Where has the time gone???!!! And Part 3 of the Mix and Match trilogy.

Wow, such a week.  My guy came home from his three-month winter trip to warmer climes. So lovely to have him home, but such a busy week.  Lots of drives, lots of talks, lots of visits with friends and family, busy busy busy.  And then I bought a new camera, my first SLR.  Oh my.  I know it's going to be great, but such a learning curve!!!  And while I've been having a lot of fun there has not been much posting of pics.  Sorry!  I'm hoping to take the camera with me next month so I want to know my way around it.  And I'm hoping I can post pictures whilst we're away. 
Anyway, here is Part 3 of the trilogy I was working on a couple of weeks ago.

You may remember the ginger jar from the post last time??? Well, the first pic shows the cut-out jar shape with part of the ginger jar showing through.  The second pic is the jar that shows through from the previous page (6) as well. 

This pic puts together the two pictures above as they appear in the sketchbook only with page 3 from my earlier post (remember??) folded back to create the look of a terracotta vase.  I'm happy with how that part turned out.  The whole flipping of pages and mixing and matching thing was quite fun albeit crazy-making!

Last one, I promise!! This last one shows the double page spread with the little fold-out jar turned back to become part of this spread.  I must confess, it was kind of a puzzle but I had a lot of fun putting it together.  There are quite a few other possibilities, but you get the idea!
So that's it for now.  Back soon.

Mix and Match, Part 2

So here is the next page in the Mix and Match series.   The first picture shows pages 5 and 6.  I made up a stamp for the background which I stamped in acrylics and I painted the ginger jar separately and glued it down. I sprayed the jar shape on page 6 through a stencil to get the flower pattern.  The flower pattern is one I got from Joggles.com.  I then cut out the jar shape and glued it onto page 8 so that I could see it through page 6.  At the bottom right hand corner you can see the collaged add-on that supports (shown clearly in the last picture) another version of the brass jar.

Here you can see the added-on jar folded behind page 6 and sort of peeking through.

Here is page 3 folded over top of page 5 with the added-on brass jar (painted blue) folded over page 6.  I really wanted page 3 as part of the mix because I like how looks behind the cut-out jar-shape on page 6 (I'll show you what I mean next time). It was kind of fun creating the mix and match parts but I was a bit crazy with it for a while there!!

Here is the three and a half page spread, pages 4, 5 and 6 with the added-on jar.  You can see where I placed and then stamped over the mask on page 6 which later became the jar shape that I added on!.  It was fun but I had bits and pieces EVERYWHERE for a few days and the poor cat didn't know where it was safe to walk!  So that's it for now.  Back soon.

Jane Davies Composition class

I've taken a small break from watercolours and I've been playing with my acrylics again.  These are some pictures that I've done for the cruciform part of the class with Jane Davies. 

The first two use handpainted papers and some magazine papers.  The last two use all handpainted papers, some of which I have stamped on before painting. 

Jane is very talented both as an artist and as a teacher.  I would really recommend that you check out her classes.  And her books. They are all really great. 
http://www.janedaviesstudios.com/

Mix and Match, Part 1

So I have been working like crazy just lately on an 8-page mix and match project.  I've had cut-out pieces all over the place and have been taking 'possibility' photos of numerous different lay-outs.  Mostly I've been driving myself crazy with all the possibilites but here is what I've settled on.  It all started with a ginger jar and a brass pot.  And a piece of paper that I painted and stamped on with some of my own stamps.  It was the twiggy leaf branch that intrigued me the most.

This next shot is of the first and fourth pages, page 4 being the back of the page shown above.  In this shot, I have folded it back on itself to show the flip side.

My goal was to try and carry the themes of the jars and the branch (let's call it) all through the 8 pages.  Here you can see the shapes of the two jars.  These two pages are done with acrylic paints.  This next shot is the least cohesive of the 8 pages and shows pages one, two and three.  Page two is done in soft pastels and I'm thinking of continuing the darker background colour over toward the third page to link them a bit more closely. 

I'm not too sure how to link the first and second pages but I'm considering a couple of ideas. Because then of course it also has to work with pages 1 and 4 as in the second photo above.  See what I mean about crazy-making??
Any thoughts???
I'll post some more pages later.  Back soon....