Joy

Posted on December 17, 2013 by thecontentedcrafter

I’ve been working on this piece for several days – it started as one thing and, as so often happens, morphed into another.

I am determined to continue in my practise of using colours that are not common to my palette – it’s good for me to stretch my wings… This one started off with red and orange, which should be fine as they are side by side on the colour wheel – but when the green came along that simply didn’t work so I morphed the orange into yellow in an attempt to lift the image.

Zing!!

I have developed a decided love/hate relationship with it!

I love my little birdie, I hate the composition! It’s messy and crowded and the bird is in the wrong place ………… I really need to develop a plan of action before I start drawing and painting and gluing random bits down ……. so much to learn!! 🙂

And it’s an awful photo – there is so much sparkle and texture that it seems to be impossible for the camera to get its act together. That shadow in the lower left corner is I believe my head. The floor of the conservatory is the best place to take photos – the sun was shining and it was close to midday……… Sigh!

I’m sounding decidedly grumpy to my own ears – but I’m not really – maybe the combination of red, yellow and green doesn’t agree with me – though it is decidedly summery 🙂

I shall get it scanned and see what I think about it then – maybe it might make a nice card….. or it may just end up in the art archives folder

Click on the image to get a bigger view, click again for detailed viewing.

Mixed media collage on A4 300gsm art paper.

Acrylic paint, papers, stamps, paint pen, gel pens, charcoal, pitt pens, gold metallic pen and Inca Gold paint. Heart punch by Sullivans and butterfly punch by Martha Stewart.

The original layer is two shades of red and some white acrylic paint. When dry I stamped with three different stamps and applied gesso through a template randomly. A third coat of thinned white paint was applied and wiped away while still wet to grunge it up a bit.

The bird was drawn freehand on lunch-wrap paper [deli paper to some of you], painted and then fussy cut and glued down to the substrate using gel medium. I stuck her down too far to the left.

The tree branches were also made originally on deli paper and attached to the substrate.

The flowers and leaves were all made from 200gsm paper which was painted and then dry embossed and punched out in two sizes using heart punches. When they were assembled and attached to the substrate I went in with pens and pencils and paints and gussied them up some.

When everything was in place I used charcoal and pitt pens to define edges and bring it all together.

What do you think?

When you look at it do you feel joy? Or do you, like me, sigh and think – oh, that could have been so nice! 🙂

Onwards ans upwards!!

Thanks for coming by today, I love that you did! 🙂

A Gardener…. Another Mixed Media Painting

Posted on December 1, 2013 by thecontentedcrafter

In conversation recently it was noted that I’ve been using blue greens quite a lot as that appears to be my latest colour crush.

Totally, I agreed, any colour associated with the sea seems to be my thing at the moment.

The conversation took an unexpected turn when it was mentioned that orange is a colour never seen in my work. On quick reflection I had to agree, it is never seen….. I didn’t even have an orange paint tube, though I do own a Distress Ink that is orange and it mostly sits unused at the bottom of the pile.

It was wondered if I use much of any of the hues from that portion of the colour wheel – the yellows through reds.

I use yellow quite often I said. A quick hunt through current work and then photos of past work proved the point, I use yellow with blue very often and make lovely greens with them.

I use red I said. By golly yes I do, a little is to be found in most paintings. Whew!!

So I set out to do a painting that didn’t feature any sea type colours and did feature yellow and orange. I even purchased a tube of orange paint!

As I worked I found the colour palette quite heavy [surprisingly – orange should be light and refreshing like it’s name] so I started to add in white which made a huge difference and when I had another of my genius ideas and used the edge of a rectangular paper doily as a frill on the bottom of her dress then things began to pop.

I had no idea what I was going to do when I started and was over halfway through before I could see where we were going – and this is what emerged:

Half successful only, I couldn’t help myself the background just had to be what it is 🙂

I wish I’d chosen a longer canvas to work on so she could have been full length instead of cut off, but that’s what happens when you don’t have a plan!

As I was making the flowers, I found I was thinking of my blogging friend Alys over at Gardening Nirvana and the words just popped into my head.

So what is your opinion of my attempt to use orange?

Thanks for coming by today, I love that you did! 🙂

Sitting In The Sunshine – Musings on a Challenging Weekend

Posted on November 19, 2013 by thecontentedcrafter

‘The Nightmare of Being Technologically Challenged’ I typed the title for my new post and settled in for a bit of a gripe. It was a challenging weekend trying to sort out all the glitches that had surfaced in my Etsy shop – I thought it was all going way too smoothly!

Luckily for us all, I immediately got interrupted – and leaving my computer, went off to take coffee in my tiny courtyard garden with YD.

The coffee was hot and strong – a bit like the early summer heat – and the remnants of my grumpy mood evaporated like drops of water on a hot stone as we inhaled the scent of jasmine and lavender

Can you see Sidd? His head and cap are just visible under a drooping raceme of jasmine.

[I know it’s not really a raceme, but it’s a good word and needs using!]

