Tim Holtz Summer of Creative Chemistry 2016 Weeks 1 -3

Hello my creative friends!  I took Creative Chemistry 101 with Tim Holtz about four years ago and I’m getting a refresher this summer.  Here are the tags I created for the challenges.

Week One

Friends, you just have to take this class.  It covered so many things you need to know about Tim Holtz products – it was amazing!

  Day 1 –  Tim is a wonderful teacher; he discussed the characteristics and properties of the products; dye vs. pigment inks, translucent vs. opaque, solvent, oil, or water based vehicles and porous vs non-porous materials.

Day 2 – This day we learned techniques for blending, stamping, and layering with Distress Ink.  Also, the wonderful way they react to water.  It was fun going back and create these tags, but with some of the colors from the 2015 releases.

Challenge #1

Blended Spritz & Flick

Brushless Watercolor

Wrinkle-free Distress

I think I went a little crazy applying all the different colors and got the tag too wet; but it is wrinkle free!!

 Week Two

Day 4 – We learned techniques for coloring backgrounds using re-inkers and how to store our ink creations.

Day 5 – Tim showed us some wonderful techniques for creating background, stamping, and using stains for marbling effects.

Day 6 –  The techniques Tim shared with us for coloring and stamping with distress markers were awesome!!  He also discussed the features of the markers and why they are different to other markers, but I didn’t have time to make the tags.

Challenge #2

After going over days 4, 5 & 6, our challenge was to make tags using the techniques we learned.

Day 4

 Watercoloring with Reinkers

Layered Misting

Creating a Custom Pad

Day 5

Stained Kraft Resist

Stamping With Stains

Marbled Stains

We skipped a few days and went on to

Challenge #3

  This week’s challenge was to make tags using Perfect Pearls and Distress Inks or Stains.

Day 8 – We made some awesome distress crackle objects and paints and learned how they react.

Day 9 – All about Perfect pearls and Pearl mists we made ourselves.

Day 8

Paint Dabber Resist

 

Crackle Paint Resist

Shattered Stains Technique

 I also made a card for the Unity Stamps Masculine Challenge

Day 9

Perfect Distress Mist

 

Perfect Distress Technique

Perfect Splatter Distress

That is it for now, my friends, Thanks for sticking with me until now.

Have a wonderful week and don’t forget to make something awesome!!

Happy crafting,

Carmen

 

Life Book Week 24 – Dancing With Shadows

This week’s lesson with Tamara Laporte was about dealing with the inner critic and dealing with change.  The technique was to use symbolism and transformation in our work. Hence we did a paint over collage.  I did a similar class last year in Life Book in 2015, but I can tell I’ve learned more about shape shadow and color.

I began by looking through my fashion magazines for a three to four inch face without a big smile.  I had several girls I wanted to paint, but I chose the 3/4 face because I wanted to practice.  I’m taking a portrait class at the Community College and I’m also working on a 3/4 face.

After I found the girl, I found a really nice tiger to sit by her.  I then collaged other magazine pages that I thought would go well with the theme on awatercolor paper block.

Here is the before picture.  Tam said not to go overboard with the collage, but I loved all these designs so much I had to include them.

The next step was to add clear gesso and start painting the face.  It doesn’t look like much, yet!

In a few hours, I was able to transform the girl into a jungle girl and her tiger.

Tamara added an aura around her, but I decided to add a glow around her face.  The flowers around her head are also from a magazine and the butterflies are from a collage page and that peacock was also part of the page I cut out.  I added some green branches and a few rub ons.

 The tiger is very dignified, but he allowed me to put a butterfly on his head.  I added a rub-on that says “live free.”

Here are a few close-ups around the main image.The four leaf flowers were part of the collage and I just added more color around the leaves and a rub-on in the middle.  I also finished her off by adding white dots all over her hair and a few on her face where I had laid my finger, so I went with more dots.  The Imagine word is also a rub-on.

And this is the close up of the face with all the white dots.

This is another one of my favorite projects of Life Book 2016 and my husband made me feel so good when he exclaimed “That’s beautiful, bet one ever.”  What a sweet thing to say.  I think he’s a keeper!

I though I’d show you my work in progress for my portrait class.

As you can see I need to paint the flowers and a wide brim hat.

