Life Book 2015 – Weeks 36 and 38

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