A sneak peek off the painting table via my insta

Waiting for the drying prior to the wax layer #mixedmedia #mixedmediaart #mixedmediagirls

A photo posted by Dena Ann (@denadraws) on Oct 6, 2015 at 10:40am PDT

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!

Joy - Gelli plate, acrylic, ink, water soluble pencils.

I thought I'd challenge myself to add more line into my work, and to use some tools that leave an obvious line. This proved kind of neat.  She's smallish, only 6x8 on hot pressed watercolor paper (really more of a bristol.)

The House Whisperer - Mixed Media Canvas, 11x14

I have an urge to work bigger on canvas, and in a rough way, more like the scratchy lines from scratchboard drawings.  I still feel like this is a little tighter than I want it, but that's something I can keep working on.

A is for ALOUETTE - Simon Mondays

Paperyum presents: A is for ALOUETTE.

I knew right away I wanted to do ALOUETTE for the letter A project over at the Simon Monday blog!

It's such a funny thing, that a song about plucking songbirds has come to stand for all things charming and Francophile. Trouble is, ALOUETTE is literally a Lark and I couldn't find a great lark image at the vintage source blogs - I settled for this random songbird from The Graphics Fairy as the starting point for what was going to be a stamped, painted and embellished mini cushion.

The first step: A little painting. A little stamping! I used lumiere inks and a fiskars border to create a distressed swirly texture to work on, in a copper on cream colorway:

Netxt: print the bird graphic directly onto some June Taylor cotton and heat set that puppy with my heat gun.

Then embellish, layer, stitch - basically I put the project into an embroidery hoop and treated it like I would a mini mixed media canvas! Everything is hand sewn.

Et Voila!

Alouette, gentil Alouette, Alouette, je te brocherai!

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!

Wax On - Mixed Media wax finished collage art

I'm having a blast covering things with wax! Recognize the background images? I love to use up all of my various printer misfires - you never have to waste good paper!

First, I cut them up and tiled them into a background for this girl.

She's also a print out of one of my paintings - the painting is actually in a progress state, and what I'll do is scan the image before I do something silly to it. Every time I hit a stage of the painting that I like, I'll stop what I'm doing and scan. Then, in the event of a problem, I at least have an underpainting I like, or a record of the work when it was at a stage I thought sort of worked.

Anyhow, after collaging her onto the piece, I painted over her to change the hair, painted over the background, drew over things, stamped some butterflies onto her dress, sealed off the work, and added a layer of beeswax for that misty integrated look that I like. I rounded out a few things with sennelier oil pastels over the wax layer.

 

Would you consider a piece like this a print or an original? I think of it as an original - it's a mixed media piece with collage elements printed out - the collage elements happen to be things I've drawn and painted in the past in a lot of cases.

She's available for sale, and only one person will have a shot at her, clearly.  Visit my Etsy Shop . 

Use the code SHIPFTW and you'll get free shipping (it adds up on art!) worldwide - until Valentine's day!

Mini Print Quartet

I have all of these 4x4 masonite coasters, which I love using as a small format. They have rounded corners.

I made a suite of collages directly onto 4 of them, then printed the collage - and then applied the prints to more coasters - voila, miniature prints.

Not content to stop there, a coating of misty looking beeswax and a little german glass glitter makes these a little more special.

I like propping these up in random shelf spaces - they're so cute, and I had such a good time painting, stamping, image-transferring and inking these into existence!

Oh - these also are available in the shop. You can get them with wax only, or no finish if you want. Only $21 for all four.

Harbor Lights

Mixed media on paper.

New Print: Great Escape

New Shop Stuff:  Print!

Last night was one of those strange nights of total artistic failure and then a modicum of success when you remember to take a deep breath and switch directions.  I was working on something very intuitive, loose and messy, watching this image parade through variation after variation, none of them exactly what I wanted.

I wound up covering everything with gesso and paper. Working time: 9 hours.  

Sometimes them's just the breaks as they say.

So - long after I probably should have gone to sleep - I popped open one of my myriad 9x9 journals, and started drawing. 

It's everything the other isn't. Tight, straightforward, bright, flat, logical.  And it came on quickly and happily. Working time, about 2 or 3 hours. I didn't count too carefully.

Print is available here - text can be customized somewhat, on request.

Another Hawk Image Transfer Project

My favorite bird, actually, the pint-sized, brightly colored, female Kestrel, a tiny falcon, an outstanding avian Mom, and a killer of moths. Her mate is superdad, and even brighter blue on his wings.

This version uses the gel medium transfer method.

I'm in favor of less sparrow, more sparrowhawk.

Cut and paste - when bad things happen to good drawings

So I had this rather good drawing that got completely overdone. This happens. I'm very bad at knowing when to stop sometimes. 

This collage, too, is overdone, but I think that works out more OK than not in this case. Overall I think it's a nice artistic save. I want to push my color palette a little bit into less comfortable territory.  I'm enjoying working with decorative papers, also, and I'm thinking about other approaches to patterns.

So, what do you do when you botch it? I also digitized the figure before I glued her in, so I may work with her again in the future. I'm beginning to truly love my printer!

Mixed Media goodies before and after

Here's someone new.
I missed the deadline for a time related challenge ---  only to find she's relevant for this one:
 For the Try it Tuesday challenge: "Time Flies"

Recognize her from this post about Fantastix sponge sticks?

Haven't done a canvas in a bit. This one is 6x8, and features vintage feedsack fabric, inktense, vintage book papers, decorative paper, alphabetical stamping.

It reads "Tempus Fugit" - Latin for "Time Flies!"

I may coat her with resin when my new round of ICE resin arrives. The old one hardned during my long hiatus.

I've been featured!

I recently joined a really nice Ning community run by Milliande - a mixed media artist who's very prolific and generous with her art, her time, and her process. Only 3 days in, my drawing "Printemps" has been picked as artwork of the day!

This was a really nice lift and a great start to my week. You should check out the community if you make anything yourself - any kind of art - even if you only keep a personal art journal, there's a really supportive atmosphere and great tip and technique sharing.

printemps

printemps, originally uploaded by paperyum.

6x6 vintage paper, transfer from vintage paper, japanese paper, inks acrylics, etc.

I might do the other seasons, we'll see how motivated I am in that direction.

I'm listening to this - oh is it good. If the TV on the Radio one doesn't come up for you, scroll down and grab it. It's a good listen, and the interview made me laugh a lot, too.

They do drop the f bomb a lot, so if you are squeamish you won't like it, but you're missing out, really. Provinces sounds amazing.

lonesome/crowded

lonesome/crowded, originally uploaded by paperyum.

vintage barkcloth ad, greeting card clipping (40's 50's) and sixties kid's book clipping (her swallow brooch)

Acrylic, ink, goodies, lots of Modest Mouse listening. she's 6x6 inches on cradled board

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.

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.