Here’s a close up of the face,

and the tulips at the bottom of the canvas.  There’s still lots of details and tweaking to do, so I’ll post the finished product next week.

Thank you for stopping by, and keep on creating!

Carmen

Life Book 2016 – Week 22 with Kristin Dudish

PIECE BY PIECE

a game for facing your fears….

ONE PIECE AT A TIME.

This week’s lesson was taught by Kristin Dudish.    I added a link to her facebook page because we’ve been having issues with the NING site and cannot download the class or any of the links.

But that’s all right because Tamara gave us another link to download the lessons and the PDFs.

I found this class very interesting and enjoyable.  We had to take a picture and divide it in 2 inch squares.  I loved doing this because when I was younger I loved to take puzzles like these and see if the final picture looked like the picture in the magazine.

I’m obsessed with Frida Kahlo and there are some great black and white pictures of her.  I googled her and came up with this one.

I cut her up in 2×2 inch squares and using another paper with 2×2 blank squares I proceeded to draw and paint what I saw.  Shapes –  triangles, squares, circles, lines; no flowers, eyes, chins, etc. – just shapes. The media I used were, watercolor crayons, regular crayola crayons, prima coloring pencils, charcoal, plain pencil, pastels, oil pastels, water-color pastels, a regular ball point pen, watercolor pencils, black india ink, acrylic paints, and dots done with a pen.

This is a closeup.  You can see some of the media was hard to match up to the different squares, but I thoroughly enjoyed playing this morning.  I can see where I need to pay closer attention to the different shapes so they can match up better.

That’s it for this weeks lesson

I’ll be playing with this technique again, for sure!

Thanks for stopping by.  Please leave me a note, either way, I love to read comments.

See ya’ next time.

Carmen

It’s Graduation Time!!

Here are some graduation cards I’ve made in recent days.  I helped some friends to make some too, but I forgot to take pictures!

 First off is for a young man – masculine card

His school colors are purple and gold, but he also went to a magnet school with blue so ci added them to the sentiment.  The circle stamps are Tim Holtz, and the 2016 are Unity Stamps.  I also added some gold sequins.

I also a Unity Stamp for the inside quote.

This one is for a girl.  Her school colors are red and blue.  I cut the balloons out with my circle dies added some yarn and the black cap with the a red tassel.

I got my inspiration for this card from a card I saw at  My Creative Time blog hop.  I  used a torn piece of paper in the shape of clouds and using a sponge, I colored them with Broken China distress ink.  I then added the embellishments on the base.  The Celebrate stamp is an older Stamp’n Up stamp.  I also added yarn for the balloons’ strings.  I also stamped inside the balloons.

On the inside I stamped this new stamp by Unity Stamps.  I received the set just in time to make my cards!

This one is for a young lady who is graduating from college.

I used a Julie Nuttig doll stamp and a brand new face stamp to fit these girls from Peachy Keen.  It firs perfectly!  I used watercolor paper I then colored the face with watercolor pencils, and pieced together her dress  and shoes to match the background.  Her aunt said she likes purple, so I made purple the accent color.  I then added a small ribbon around the waist and a graduation cap.

Close up of the graduate.

The face

the sentiment along with her diploma.

Last, but not least, the card I made for my grandson.  It had to be special!

I used black and gold because those were the colors on his Graduation Announcement and the invitations.  The stamp on the left is a Unity stamp.  I didn’t have anymore graduation paper so I stamped the diploma, caps, words, and stars on white cardstock with gray ink.

I got this quote from Scapbooks.com and added it to the inside of the card.

As a gag gift, I enclosed a small envelope with some graduation embellishments  I found at JoAnn’s.  It had a small driver’s license and a set of keys in heavy cardstock.  I glued them on a piece of cardstock and glued a miniaturized graduation picture of him.

Then I put it inside another small envelope with gold chipboard sentiments and stars.

I’m waiting to see how he reacts to it.  I also added on the back of the small envelope under the flap:  “Patience is a virtue.”  Just saying!

Looks like I’m caught up with all my graduation cards!!

Thanks for coming by and until next time,

happy crafting!

Carmen

Life Book 2016 – Weeks 19 – 21

I’m back with Life Book 2016, but hadn’t had a chance to post my lessons because I’ve been busy making graduation cards for the kids in my congregation and especially my grandson’s.  I will post those pictures later.

