Faber-Castell | Visionary Art by Carmen Alicia

The Art of Black and White with Donna Downey

This was a bonus lesson from Donna. She said it was a challenge for her not to use any other colors, but she did great in her example.

I cheated a little because I remembered I had painted some sunflowers in black and white and never finished so I took that painting and refined it a bit.

I just added the shadows and made the right side where the light was shining lighter than the left.

I still think there is something else I needto do to this painting because it doesn’t look finished. Maybe add splashes of white and black paint all over.

What do you think?

A closeup of the sunflowers

The Teal Bridge: Build Your Dream and Affirmation Board Bonus Lesson With Tamara Laport

This lesson was my favorite so far because it made me step out of my “comfort zone” and try new things.

First of all I used my own picture and did a transfer technique to the watercolor paper, and I made my own skin color using only four primary acrylic colors – blue, yellow, red, and white. I learned this from a free class on the Craftsy blog. You can get many free classes on a variety of subjects. I have also taken several jeweley, greeting card, and mixed media lessons when they go on sale.

But, I digress! I wrote out some words I wanted to use for the Affirmation Board as if I was actually carying them out, then I used my computer to print out the words. Here is the finished project using this picture of me!

Yes, I know, I look so young and fresh! That’s because I did not add all the wrinkles and shadows! But, that’s OK. I know it’s me and I’m very happy with it!

Here are a few more details. When I was cutting papers for my collage, I saw this quote and had to use it. It says “Find the Beauty Within, Love with your whole heart.”

I used a variety of stencils, watercolor crayons, acrylics, scrabpook paper, and gesso for the background. This shows the dolily stencil I used for the first time. I cut out the flowers and the butterflies from papers I had in my stash – I think they were from a Donna Salazar paper stack – perfect! I arranged the flowers and glued them around the top of my face.

This is a stencil I used with Faber Castell gold dimensionals. The flowers on the left and bottom I stenciled through some paper flowers from Heidi Swapp.

On the upper right hand side, I collaged a peacock and didn’t cover it up as much as I usually do my papers. I also took a piece of the paper flowers and added it to the edge. I used red acrylic paint through another stencil to match the red on other parts of the painting.

On the left hand side I used one of Tim Holtz stencils and magenta acrylic paint to add texture.

The stencil I used for the hearts on top of “Family is Everything” is also Heidi Swapp.

And here is a closeup of the face. The paper I used to cut out the butterfly on the upper left hand only had half of it, so I used it in the corner.

This lesson inspired me to make a photo transfer of my mother on her wedding day. Mom’s picture came out too dark so it didn’t show her left side. She was also leaning on my dad, so the body was a little wonky.

She was very artistic and craftsy also. She used to make flowers out of bread dough and make earrings, pendants, and home decor with them. She loved canaries and always had them in the house singing away, and yellow roses, so I added all those elements to the painiting.

My sister, as well as some of my close friends and relatives said it was a close resemblance, so I’m happy with that. I will make my sister another painting using a different picture because I have all the family photos. She needs one of her own.

That is it, my friends! The next lesson is all about Mandalas and I will share again here some time this week.

Thanks for coming over and leaving me a comment. I read all the comments and they make me very happy to answer them.

Have a wonderful week!

Carmen

Hello crafty friends! I’ve been quite busy the last few days. I went to a Faber-Castell Gelatos class at Michael’s on Monday with my crafty friend Maria. It was a “free” class, but we had to purchase a $25 kit. Good thing we had 50% off coupons!

Our instructor, Carol, showed us how to use Gelatos on different substrates. It was fun taking the class, even though, I had already used Gelatos on other occasions, but I did try different materials included in the kit.

This was plain chipboard which we covered with gel medium to work as a resist. Then we applied different colors of gelatos rubbing them with our finger. I then added some paper, used my gellatos as ink and applied onto a foam stamp. Then using a small stencil that came with the kit, I used the gelatos as watercolors. (There was no texture paste available.)

Next up was the raw canvas and the embossed paper. I had never used the raw canvas and it was interesting to see the effect of the Gelatos on it – they feel so creamy and have lots of pigment. On the embossed paper, I tried to create an ombre effect and used water to combine them, but I found the embossing disappeared.

I love the corrugated chipboard. I took some of my Gelatos and found some metallic ones that I used on this piece and they really blended well and made the colors pop!

Lastly, I made a small desert scene using the gelatos like water color. Good to remember the next time I run out of a watercolor.

These last two are embossed cardstock and velvet.

