Life Book 2016 | 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.