Week 19 – Your Normal is Not the World’s Normal – With

Wyanne Thompson

Oh my!  This lesson really touched my heart because Wyanne has gone through a life changing event.  In 2013 she was diagnosed with head and neck Cancer.  The doctor gave her a choice of undergoing a 12 hour radical surgery, chemo, and radiation or saying goodbye.  She decided on surgery and had her whole tongue removed plus many lymph nodes.  She had to take a year off to recuperate and now she has a feeding tube to help her get liquid food.  I admire her so much!

When I heard her story about her husband fussing over her coughing, she just told him it was normal, but her husband said “Your normal is not the world’s normal” which gave her a jolt, it reminded me about what I went through eight years ago.

I also had that experience after I had my mastectomy.  Three days after I came home from the hospital, I developed a high fever that knocked me off my feet.  My husband, who took very good care of me through the whole nine yards, took me back to the surgical clinic and it was determined that I had an infection at the site of the wound.  One of the surgical interns proceeded to squeeze out the pus out of the wound and insert gauze.  They also sent a sample of the pus to the lab for culture.  This event was worse than my mastectomy!  Then he sent me home with antibiotics and gauzes so my husband could clean out the wound twice a day.

Thee days after getting home from the pus squeezing, I developed another fever, so back we went to the emergency room this time.  Since I was still recuperating, they put me in an isolation room and the doctor returned with the results of the culture and informed us that it was MRSA, a flesh-eating bacteria.  They changed my medication and sent me home to return and see my surgeon again in five days.

During those five days I was so depressed and felt like crying all the time.  Finally I went to see the surgeon and as he was examining me I told him I just want to get back to normal.  And he said to me, “This is your new normal.”

So, I know exactly what Wyanne was talking about.  When you realize that you will never be the same person ever again, it jolts you back to reality – a new reality.

But, anyway, let’s get back to lesson 19.

Since Wyanne has no tongue, she tries her best to talk, but she can’t be understood, so her lesson had captions to help us follow her instructions.  I really had to pay attention with this one!

Wyanne, taught a new technique; drawing a face, then using tracing paper to copy the drawing, but then attaching the tracing paper to the side of the watercolor paper and adding india ink to it then smooshing it to the watercolor paper.  She said this technique was made famous by Andy Warhol.  After the india ink dried, we used watercolors and washi tape for the embellishments.

This is my project. I’m afraid of spiders, so I drew a tarantula and put her right on my shoulder – it seems harmless enough!

 

The Lotus represents the scar I have from my Mastectomy.

After posting this, I realized this girl either has no pupils or her pupils are dilated, LOL.  She has a strong character, though!

Week 20 – Bonus: Expressive Mixed Media Portrait with Pauline Agnew

This week Pauline showed us how to draw an expressive portrait using a picture from a portrait one of the masters painted.

I googled “portrait of a girl painted by the Masters,” and I liked this one the best, but I forgot to write down who the artist was 😦

I then proceeded to very carefully draw the girl using an Inktense pencil in black, indigo, and brown.  As much as I tried, I couldn’t get the angle of the face just right, but I did manage to follow along with Pauline and using her direction, this is what I came up with.

The background was made by smooching some paint from a pallet paper and giving it a twist.  I did several smoochings until I came out with one I could use.

I think she has a serene look and I like it a lot!  Although some people are entitled to their opinions, one person said it was a bunch of BS.  I don’t care, I love how this came out, don’t you?

 Week 21 – Her Light Shines Brightly with Renata Loree

 

Oh my!  This was intimidating and very creative!!  I’ve been wanting to try my hand at making girls with different head positions and this is exactly what I had to do in this one.

Renata is also a past Life Book student. It’s really amazing how she has grown and developed her art work.  Now she is teaching!  I’ve seen some of her work in other places and I’ve been wanting to make girls that look like they’re glowing and looking up.  Renata was so generous because she was very accommodating.  She had two different lessons.  In the first video she showed us how to do a face looking up, but if we found it difficult, she also posted a front facing face and different techniques!  I thought that was awesome!

