Hopes Take Flight

Here is a little painting I was inspired to work on. One of the poets at the Artella website (see sidebar) wrote a little poem called "Red Balloon" that inspired me to paint this scene. It's a paintover of a little girl I found in my image file. The rest of the photo is painted over just to leave a background. I added the balloons (large sequins tied with white thread). You can click on the photos to get a larger view. Here is the original poem by Ramona Davis (PoeticJava):

Red Balloon

I dream and hopes take flight
like a long tailed kite -- or a red balloon
whose basket holds
treasures; promises,
colored stones or words
to live by. Such
sacred wonders.

Published Jul 06, 2008, by Ramona Davis

I love poetry and need to get back to writing some more. I go through creative spurts in each area. Right now I'm in a huge creative spurt with mixed media collage. This painting is titled, "Hopes Take Flight" from the first line of Ramona's poem. It's a mixed media on canvas board. Hubby said the little girl looks sad. I don't know, maybe. I think it has a haunting look and a carefree look at the same time. Is that possible? ;) When I posted this is my gallery at Artella, Ramona said she loved it. That's what I was wanting to hear, so mission accomplished!

Below the paintings I've put my third ATC. This one is called Secret Door to Magic. The reason I was so excited about this ATC swap is because I LOVE photos of old doors. I have a computer file of images of nothing but doors. Something about them draws me to wonder what's going on behind them. Or, if they are really old, I wonder what happened there in the past.

Anyway, I loved this door image and decided to make it a magic place when you enter it. This also gave me an opportunity to include another of my current obsessions: fairies! I LOVE fairies, as you know if you've read this blog for very long. (Click on my digital altered books in the sidebar) The second ATC photo says, "Secret Door to Magic". The gel pen didn't scan so well.

Today I am getting serious about starting my zine. Time will be gone before I know it. The search is on for images to fit my chosen theme which is... I'll tell you tomorrow! :) Until then...

Paintovers Revisited!

Here is the latest in my series of bridal paintovers. You can click on the image to get a closer look. Oh, how I wish I lived closer to Lisa Bebi, the artist who introduced these fun paintings! I saw in her blog, "Pimp My Spleen" (see sidebar) that she held a class on this technique. I would have LOVED to take part in that! But, she lives in California so it would be a bit far to attend. And, in the latest issue of Somerset Studio I saw that she is hosting an art retreat in Italy with another artist! Oh, how fun that would be... Someday I would love to go on a little art retreat somewhere. But first I would have to overcome my fear of flying! :) For an art retreat, I may just be able to endure it ...

These are a lot of fun to play with. I have a whole folder of bridal images (that's my latest obsession for paintovers) so I'll be posting them as they are completed. I'm really loving these metallic paints that I picked up in Wisconsin, so I thought I would jazz up her eye makeup with those.

Today I hope to work on glamour doll's gown. I found some gorgeous sapphire blue taffeta yesterday. I kept staring at her trying to figure out what color would do her justice, and she kept whispering, "I want deep blue..." but I didn't have any. I showed her all of the other gorgeous colors, but she kept shaking her head NO and whispering, "deep blue". So, I promised to look for some blue material when I was out yesterday. Then she insisted on taffeta. What? In this small town? We'll see... Lo and behold, there was some absolutely fabulous sapphire blue taffeta at JoAnn's Fabric. Now, we are all set to try and configure a little glamour gown. Wish me luck.

On the Artella site (see sidebar) I have some dear e-friends who always comment nicely on my work. One of the artists there, Harqn2, suggested I make my own doll out of my swirly girl paintover. I may just take her up on her suggestions for how to accomplish that. She also told me that once you start making dolls they become addictive. She has created some beautiful art dolls, so she knows what she's talking about. There is such an abundance of talent at Artella. Check out their galleries sometime; beautiful work and a wonderfully supportive bunch of artists. They are a Godsend! There is also a daily Musepaper containing all things artistic. So much fun! I read it every morning with my coffee. And sometimes, yours truly is even featured on the front page. :)

A quick shout-out goes to my absolute GEM of a mother-in-law Lydia! Hi, Lydia!! I hear she's been spreading the word about my blog to her friends. Thank you so much! Lydia is a tremendous quilter. She has created such beautiful works of art with her quilts. I am fortunate enough to have a few of her beautiful creations. The crowning jewel is a Monet-inspired masterpiece that I will post on the blog in the next day or two. I must take a photo that will do it justice! Maybe hubby can help with the technical part of that. It's absolutely breathtaking and was one of my mom's favorite pieces to ooh and ahh over while she was alive.

Well, time to get to work. Thank you for your kind notes and e-mails. I love hearing from you. Stay tuned for glamour girl's debut and a little fairy that I'm working on...

Mixed Media Bridal Collage

Here is what I've been working on lately. I call it mixed media because it has a little bit of everything thrown onto this canvas. The first photo shows the best picture I could take of the whole thing. You can click on each picture for a better view and a larger version. Some day I will learn to take better pictures. My sister is coming to visit next weekend and she is a very good photographer. I'll try and get some pointers from her.

So, I started with my paintover very lightly on her face. Not much to speak of, since I wanted to concentrate on embellishing that dress. Next, I tackled the bottom part of the dress. Yes, that's a million little strips of crepe paper (I sprayed it with Archival Mist) crumpled and glued onto a plastic form of the skirt. I was careful to leave the bodice showing since that would be the next step.

