Week 36 – Finding Strength with Donna Downey
This is one of the many class I’ve been waiting for in Life Book 2015.
Donna used one of her stencils and a different substrate to teach us several techniques, but if we didn’t have the stencil, Tam shared a step-by-step PDF to create our own figure. You can also google it and find the instructions to draw one.
I did both and loved how they came out, so I made several because I’ll be participating in a craft show on Sunday, the 25th and I’m going to sell them!
Donna usually works on canvas or a journal, but she chose to work on a piece of fabric, which she first primed, and then stretched to create her own canvas. I couldn’t find the wood stretchers, so for this one I used canvas paper.
I wrote a few words in the background with India ink and then transferred the image using the stencil. I’m going to staple it onto a flat canvas and frame it.
I created this one on an 11 x 14 canvas following the PDF instructions. I was going to frame it, but I just finished the edges. If anyone asks about a framed one, I’ll have to quote them a higher price to cover the cost of a frame.
“She colored her thoughts with only the brightest hues.”
I used Flex and Fill paste which I bought at the hardware store to add some texture on the corners and painted them with Golden’s Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold. The quote is one of Donna’s stamps:
This is the Blue Girl. I created her after I saw Picasso’s.
“Your beauty comes from within like a lotus flower unfolding.”
I added some hearts on the upper left corner because it was lacking something.
I also used a stencil with the paste for the bottom right corner and a Lotus Unity Stamp.
This is Donna’s girl project done in orange and green. I added more texture to this one and a Donna Downey stamp.
“She pursues BIG dreams instead of small realities.”
Week 38 – The Journey to Acceptance with Jill Berry
Jill had her journey earlier in the year when she found out that she had a huge heart aneurysm and had to be rushed to a hospital to have open heart surgery! She’s been on a journey of acceptance about her new path ever since. Her video was very touching and she shared a couple of poems with us.
Her technique was really exciting and interesting. She is known for her collages using maps and other interesting papers. She showed us howto make “multi-layer gel skins.” It took me a week to make the gel skins because I had to wait for them to dry in order to add more layers. Also, how to make backgrounds using artists tissue paper. I didn’t have the tissue paper, but I used rice paper I bought to make another project which I will share in the next post.
This is the Egyptian Goose I drew on rice paper and collaged onto an 8 x 8 canvas.
On the top of the canvas I glued the gel skin which looks like a tree branch.
The stones by the stream, are a circles stencil I painted with different acrylic paints using a sponge on rice paper. The green paint that looks like it has flowers is a gel skin also.
A close up of the gel skins and the rice paper.
I hope you enjoyed looking at my creations and if you’re in the El Paso, TX area, I hope to see you at the craft fair which will be at the Marty Robins Recreation Center.
Thanks for dropping by and see you soon!
Carmen
Visionary Art by Carmen Alicia 