The lesson was done completely in watercolor, with the exception of using a stencil to transfer the different objects on the page.  I tried three different girls.  The first one I did without editing myself.  I just went through the whole lesson following her instructions.  There were different aspects I like about each one.  In the first one, I liked how the hands turned out, but not the face as you can see here.

Girl #1

I didn’t even finish her because I thought I would give it another try.  I do like the background stencil, but her neck was too long.  I did not draw a mandala because I’m terrible at it and I don’t feel comfortable doing it, but I took a stencil that was not proportionate and outlined it with a pencil then added the different colors on it.

She is not looking up, she’s looking at me, but her hands are great!

Girl #2

On this one, I love the softness of the watercolors and that you can see the Lotus I stenciled in, but the hands look out of proportion.  This girl is looking up, though.  Doesn’t she look like she’s coming out of the water?

Girl #3

Ah, this one looks so much better looking straight on, but her hands looks like a cartoon character’s hands,   For this one I took my time laying down the watercolors then applying a sticky Martha Stewart stencil and running gesso through it.  It was fantastic the way it came out!  The lines were crisp and bright.  I also used the gesso to simulate the light rays.  Because of the purple watercolor I used on the background, I couldn’t get her face to look right, but, hey, it’s not real!

There you have it, my crafty friends, three lessons in one post.

Thank you for sticking with me until the end.

I hope to see your comments, which make me very happy!

Until next time, happy crafting!!

Carmen

PS After I finished writing this post, Renata posted on our private FB page that we can make the colors more transparent and make it like she’s shining by spraying some water on the piece and taking a paper towel and lightly lifting some of the color off.  I’m going to try that for sure!!

 

Life Book 2016 – Your Story, Your Altar

Welcome back my crafty friends!  I’m posting a little late because I was focused on something else last week and didn’t have time to finish my lesson, but here it is!

Your Story, Your Altar with Roxanne Cobble

Roxanne’s specialty is journaling, but I did her lesson on a regular 11 x 14 watercolor page to include in my Life book folder.

I started out by collaging different ephemera (magazine cut-outs) one with a focal point that I could paint over with acrylic colors to match, then added other complimentary colors.  After that was done, I jotted down events that made a big impact in my life and I illustrated them on the focal point ephemera.

The biggest impact in my life was when my dad, my husband, and I went through Cancer, one right after the other.  It all started with my dad.  At this time he was getting incontinent and I would always ask someone to please go with him to the bathroom.  One day, I asked a friend to go with him and after he met me at the table, he said my dad was bleeding.  My dad didn’t want to bother me so he hadn’t told me he was having problems.  I took him to see his regular doctor who then sent him to a urologist.  After examining him, he said he had a Cancerous tumor in his bladder.  He was 97 years old at the time and the urologist said that if he was his father, he wouldn’t do anything about it and just let him run the course. I thought o myself, “Well, he is not your father, so let’s do something about it!”

He had the tumor removed and underwent chemotherapy and radiation treatment – and yes, he survived.  The funny thing about all this is that my dad had a great attitude, or maybe memory lapses, through the whole process and would ask  what were the treatments for every single time.  I would remind him that he had Cancer, and he would say, “No, I don’t have Cancer!”  Perhaps that’s what helped him get through it.  And I’m thankful for that!  He lived two more years after this, but died of pneumonia, not Cancer five months short of his 100th birthday.

Then my husband’s PSA was checked on one of his routine appointments and the numbers were higher than normal.  He had another one done a month afterward and that’s when he was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer.  The Urologist gave him a choice to just wait and see or have treatments.

After many weeks of research, he decided that the best thing for him would be to have a prostatectomy.  “Get it out!” He said.

He had a wonderful young surgeon who believed in saving as much as he could of the nerves in the area, and left markers where the prostate was so the affected area could be found by an X-ray in case his counts went up again.  A year later, his numbers did go up again, but thanks to the markers the surgeon left in his body, he went through radiation treatments and killed what cells were left!

While my husband was going through his surgery, I started  having some unusual pain in my right breast.  I didn’t pay much attention to it because I was taking care of both my dad and my husband and I didn’t have time for me, until the pain got so sever I couldn’t touch my breast.  A few weeks later, my breast developed an “orange peel” skin.  That’s when I decided I better go see my doctor.