And yes, though are weeds in the foreground. [Hangs head in shame]

YD had lots to share from her week and we chatted and laughed and let the sun warm us until the coffee was gone and then we headed off to the post office to send Elaine her prize, the limited edition print of ‘Be a Butterfly’, and also to have a look through a shop selling local artisans work.

We heard a sad story there – the owner will close at Christmas as business is too slow to keep going. Her stock is stunning, she keeps her prices at an affordable level [which means she isn’t adding a huge mark-up] but she can’t compete with on-line sellers.

I felt guilty. I had spent last week cat-sitting and making sure my shop was stocked with pictures and cards………

The shop opened on Thursday and my first day was one of great happiness! Maybe what happened next was karma for being part of the movement that is sending real stores out of business….

Because on day two it all went wrong – there were glitches and problems galore until I was tearing my hair out and found myself on Sunday raising my voice to an automated customer service robot over the phone demanding to speak to a real person.

And blow me over and away, I got a real person and we began to solve the issues! 🙂

Take note dear readers, when you are stuck with a virtual customer service person, get hot under the collar and demand ‘a real person’ and you will maybe get one. I guess they must be programmed now to respond to irate customers by handing us on!

Anyway the issues are solved and all is well again in my world.

Yesterday, with YD returned from her travels and Stanley once more settled in with his mum and Orlando no longer having to sniff out where I’d been going constantly [coming back smelling of another kitty doesn’t really go down that well with spoilt, over-indulged chappies] I was free to try and find my creative mojo again.

I’m still obsessed with faces and seem to have combined that and my obsession with the ocean into one place:

Painted on A4 160 gsm water colour paper, she is definitely mixed media – acrylics, modelling paste, paper, pencils, charcoal and pens.

The legend reads ‘Listen, how the wild sea calls to me’ She is heavily textured with all the paste and needs to be in a frame to really look her best.

There is much about this piece that is successful or interesting, but my personal feeling is that her stare is too challenging to be marketable – I think she is maybe channelling my weekend mood….. 🙂

Tomorrow I shall start again. It will be a new day and the sun will still be shining. The scent of jasmine will still waft in through open windows and with no distractions maybe my paint brush will make something beautiful.

Thanks for stopping by today, I love that you did 🙂

Hope – A New Journal Page

Posted on September 11, 2013 by thecontentedcrafter

I’ve managed to completely discombobulate myself with all my new found arty-farty techniques, new equipment and re-found mediums – shall I use the water paints or the fluid acrylics or the water soluble pastels or the water soluble crayons? Perhaps I should just use the inks and sprays I am used to – but then why are all these pretty colours sitting on my desk smiling at me hopefully?

Shall I doodle, draw freehand or use stencils? Shall I layer or not layer? How will I ever become an artiste if I can’t decide which medium to use? Is it kosher to use ’em all at once?

To add to my confusion I took a short on-line class with the remarkably talented Valerie Sjodin. Her work is stunning and she works with accuracy and attention to detail. Doesn’t really sound like me does it?

One aspect which was really new for me was doing the lettering first – usually I do any writing towards the end of my process and, with a blank sheet of white paper looking back at me, I found it impossible to picture how it would look at the end – which is pretty obvious when you see the end! It is so interesting learning different ways of working and so challenging too!

I learnt a lot but didn’t have a hope of coming anywhere near the beauty of Valerie’s work. Standing back to assess my effort, I told Orlando despondently it wasn’t working out for me because I didn’t have the right paint colours and he just stretched up and asked for a dance.

We had a wee dance around the studio – well, to be accurate, I do the dancing – swaying really – and he sits up in my arms, head back, eyes closed and purrs and harrumps and warbles with bliss…..

But I digress! Here is my first effort:

All the wording comes from Valerie – I loved it so much I just went with it. You may notice the curvy edged paper – I have made a small 8 page journal with shaped edges and a wrap around cover – also courtesy Valerie. When the whole thing is finished I’ll put it up for your admiration and delight 🙂

But this first effort is pretty dismal! Usually when I make a muck up I can retrieve, cover, change, somehow redeem something – but there is nothing on this page I like. The background is flat and uninspiring and I over-doodled on the right hand edge. The splodges of gold are an aborted attempt to stencil some leaves with gold perfect pearls – which is a brilliant thing to do provided you don’t blast them over enthusiastically with the very large water spritzer bottle picked up mistakenly because you weren’t really concentrating at that particular moment, and thusly cause them to just go glump!

Let’s see, what else ….. I don’t like the colours I’ve put on the egg shaped words. There should have been a gap between that egg of words and the doodled edge – and the rest of the wording is – well, just rubbish really!

But was I deterred? Was I heck!! Hope is my friend, so I flipped the page and had another go:

I lay down tiny bits of torn book pages and painted the background with Hansa Yellow fluid acrylics. Those white circles are made with a bit of bubble wrap dipped into gesso and pressed onto the page. Then I did the words [Little rebel contented crafter 🙂 ]

I doodled the flowers and edges and felt much happier.

