Always be a unicorn.....

End of the month - it must be circle journal time :)

This is my entry in Karen's CJ, her theme is something along the lines of witty sayings or quotes - so here's mine:

I painted the unicorn using acrylic paints, over a metallic background made on the gelli plate

Wording was all done (not very well!) using Posca pens

I think next month is my last one for this circle, it's been fun, I'll miss it

Trapped in the amber of this moment....

I'm a proper girly swot this month, as I've finished my entry in Sian's art journal CJ already, and it isn't due to go in the post until 1st August. Which is most unlike me, I am usually a stay-up-till-3am-the-day-before-the-deadline-to-get-it-finished kind of a girl

The theme of Sian's CJ is 'word play' - she has provided a list of words from which each participant chooses a word (or two) to illustrate.   In that respect it's a little bit like the pair journal I'm doing with Shirley (which I haven't blogged about on here for yonks, but it is still ongoing, the latest update is over at Collabor-ART)

Sian has some awesome words on her list - lots of nice happy ones, but also lots of cool angsty words like 'fear' and 'addiction' and 'alienation' - and being the horror movie/rock/metal/comic book fan that I am, I was more drawn to the darker words.  In the end I decided to illustrate the word 'trapped':

Sci-fi fans might recognise the quotation, it's from Kurt Vonnegut's classic Slaughterhouse-Five:

"Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber? . . . Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why." 

To give the illusion of poor Billy Pilgrim being trapped in amber, I sprayed the central section with a couple of coats of glossy varnish:

I did want to give him a little hope though, so I stamped the crackles on top with white paint to show that the amber is starting to break, maybe he'll escape from this moment soon enough....

Finally we were asked to make a matching tag for our sign in:

I've used a lot of stamps this time around, which was kind of fun, it's a while since I've played with my rubber :)  The crime scene tape is from Viva Las Vegas, the corrugated iron background is by Darkroom Door, the round Circle Journal stamp is by Cats Life Press, all the crackles are from a cube by Stampers Anonymous, and I think the woodgrain that I used for my planks is by All Night Media

The man was painted by me, though.

I do hope that Sian likes it, and that it hasn't overly spoilt the mood of an otherwise pretty and uplifting journal!

So it goes.....

Overworked, over tired and over here....

So - can you guess what kind of week I've had? :)

This is my entry in Jo's book for the 'You're Having a Laugh' art journal CJ - her theme is 'How Do You Feel Today?' .... I wonder if she is going to regret asking that question :D

I actually found it quite stress relieving painting my stressed out lady, the therapeutic powers of art strike again!

As a few peeps have said they like seeing the step by steps, here's how she came about:

Sketched onto a gelli print with a grey pitt pen, shirt, teeth and eyes coloured in with a white paint pen, skin painted with Fresco acrylic paint in Nougat

More painting - all Fresco paints - Squid Ink, Claret and Pansy on the jacket, French Roast and a touch of Hyde Park in the eyes

Very Berry and London Red on the lips and tongue, and the hair was a mix of French Roast, Chocolate Pudding and Cinnamon

After this point I finished off her hair, added the punched arrows all around the page as a frame, and wrote the page title 'Stressed!' using paint pens.

Here's hoping for a reduction in day job workload and stresses very soon and more time for arty pursuits!

Spacey-wacey Timey-wimey

Well, OK, not so much on the timey-wimey.  But recently I have re-discovered the fun of making space art with spray paints.

It really is super easy, and quick, and almost magical in the way it works

^ That one up there was my very first attempt last year after watching some "how to" videos on You Tube.  The kids made their own too and got equally ace results, you can't mess it up even if you try.

Then a couple of weeks ago, I made a CJ page based on Shakespeare's Sister's "Stay" - such a great song and brilliant video too - which was positively crying out for a space art background

Here's the end result:

(blogged in full at Collabor-ART here: http://collabor-art.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/time-for-another-round-of-desert-island.html)

And then today I was working on another CJ page - this one had movie/TV show quotes as its theme, and I happen to know that the journal's originator is a big fan of Star Trek, especially the original series - so I couldn't resist attempting a portrait of Mr Spock:






























And of course he absolutely NEEDED a space background:

So here's how it works.....

First of all you spray a colour, then black then white spray paints in quick succession (without letting the paint dry) roughly where you want your planets to be.

Then you take a slightly crumpled bit of thin paper (a magazine page works well), and put it down over the paint then peel it straight back off.  This is what leaves that fantastic "planet surface" texture:











Spray in a little shadow with black paint on the "dark side of the moon" and then pop round objects (that you don't mind ruining!) in place to make the planets.

Spray all over with black, then add a little bright blue and yellow space dust, and white stars (shaking the can about while only partially depressing the nozzle will give that nice splattery effect)













When the paint is dry, lift off your round thingamajigs, and ta-da:

It's as easy as that!

If you have spray paints handy (the graffiti-style paints in aerosol cans, not spray inks) then I totally urge you to have a go at this, it really is so much fun!


Live Long and Prosper, guys....

My first attempt at Steampunk

I'm always late to the party, me, in fact sometimes the party is almost over by the time I get there!

And so here I am, having a go at Steampunk for the first time, when for everyone else I think it's pretty much yesterday's news... :)

The reason?  This month's "Having A Laugh" CJ has the theme of Steampunk/Ladies/Grunge

Now, I was tempted to go with Grunge and do a page on Pearl Jam and another on Nirvana, but I didn't think this was quite what the book's owner had in mind, so I went with Steampunk and Ladies:

First of all, we were asked to make an ATC as our sign in ..... mine is above.  The little propeller spins :)  Trouble is I wonder if it still actually looks much like an eye .... I think I preferred it before I added the hardware:

Ah well, never mind.