I explained what was going on but he refused to look at my breast because I had just had my yearly mammogram and it came back normal.  Instead, he sent me to get an ultrasound.  As I lay on the examining table, I could hear the tech say every once in a while, “Mmh” and she kept going back and forth to the same place.  I asked her, “Is something wrong?”  She replied, “Oh, no, nothing.  Your breast is very dense and I can’t see anything on the screen.”

The next week, I went back to the doctor and he said the ultrasound was normal, but I was adamant that something was wrong.  He insisted that everything was OK, but I was convinced otherwise.  So, he sent me to a surgeon who took one look at my breast and set me up for a biopsy.

 My mother had Breast Cancer and I felt the tumor before she went in for surgery, so I though I knew what to look for, but this was different.  Hers was a solid hard mass.  What I felt was pain around the areola and the breast was very tender.  Sadly, my mother succumbed to the disease after fighting it for eight years.  I didn’t want the same thing to happen to me.

So a word of advice to you, my friends; if something does not feel normal, please check it out and insist on getting a second opinion.  It could save your life.

To make a long story short, I was diagnosed with Invasive Ductal Carcinoma.  Left untreated it could lead to the Cancer breaking through the wall of the duct to other parts of the body.  The Oncologist said the tumor was 8 cm. and gave me a rating of Stage IIIA.  I had a good chance of survival because it was confined to the breast area and a few lymph nodes.

After undergoing chemotherapy, a mastectomy, and radiation.  I am still here and in remission now for nine years this coming May.

See, I told you Cancer has made a big impact in, not only my life, but the life of my loved ones as well.

Thanks for sticking with me this far!  So now on to my project.

In this picture you can see the important events in my life in addition to the Cancer story.  I married my husband in 1972, I had my daughter in 1975; the moving van indicates the 13 moves we’ve made, and the best vacation ever – Cancún, Mexico, and of course, my art is in the middle of everything!

I did add other events that had a big impact in my life, but the focal point is Cancer and Hope!

I added “this is where God lives.”

Another sad event in my life, was the divorce from my first husband.  It wasn’t all sad, because I had my first child, a son,  in 1970.

I added the feathers as a symbol of “finding my wings”

You will notice that in addition to the doodling, I also added stamping.

I stamped, “The best things aren’t things” in this section.

I also added  metallic molding paste in two different colors through one of Heidi Swapp’s new art screen, Dream.

Our favorite vacation destination, Lake Tahoe.

I spent a lot of time adding doodles which help me relax while sitting with my dear hubby watching TV.

I added this last image of a girl in a canoe, because I’m afraid of water and I’m hoping one day to get in the water and swim – that’s a Big Dream for me!

Thanks for coming by, and hope you return to visit again!!

Hugs, and well wishes!

Carmen

Life Book 2016 – Week 16 and Club Scrap Technique Challenge

Artist Interview With Roben-Marie Smith!

This week we didn’t have an artsy lesson, instead Tamara interviewed Roben-Marie Smith who is an awesome teacher and artist.  Tam does this once in a while so we can catch up on some lessons we’ve missed or try and redo some lessons we are not happy about.  It is also a good time to go back and revisit the lessons we’ve enjoyed and make a new project. 

I thought about redoing Roben’s lesson from last year because I wasn’t very happy with it.  I’ll be doing that this week too.

Instead, I made some cards for a couple of challenges.

Technique Challenge at Club Scrap

I subscribe to Club Scrap to get information on their new releases and to be inspired by their scrapbook pages and cards made by their Artists Team

The technique for this month was the Stained Glass look hosted by Lisa Dolezal.

I jumped right in because I found a stained glass die on clearance at Hobby Lobby!

Lisa used Color Burst Powder, but since I don’t have Color Burst powder, I used Colourcraft Brushos Crystals and Magical Micas from  Lindy’s Stamp Gang.

I started by spraying water on the watercolor paper, then using the shaker container, I applied only three colors that would not make mud – Color Brusho in Lime Green; Rose Red, and Yellow Ochre.  The results were stunning!  I got a clear vivid image I was thrilled with.

After the Brusho powders  dried, I cut out the background and the “stained glass” out of shiny silver cardstock.  I did notice that the cardstock came out with a strange texture because it picked up the scratches from the plate when I ran it through the cutter; but I took advantage of that since it made it more realistic.