I’ve used Gelatos on Heidi Swapp’s papers before and I love the effect. You can’t see the last piece, which is velvet, but I did not like the Gelatos on this at all.

Last night I gave a scrapbooking class to three of my friends and it was an opportunity to work on my photos as well, but didn’t get the chance to take some pictures. I need permission from my friends to post their scrapbook pages.

This morning I felt like having bagels and lox, but I didn’t have the smoked salmon 😦

Doesn’t this look scrumptious, just looking at it makes my mouth water! (I used a google image, yumm!!)

I went to my Alberston’s store and in addition to finding the smoked salmon, I also found two terrific sales on Rib eye steaks and fresh salmon! Both were $5.00 off per pound! I saved $18.00! yay, me!!

When I got home, my husband’s car wasn’t there, so I knew something was up. I called him up and he said he was at my aunt’ apartment and that she needed to go to the emergency room because she wasn’t feeling well. My aunt is 91 years old and is having trouble remembering things. She forgot I had already taken her to see her doctor for the same thing, but I took her anyway. We spent four hours waiting – which is really good for an emergency room wait, and her diagnosis was the same as before, so I took her home and when I returned I went straight to take a nap! And that was the end of my day – and still no bagel and lox!

I know tomorrow will be a better day!

Now on to Life Book 2015!

Week 28 with

This week’s lesson was Tiny – Story Telling with Danielle Donaldson who creates beautiful lithe fairy worlds in her artwork. This was indeed a fun bonus lesson. We created a little person and then attached her to a clothes pin and on to a bowl filled with strips of words, and sentences. The object is to pick random strips and put them together to form a story.

I just happened to have this bowl that had a heart on the bottom – perfect!!

This is the tiny person on a large clothes pin and the strips of words and sentences.

And this is the story I came up with after picking up strips randomly!

“Here’s the thing about her. Every once in a while, the girl craves happy rainbows of periwinkle unicorns floating above her hair.” (Really random!)

Week 30

Letting Go and Letting In with Flora Bowley was about intuitive painting. I’m beginning to like these lessons, but I still have the tendency to apply too much paint. The process was to start off by practicing on paper and black acrylic color. She had us do “marks” and “patterns” on the paper first then use them on our watercolor paper or canvas.

The idea of letting go was interesting to me because when I paint something I like, I want to highlight it, but not this time. We had to let go of that image and just do marks and patterns all over the canvas. I did two at the same time trying not to use the same colors. Although I did cover up a lot of the marks, you can still see they appear as texture – I liked it!!

I kind of used what I learned in other lessons – like color blocking and doodling.

Be bold – I used some bold colors here!

Can you see the texture? I really like that!!

For the second painting I chose bright colors against a silver background.

Here again is the texture.

Week 31

Traced Hand Hamsa Protection with Rachael Rice. This was a short bonus lesson. She shared with us her ‘protection’ methods as a highly sensitive person. As Rachael says: as artists, many of us often seem to be more sensitive than the ‘average’ person out there, so I think it’s a good idea to consider how one can make sure not to take on too much energy or suffering from others.

First of all, I am not a superstitious person, so this lesson made me a bit uncomfortable. I don’t rely on symbols or fetishes to protect myself for other’s energy, but I did follow her lesson while leaving out all the superstitious stuff out.

Instead, I was thinking about the beautiful Henna tattoos I’ve seen on other people.

I used watercolors for the background…

I added some gold acrylics and a stencil to make the frame and the swirls on the background also,

and doodles and zentangles for the patterns on the hand.

Week 32

You Are Wise With Tamara Laporte

This lesson, given by Tamara, was focusing on transforming limiting beliefs into liberating beliefs, which was August’s theme.

The limiting beliefs that Tam talked about was about our progress and growth in life. The “I’m not good enough,” Tam writes: “We look at how we can ‘be present’ to these thoughts, really become more aware of them and possibly change them somewhat. I think even just becoming aware of them and sitting with them, seeing them for what they are is a great start in this area.”

Here are some examples of limiting beliefs:

I’m not worthy • I’m not good enough • I don’t deserve to be happy • It’s hard to making a living off a creative career • My paintings are not good enough • I can’t paint • I should not shine/ be seen/ be noticed • Dreams are silly • Working must be a chore • Life is hard • I will never be able to … •

I’ve had those limiting beliefs myself. When I was younger I had a low self-esteem, but as I grew older I learned to honor and love myself through self examination and through my art.

This is the image I have of someone who “can do it.” I used a stencil on the right and bottom of the girl using sparkle texture effect and blue acrylic paint. I love the texture!