Next, I copied the ad again, but this time onto silk. I adhered the silk bodice to the canvas and began embellishing. I used two different sizes of Swarovski crystals (my newest obsession!) and very small ivory glass seed beeds. I glued each thing individually onto the bodice. Once you get into a rhythm, it goes pretty fast.

I tried to include the best photos of the bodice closeups. The roses on the background are paper roses I picked up in the 25 cent bucket at Michael's! I loved their color. They are a very faded shade of violet. I used white rose scrapbook paper for the background. And the bottom photo is the original ad. I loved this ad the first time I saw it in the bridal magazine. That dress just begged to be embellished!

I have put her into a display case and now she looks down on me in my studio! I loved this piece. It's exactly as I had envisioned. As I said in my last post, the first try with this was NOT working. Patience and a little more planning really paid off.

I am doing a series of brides and each dress will be made from a different material. I haven't picked out the next one yet but I have narrowed it down to three. And, in between, I'm working on more ATC's and other projects for family members. So, needless to say, I'm staying very busy. Until next time...

Shhh...Angel Sleeping!

After many false starts and much tweaking, here is what Little Ella's final version turned out to be. What I learned: faces are not easy, especially if you have a personal stake in it. With a magazine photo you can cut yourself a little slack. But, if you know the subject (or in this case their parents and grandparents!) you want it to be a little more polished.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this one. If you click on the photo you can see the large version. You can also see that the face is still a little rough. With more experience, I'm sure I'll pick up a few tricks. Also, I need to stock up on some more flesh toned paints. I'm pretty limited in my stash right now. I'll remedy that tomorrow.

By the way, the angel wing was a great find! The original photo had little Ella with a beautiful angel wing on her back. That, unfortunately, did not translate very well on the photocopy, so I made it my mission to hunt down an angel wing. I almost shouted out for joy when I came across two of these at Hobby Lobby in their dolls section. Ooh, there are a lot of goodies to be had there. Also, the jewelry section at Michael's craft store has some gorgeous crystals and stones. They didn't photograph very well, but I've sprinkled very small Swarovski crystals throughout Ella's canvas to give it that extra special touch. When the light hits the canvas they DO sparkle!

I made a lot of progress on things last night. I finished my digital altered book on the fairy castles! Yay! I've sent it off to Artella and now will wait word that they've converted it into book form. Stay tuned for that one...I'm real excited about it. I was up until the wee hours this a.m. finishing it. Thank goodness I didn't send it off until this afternoon. There were a few errors I would have been upset to see in the final form.

I painted two more 8 x 10 canvasses in background colors that should blend pretty well with my next subjects. Those will be a surprise! Ahh...so many models, so little time. Back to work.

Ella's Paintover: Cherish

Well, it finally worked! After trying to upload this image for about an hour, I almost gave up. Anyway, this is only my first, ROUGH attempt at painting Miss Ella. I thought I would try this one first. You can click on the image to see a larger version (I think).

I am in the beginning stages of another image of her. Sharon (her grandma) was kind enough to send me a contact sheet of some beautiful photos of the family. There is a whole page of just Ella, and the next one I'm really spending a lot of time on is one where she's laying like she is in this one, with a black background (which I'll change) and she has feather angel wings laying on her back! Believe it or not, I'm going to include my own wings on that one. I want to really spend a lot of time getting it right, so it will be awhile. In the meantime, it doesn't hurt to keep practicing.

I have also started another canvas in my bridal series. It is really special and there is a very ornate embellishment that took me a whole day to make! Like the next one of Ella, it will also take awhile. I'm going very slowly on both of them. My perfectionist is starting to kick in with those two.

Today's little canvas was done using a color photocopy; that's one option that Lisa Bebi mentions in her articles. I'm not sure, but I think I prefer to work with the black and white images and paint over those. I am learning a few tricks in painting the faces, so my next ones will reflect that. I liked playing with this one, though. I added a little blanket for Ella to lay on. It was a piece of a knitted scarf. I don't knit (anymore), so I have no idea where it came from. I think it was part of a scrapbook kit at one time or another. Anyway, it was the perfect shade of blue, which is the shade of the blanket she was laying on in her photo. I had some tiny satin roses left over from another kit and decided to place those on top of her. The original photo had a pink ribbon tied in a big bow. Painting that didn't translate very well, so I improvised with the roses!

She has such a perfect little face and I was afraid to touch it. I only dabbed a little bit of Zinc White on it here and there, since that paint is translucent. It's a challenge for me to jump right in and try something with paint. The think I keep telling myself is I have a copier and I can always make more copies if I don't like the way something is turning out.

I'm also not a very good photographer, and that's starting to show in my pictures. I have no clue how to set any of the settings for my digital camera. Everything is on "automatic" which doesn't always come out so well. I did a lot of image adjustments before I could even get the picture to look good enough to upload! Such are the problems of a novice in everything having to do with technology! I'll get it eventually. Did I mention that I'm very impatient? Hence, the 10 or so tries in uploading today's image. Oh well, back to work. I thought I would post this while waiting for another layer of paint to dry.

Oh, and GrayAngi, THANK YOU for your kind comments! It's nice to get such great encouragement! I really appreciate it. Until next time...