I cut a piece of acetate and glued it between the watercolor paper and the die cut and added pink floss and tied it in a bow.  Then I glued this piece to two other pieces of cardstock.  Then stamped the sentiment, cut it apart and adhered it to the stained glass.

This is a closeup of the background and the sentiment.

Second Project

 

This is the technique that Lisa demonstrated using the Stamper Star

In my haste, instead of following the directions, to  stamp and emboss the image first, then add the Color Burst powder, I used the dried watercolor paper with the Brushos, then using my MISTI, I stamped the image a couple of times to get a good impression.

The results weren’t as stunning as Lisa’s project, but I managed to save the project by adding several different mediums to the paper like stencils, molding paste, other stamps, then I added black ink to the edges and adhered it to black cardstock so I can put it in a frame later.  I’ve had this stamp so long, I don’t remember the name of the kit, but I also used the alphas and the border that came with it.

A few close-ups

I’m going ahead and adding this to the challenge as well.

Thanks for visiting!

Carmen

 

 

 

Life Book 2016 Weeks 14 and 15

Week 14 – Our Lady of Compassion with Shilo Sophia

Retitled:  Compassion Personified

Shilo Sophia is a beautiful person on the outside as well as the inside.  She is part of the Contemporary Symbolist Movement.

She puts her heart and soul into every painting she creates and does it all with deep spirituality.  She is also a wonderful poetess.

I am a deeply spiritual person also, but I  follow the Bible’s teachings of worshipping only one God.  therefore, I followed the way she painted, but not her form of spirituality

I was having problems with the video stopping, and going, and getting no voice, so I just clicked on the progression bar and followed her technique.

I didn’t take more time than I needed because I wanted to finish it up quickly, but I think I will be taking one of her free class just to see what I missed in the Life Book class.  I’m sure there will be lots of techniques I can use for future projects.   She really made it very simple to follow along and this is what I created at the end.

There were four words that I added on each corner, Patience, Joy, Tenderness and Compassion.  I only used three colors, but I really like how everything just worked together.

I call this piece – Compassion Personified

Week 15 – The Ripple Effect – Your Story Matters with Tamara Laporte

Tam wrote:  “This week’s theme is all about getting in touch with the interconnectedness of us all and how each and every one of us matters in this world. We will symbolically represent this theme in the form of a drop of water falling into a larger body of water, making ripples.”

I really liked this theme, because I find it so true.  Everything we do in our lives for someone has repercussions – good or bad.

She taught a shaving cream marbling technique that I’ve been wanted to try, but never had a occassion to use.

I just had to go to the new Hobby Lobby near my house (ahem) to buy some Daler-Rowney FW Acrylic Water-Resistant Artist Inks to use on this project.  They are aaaaamazing!!

I used smaller watercolor paper for this project because I didn’t think I had a big enough container to spray the shaving cream on, so I used an 11 x 8 1/2 paper.

We were to write in the ripples of the water something we did at one time in our lives that had a rippling effect on someone else’s life.

The closeup of the marbling effect – so much fun!!

Although I used a little too dark paint on top, you can still she some of the marbling.

This is a closeup of the water drop that looks a lot like a person, but I forgot to draw a small heart on the “body”.  I will when I go up to my dungeon, err, my craft room!

I was having trouble looking at the picture in the PDF that I downloaded, so I went looking for one on Google.  There were so many different ripple effect pictures I could choose from, but I fell in love with this one:

It came with a quote which I thought was perfect:  “When you truly love life and people, you start a ripple effect that changes the life of another, who in turn changes the life of another…”    I’m sure it was computer generated, but nevertheless, I downloaded the picture and tried to paint it as close as possible.

I wrote the quote on the ripples coming from the heart splash.

There was not much marbling on this background, but I think it makes a good contrast with the rest of the project.

There you have it, my friends.  Looking forward to another week.

Thank you for stopping by and please leave me some love in the form of a comment.

Carmen

 

 

 

 

Life Book Week 13 with Rae Missigman

This week’s lesson, given by Rae Missigman, was as usual challenging for me because it was about layers and intuitivity – if there is such a word.  (My spell checker didn’t recognize it, but I’ll add it anyway, ha!)