Here are a couple of close-ups:

All in all, much happier with version two – do you agree?

Thank you for coming by today, love that you did!

Spots Before My Eyes!

Posted on August 30, 2013 by thecontentedcrafter

Hello there 🙂 [waving and smiling happily}

Here I am with the latest episode of my adventure in learning to step outside of my comfort zone. Although, to tell the truth and ‘fess up, pretty early in this lesson I began by doing my own thing, as I wasn’t in love with the flowers the tutor produced on her page

I started well, laying down a coat of white gesso followed by two coats of black paint as I did not have to hand any black gesso.

Then the rebellion started. I didn’t like what I was seeing [multi-coloured scribbles of water soluble crayon to make three flowers] so I made my own flowers from design paper and a template. I made every flower two layers, off-setting the layers. I cut one completed flower in half. I outlined the petals with a black pen and then doodled dots and lines as the tutor indicated.

Day 1 the page looked like this:

So far, so good right? I was quite pleased with that ……

Next day I began by edging everything with a gold pen ………..

…….as I returned to the format the lovely tutor was trying to teach me and I edged, dotted, swirled and scripted with the paint pen over two days until the page looked like this:

Apart from the flowers and gold paint, this double page spread was made almost exclusively with a paint pen – which is really just a fat ‘Sharpie’ like marker filled with white acrylic paint.

Over these four days I dotted, doodled, scripted ‘Spring is coming’ [because it really is – Hallelujah!!] and recorded my thoughts on the process.

My thoughts on the process have settled into – I don’t really like this style of working in my art journal. Which is good to gain clarity on. I don’t use my art journal as a diary. I use it to try out ‘good ideas’ or to play about and see what happens and am not that comfortable with mixing up the two. I also tend to work organically developing and tweaking the original idea for quite a while before moving on to something different.

Having said that I feel I have been freed up a lot while engaged in the process, I’ve tried loads of different things, been introduced to radically different concepts [for me] and I’m pretty sure they will spill over in some way into my continuing work.

I’m also not a ten-minuter. I’m a sixty minuter or more! I have the time and I like to spend it carefully crafting and trying, discarding, re-doing and endlessly tweaking.

These are all really great discoveries to make and I am so grateful to have been able to take this workshop and find it all out.

I no longer need castigate myself for my slow and ponderous efforts.

I’m a plodder and proud of it!

I might have to rename my blog ‘The Happy Plodder’ – has a certain ring don’t you think?

Any hoo – I digress. Here is the completed spread – don’t look for too long or you’ll start hallucinating:

The keen eyed among my bloggie friends will spot that I am projecting myself a day into the future … [I’m publishing this Friday 30th – a deliciously spring-like evening in my part of New Zealand] I cheated, I just can’t look at the dots and doodles and swirls and spots any longer!

I haven’t finished my course yet – I think I’m just over half way through. And I think I’m going to ditch the ten minutes a day and work for however long I feel like it on each installment. Which means I might have it finished in a day or two. 🙂

Please do pop back and see what happens next. I know I’m curious to know….

Thanks for coming by – have a great weekend!

Toilet Paper Rolls, Lace and Pearls

Posted on August 18, 2013 by thecontentedcrafter

If you take a brief stroll around pinterest you will inevitably come across some clever, ingenious idea for using empty toilet paper rolls – I keep thinking I should start a board and just collect them all! Anyway, I got the idea for this project from pinterest.

With my latest hobby of doodling and zentangling joining in with journalling and sketching, it has become obvious I need to have a more mobile storage system for pens, pencils and assorted paraphenalia – I can then just doodle, journal or sketch away happily here, there or anywhere without constantly going looking for something I have decided I need.

Now, serendipitously [is that a word?], it happened that I had sitting in my craft room a disused cutlery basket dating back to at least the early nineties but possibly earlier – I have a vague recollection of purchasing it when I lived in the UK – it has wandered around the world with me since then, mostly unused but too nice to give away – you know one of those things that you keep thinking will come in handy one day…..

One day it and a toilet paper roll or two met up and voila – inspiration struck!

Last night I got out the paint

I painted inside and out and when they were dry I used an unmounted red rubber lace stamp and white acrylic paint [which I forgot to photograph] and gussied them up a bit. When the paint was dry each roll got a coat of glossy mod-podge and as it was well after midnight and Orlando was crossly telling me he needed me to settle down so he could sleep on me, I went to bed!

This evening I decided some of them needed some pearls to pretty ’em up a trifle more as they would be centre and front stage

Ready for their [slightly blurry] close-up

And the finished very handy mobile carry all

There are currently two mugs being utilised in there as well. They will probably be replaced by re-purposed cans, just as soon as I can eat the foodstuff currently residing in them ….

So that was a fun way to spend a grey, wet weekend!

Earthquake post script for those who are interested: There have been only two or three ‘strong’ quakes today, so it is quieter [which may or may not be a good thing] Some say Full Moon is a likely time for big hits. Time will tell.

Thanks for dropping by, I hope your week will be a fabulous one! 🙂