Next up, we could do either one or two 7"x5" pages for the book,  I'm greedy so of course I took two!

First up, my steampunk girlie.

I cheated a little with this one, and used an online doll dress-up programme to design my lady - it's a lot of fun if you want to try it yourself: http://www.dolldivine.com/mega-steampunk-dress-up.php

(NB when you first go in it loads up an advert, you have to click the "play game" button in the bottom right hand corner which activates after the ad has been running for a few seconds)

<----
This is the "doll" I ended up with

I printed her out and traced her onto some watercolour paper, and then coloured her in with watercolours, in a slightly more subdued palette than the original

Half coloured in:

Fully coloured in and cut out with my trusty X-Acto:














And here is the finished page - I used a gelli print for the background, with stencilled cogs - and typed up the wording on Erika, my beloved 1980s typewriter:

For my second page, I dropped the steampunk angle and just went with "ladies" - well, one lady anyway:

That's another metallic gelli-plate background, with a face painted with acrylics straight onto the page this time rather than cut out and stuck on

I took some step by step photos as I was painting the face, so I could refer back to them to remember how I had tackled the shading in the underpainting, here they are in case they are of any use to anyone else wanting to try the same technique:

Face sketched straight onto the page, firstly in pencil then with a black POSCA paint pen

Colour in the whole face apart from the hair with a very pale skintone colour - then referring to the reference photo, use a white paint pen to shade the areas with the lightest highlights (side and tip of nose, above top lip, whites of eyes....)

Block in the hair with a mid-brown paint, and then with the same brown paint mixed 50:50 with glazing medium,  shade in the parts of the face that are mid toned in the reference photo

With a darker shade of brown, start adding some texture into the hair , and  also block in the darkest shadows (top of the nose, under her chin etc) - don't panic that all the shading looks really harsh at the moment

Add some pinky red to her cheeks and  lips

And this is where all that work with the shading starts to pay off -  you need to mix up a semi-opaque skin toned glaze (I use a touch of the brown I used for her facial shading, a tiny touch of white, a touch of red and a fair bit of glazing medium -  you can see the resulting glaze in the tub at the top of the picture), and paint over everything except the whites of her eyes and her hair - there, that looks better doesn't it :)

All that's left to do are the finishing touches - some colour in her eye and on her lips, some wisps of hair around the hairline (and some little highlights in the hair too), add her eyelashes and darken her brows.  Plus I added a little more glaze under the chin as I thought the shadow there was still a tad too dark.  And I defined her outline with a watersoluble graphite pencil to make her "pop" a tad more against the background

Th-th-th-that's all folks!

Until my next blog post anyway (which really ought to be a Rocking Your World Monthly post as I haven't done one since March!)

An impossible-to-photograph CJ page

I know people always say "trust me, it looks a lot better in real life" - but trust me, it really does!

Anyway, enough excuses, this is my entry in Mistyrat's art journal CJ - her theme is "quotes to live by" .....

I've always loved this Einstein quote, it rings so true for so many of us, feeling like failures because of the things we can't do, instead of successes for all the things we can.

So, a fish up a tree it had to be :)

Here's a close up of my fishy friend:

He was drawn with a micron pen onto watercolour paper that already had the red numbers stamped on it, and coloured with watercolours and oil pastels

The page background was printed on a gelli plate and overstamped with the little stars in a pale pearlescent ink - they are over the whole page but they come and go depending on the light and the angle you hold the paper.  So you can see the stars clearly in bright light (the left hand side of the page in the top photo) and they almost disappear in shadow (the right hand side of the page).  And the trees were drawn freehand with a black Sharpie.

I enjoyed pulling this page together, I just wish I could get a half decent photo of it before it goes off in the post....

The truth about Mondays.....

So here's a very appropriate circle journal page to post in the early hours of Monday morning, just as I'm off to bed and sooooooo looking forward to the working week! :)

This is my entry in Gill's CJ - her theme is 'the truth about Mondays', she wants us to fill her book with quotes and quips about everybody's favourite day of the week, and she plans to keep the completed book on her desk at work to cheer her up

Neat theme, but I am glad I am one of the first to tackle it, as there don't seem to be that many good Monday quotes out there!

What's on YOUR bucket list?

And so, having vowed off signing up for any new circle journals on UKScrappers, I found myself nevertheless volunteering for the final vacant spot on an art journal themed CJ over there, with the words "I expect I'm going to regret this....."

And there was never a truer word spoken, as no sooner had I signed on the dotted line, the first posting date was announced, eight days away.  Eight days???!!  I usually spend a month on and off getting a new book ready, plus I already had a few existing deadlines to hit before the end of the month.

I panicked accordingly and the host was kind enough to put the start date back five more days to Feb 1st, but I still couldn't quite hit it, finally finishing up today, ready for posting tomorrow, the 4th.  I hate missing deadlines, grrrrr :(

But it's all done now, hooray :) :) :) So here's my journal - it's an accordion book with 7"x7" watercolour paper pages held together with washi tape - the whole thing closing up with a ribbon

The front cover is a simple watercolour painting with some colourful cardboard letters that I've had for yonks and can't remember what make they are, and little washi tape pennants stapled on.

The theme of my book is 'what's on your bucket list?' - here are the instructions for those taking part:

In short, I've asked people to list ten life experiences they would like to achieve in their lifetime, on the back of their page, and then to choose one of the ten and create their main journal page about it - in the style of a travel journal

Here's my list and sign in tag:

I chose point 8 - take a ride in a hot air balloon - to illustrate:

Can you spot mini me in the basket? :)

And that's about it for my book so far, other than an "outtro" page at the end:

And now I send it off out on its travels, and I can't wait to see it come back to me full of everyone's goals and dreams....