After I finished the project I had to leave it alone overnight to see it with new eyes.  So, it wasn’t that bad after all this morning!

She does lots of layers in her projects and I like layers, but the intuitive part just doesn’t resonate with me, so I thought about it and and made a plan.  I used a stencil without flowers!  I picked two by Claudine Helmuth with different shapes of bird cages and the Love Birds stencil.  The other one by Heidi Swapp that has the bird on a branch which includes the mask and another stencil.

So after layer and more layers, this is what I came up with.

I used watercolor paper, acrylic paints, a black pencil, splash colors, molding paste, and napkins for collaging.

I guess you can say I made it my own because instead of using flower stencils, I used the ones I mentioned above.

Here are some close-ups.  Since I also stamped different birds, cages, and bold stamps, I was surprised to see these birds come out after the layers.

I like the idea of circling the different parts you want to highlight.

I also added some doodling and more stamps to the empty spaces.  I also used modeling paste for the birds.

I stamped this sentiment on tissue paper I used with a gelli page.  I love how all the cages stand out with different objects inside of them.

The only flowers were these on a napkin I added just for fun.

This picture shows the bird on the right side and more bird cages hidden by the acrylic layers of paint.

Thanks for dropping by to see my project for this week and please leave me a comment and tell me what you think!!

Happy weekend everyone!!

Carmen

Life Book 2016 Weeks 11 and 12

Hello my artsy friends.  Did you survive Daylight Savings Time?  Oh, it took me a week to get over it and I’m still taking my naps to catch up!

Arizona is the only state in the Union that doesn’t follow DSM.  I guess it’s a rebel thing!  LOL.  We lived there for about five years and enjoyed it very much, but we couldn’t stand the heat.  In the summer it was impossible to enjoy the outdoors because of 115 F heat, so we moved to Las Cruces, NM.  Our family was in El Paso, TX, just a short hour away. Unfortunately, my dad, hubby and I all got Cancer and we decided to move back to El Paso to be closer to the family and closer to the hospital where we had our treatments.

Anyhow, we are having a blast here, the weather is pretty much temperate – we have hot summers and cold winters, but loooong Springs and Autumns.  Love it here.

Now on to  Life Book!

Week 11 – Roots & Ground, Wings & Light with Tamara Laporte

This week Tam gave us a lesson on mixing colors for dark skin girls.

I managed to use my Caran D’ Arche and Tombow artist’s markers to come up with a fairly dark skin girl.  I wanted to make her a cool angel so I gave her a rainbow hair do.  i really like how her eyes came out!

Here are some details:

A closeup of her cute sunburned face and green eyes.

For the background I used some napkins with birds and flowers and this birdie wanted to come out, so I outlined it.  I also used some zentagle stamps to fill in all the open spaces.

For these flowers I used a stencil and modeling paste and outlined them with a black pen.  I also added white and black stars and gave her wings the same colors as her hair.

Here are more stenciled/modeling paste flowers and more stamps.  I mostly used the crayons and some acrylics for the background.

I added more zentangle stamping on her dress and a heart to fill in the blank space here too.

Here you can see more zentangle stamps in between her wings.

Now on to:

Week 12 – The Simple Things With Angela Kennedy

If you go to her page, she has some sweet-faced girls done very simply, but beautiful!

This was a bonus lesson to give us a chance to catch up with our projects and time to breathe in between.

All she used on this project was a stabilo pencil and a few pastel colors and a quote that has to do with grounding.

Here is my interpretation:

I didn’t have a good Stabilo pencil so I used the black Inktense watercolor Block, but it came out a little bit purple and brown, but I still like the effect.  I used orange and red for the flowers, and two shades of green pastel pencils for the leaves and branches.

Sorry about the light, I was fixing it up in my loft at night, hence, the sepia color. I found out I misspelled the quote, so I typed it using one of my favorite fonts and glued the paper to cover up the misspelling.  I was thinking about my daughter, a masseuse, and how she really heals through her hands after grounding herself on her feet.

Here’s a closeup of the flower in her hair.  The trouble with pastels is that they come off easily on your hands, so I applied a fixative when I was done.

A closeup of the face.

and a closeup of the left hand side flowers,

Alright friends, thank you for sticking with me through this process of sharing my Life Book projects.

Until next time,

Happy painting!!

Carmen