press, but I think I'm going to enjoy wrestling with this little silicone blob until I like the results.

 Her crown and dress are some very subtle mossy gelli printed papers. Collage, watercolor, stamping, drawing - other than the water color washes almost all the paint is applied with a tsukineko fantastix foam stick. I'm still crazy for those things.  I should keep a running list of supplies I find "worth it."

Mixed Media on Loose Fabriano Watercolor

I am trying not to go ape and throw poo be bummed about YET MORE SNOW. Enough. Any time now.

Well, even if I'm kept indoors at least I can play. This is like the rainy day activity that never ends.

In GOOD news, it is the anniversary of Paint Party Friday! PPF has introduced me to many talented and friendly bloggers/artists, and it's one of those nice blog parties that makes a self-employed freelancer feel just that tiniest bit less like a cave dwelling hermit. YAY PPF. Here's to many many more!

Journal Page - The Possible

I've got a Moleskine A4 that I've been kind of precious about using because it's expensive watercolor paper and a nice binding and blah.

What a mistake that was! It's nice to get out of the square format of my usual journals. I do love Bee paper recycled 9x9's quite a lot, mainly because I find them heavyweight enough for all that I throw at them AND nicely portable.

But the Moleskine? There's obviously a reason they're popular. I believe these to go in the "worth every penny" category. It's just really pleasant to play with water media on the right kind of paper, and still have the option to keep things bound.

What's all this then?

Watercolor, my own carved stamps, pigment ink, commercial background stamp, acrylic, gesso, caran d'ache crayon, acrylic ink with a crowquill pen, charcoal, washi tape, alpha stamp. Whew!

You probably don't need a psych degree to tell that things are turning around a bit for me, too. The hopeless malaise of a flare that lasts for unknown amounts of time is over. I'm moving away from misery - for how long who can say, but my experience tells me I can now dig in and get on with the rest of my year, with any luck!

The body may be a step behind, but the mind is light and ready to say yes to things.

Getting messy again....gelatos and inktense journal pages

Peace of mind? Really? How journal schmournally. It's a well-trod sentiment. But peeps, my dear peeps, how I really really could use some in my life this week.

This page started with a hand stamp I carved. I call the pattern "cairn" - you can't really see a lot of evidence of it here, but I'll be showing it off a lot.  I'm LOVING carving my own stamps as a starting point - it's a great way to lay down a bunch of information onto that intimidating white page, and it's a nice way to keep the image vocabulary your own.

The flowers are collaged deco paper, though. I thought they went so nicely with the background I worked up with plenty of gelatos dripping. They do tend to migrate down the page in a different way from watercolors, it's hard to explain but you'll notice the difference if you try both.

Used inktense, gesso, posca, acrylic pen and ink, and lots of prismacolor here. It's nice to get messy again and get lot of deep saturated color.

Harbor Lights

Mixed media on paper.

...And the original image - mixed media painting @ paperyum

Here is the original image. I worked back into it and you'll see some subtle differences.  It's great fun layering all the papers and seeing what emerges in the end - while a lot of the first layer gets covered, bits of it come through.

6x12, acrylic, inktense pencils, decorative papers, stenciling, vintage book pages, stamping.

Found via Illustration Friday

Here are some illustrations found while surfing illustration friday  - this is work by Ewa O'Neill based on songs by Jeremi Przybora.
 
See all three of these beautiful illustrations here.

Dimensional beaded russian doll softies

So I had so much fun making the flat dolls that I decided it was time to go 3D! How I got through life without embroidery hoops I'll never know.

My first attempts at dimensional dolls - these are backed with vintage feedsack fabrics, hand sewn, hand painted and embellished.

Let me call your attention to....

Hedwig's Illustration Friday from last week.

It's well drawn, and it's also funny original and goes off in an unexpected and very offbeat path.

But did I mention just HOW well drawn? Reminds me of earliest Warhol.

Here's the starting point. But you have to see the rest:

Illustration Friday - Wool

 

For IF - wool. This is an ATC, so it's actually pretty tiny.

New Art

This one hasn't gotten its resin top layer yet, but I couldn't wait to post her.



And a couple of journal pages - I've been drawing while listening to songs and the words make their way in - I'm sure this will morph again in the eventual painting if there is one

Listening: Keep the Car Running, Arcade Fire

Listening: At Last, Neko Case

Gingersnaps Random Redhead challenge

This is for this Gingersnaps challenge

I've been working hard and saw this challenge and could not resist playing along - the theme is "growth." This is a 4x4 on canvas - vintage papers, a clipping from a vintage sixties placemat (yes the sparrow's registration was very poor) clippings from 60's kid's book, ink, acrylic, an ad for barkcloth (also vintage) and brass wings. The only new paper is some Japanese chiyogami and my text. Which I'm not sure about. I love the font Nashville though.

Just a quick little down and dirty piece. I'm unsure if I'll resin coat it.

chicago

chicago, originally uploaded by paperyum.

Washi, Victorian/Edwardian scrap and sheet music (I use actual sources) ink, acrylic, pencils - the look is soft overall because I resin coat and sand my collages - a nice unifying surface effect. 8x8 inches.

my heart dances

my heart dances, originally uploaded by paperyum.

a response to this week's created by hand challenge - cutting stuff up makes my heart dance - vintage papers and rickrack - 50's and Edwardian.

Flickr Finds - Beautiful Washi Paper Doll ATCs

ATC19 - Kimono girl 2 (Traded to muddled mind), originally uploaded by tengds.

This is a paper doll from the talented Tengds - her photostream has really creative uses of yuzen washi and other papers - truly a paper artist who appreciates beautiful paper!

Check out her ATC's in full.

This is another of her lovely images - the colors are so wonderfully perfect for spring. Really pretty work!

Artspiration

I haven't done anything with collage in the longest time - but all these great papers got me interested. There are a lot of papers that simply aren't suited for pendants, or only part of them are.

I set myself up with the following parameters: only vintage papers. Only my hand alterations. Vintage trims as much as possible.

No reproduction, no scanning, no xerox, no new stuff, no "artists papers" no stamps.

The finished collage is coated with sanded resin, for a more opaque and smooth surface.

Have you ever given yourself parameters like that to get out of a rut? Does narrowing it down from totally infinite help you or hinder you? I find it a huge help to have a few things pre-decided for me. I plan on doing more challenges for this reason.