Mixed media flower painting

I just finished making my second mixed media flower painting. It's so energizing to work with such vibrant, happy colours! I absolutely love making black and white zentangles and doodles, but I feel the same love for making colourful paintings.

I wanted this painting to show what summer in Sweden looks like. Or at least it shows my feelings for summer in Sweden. Colours, flowers and just pure happiness :)

Hope you like it!

 

A mixed media owl

I've been working on this owl painting for a few days now and yesterday it was completed. It's hard to know exactly when to stop, but suddenly it just felt right.

It's made on a canvas (46x38 cm, 18x14") and it's the largest piece I've ever created. I've used acrylic paint, scrapbook paper, gelatos and molotow pens. I made at least a million mistakes and lost hope several times, but after each revival the painting reached a higher level. I've definitely learnt not to fear mistakes :)

As you problable know by now, I LOVE owls so this painting is a darling to me. I just had to write the poem "A wise old owl" on it and I had to squeeze the last words in. It's so hard to calculate the space letters take and I was sure it would fit in without any problems and with a little force, it did.

So, here he is... my darling owl :)

The green/blue and bronze are metallic acrylics and it really glows in some angles. Love it!

For the first time one of my pieces was allowed to move in to our living room :)

First assignment in 21 Secrets 2014!

I am so excited that 21 Secrets 2014 has started! There are so many workshops I want to take and so much I want to explore and learn and, this is important, so many people I want to get to know. 21 Secrets is really an exciting community with wonderful teachers (thank you Connie Hozvicka!), a world wide  bunch of people connected by art. A friendly Art Squad :)

I started out with Lisa Cheney´s workshop "The Savage Mirror". I watched all the videos and was both inspired and a bit terrified. I have only drawn about four or five faces ever, and now the assignment was to draw a self portrait. It was an exciting trip, to put me outside myself (you will have to excuse my bad English) and look into a mirror and draw the stranger staring back at me. It really felt like it wasn't me at all.

I've decided to go all in and let you see every step to the final result. You can never imagine what a strange feeling it is to see myself in the final picture. I didn't think that I would ever draw a self portrait and this is acutally looking like me! A bit anyway. I don't have such sad eyes, but the nose, the mouth, the shape of the face and the hair is me.

When I looked into the mirror, I focused on my mouth and that was what my journal spread should be about. When writing the text for ten minutes, I wrote a different story, but exactly what Lisa said would happen, happened. I found the meaning. The last few minutes my text was all about what I say, how I can bring joy with what my mouth says, how I can hurt people by saying the wrong things. So, I decided to cover my whole text with paint. Then I drew a big mouth and wrote a text about what I say and what I don't want to say and how I feel when saying the wrong or right things.

This process really made me think about the importance my mouth has and that I sometimes have to think before I speak. I wrote everything in Swedish because it feels closer to myself even though it's much easier to write in English to keep a distance to the signification of the words. Maybe that is not so obvious for English speaking people, but at least for me, it's much easier to say "I love you" or "I hate you" instead of "Jag älskar dig" and "Jag hatar dig". The words get closer when they are said in my own language and in this process I had to keep it close.

I am happy with the result and more importantly, I am so happy for Lisa's class and her wonderful way of inspiring. Thank you Lisa, you rock! Love!

 

My Guardian Angel

This is my second mixed media art journaling piece made on a canvas (30x40 cm, 12x15").

When I took a workshop by Kate Crane in 21 Secrets earlier this year, I fell in love with her way of drawing whimsical angels. I tried painting three angels on a small cardboard and loved them! Now I've taken it one step further and made one big angel and added more details like arms and hands. I'm so in the process of learning and I enjoy every minute of it.

One thing I love about acrylic paint is that it's so easy to cover mistakes. I think I repainted the face at least five times. At first it had no facial features at all. My husband thought it looked like a football and I decided to add eyes. That was a mistake, so I repainted it. Then I thought, why not paint a whole face? So I did... hahaha... the poor angel looked like a eunuch so I had to repaint it again.

So... no face, face, no face, face, no face... and here he/she finally is... my Guardian Angel :)

 

Mixed media painting with doodle

Today I felt like trying out doodling on a painting which at first felt like I was wrecking the whole painting but then turned out to something nice.

I got the inspiration from the book "Doodles unleashed" by Traci Bautista, a great book by the way! I cut out pieces of scrapbooking paper for flowers and stems and glued them on the canvas which I had painted with acrylics. Then I painted the flowers and stems kind of "clumsy". It isn't supposed to look neat and tidy :) After that I doodled with Molotow pens and my new favourites, Liquitex paint markers. I had a great time and enjoyed every mistake I made and just made some more so that you wouldn't guess they are mistakes at all ;)

I LOVE colours! You who know me are probably surprised because I'm always dressed in black, grey and white and sometimes, maybe, with a slight touch of colour. But inside I am full of colour and it is about time it shows in my art (it feels kind of pretentious to call it art, but I don't have a suitable word for it.)

Hope you enjoy it! And if you don't... I'm happy anyway :)

 

Take me as I am...

I spent the entire evening making this piece. I didn't know what would come out of my playing with colour, stencils, cardboard, stamps etc. It's so fun to just DO things and see what develops!

I cut out a picture of a model from a catalogue and painted her black since I don't have any stencil with girls. Then I just added paint and stamped, made circles and so on. I used a metallic green/blue paint for the tree and it kind of glows but you don't see that in the photo. Found the text "Confidence is not for sale" in another catalogue and then wrote the text "Take me as I am or have nothing at all". Like that quote.

Hope you like it!

Mixed media painting

I'm proud to present to you my first mixed media painting that I actually want to put on my wall. I bought a stack of books from Book Depository (free world wide delivery and low prices, love that) all about mixed media and art journaling. So after being inspired by Kelly Rae Roberts, Suzi Blu, Dina Wakley and Traci Bautista I made this piece :)

I made it on cardboard and mounted it on another cardboard covered with an old black tablecloth. I didn't really know how to attach the painting to the background and considered using screws but decided on sewing instead. I'm pretty pleased with the result.

Hope you like it!

Canvas painting

I'm really astonished that this new year has started so great creatively for me. As I mentioned in my previous post I've had a hard time finding what I want to do, or to choose among all the things I want to do. But then I read Tracy Verdugo's blog where she wanted us to mention one intention for this new year.

One of my intentions is to be more persevering, persistent, to go on and go through with what I'm doing. I often give up thinking that everyone is much better than I am and that I might as well quit.

So, I've been wanting to make a canvas painting for a long time. I've looked at all the beautiful canvases that all talented artists out there have made and ended up not daring. Today I had the word persistent in my head and just started making my painting without thinking too much. I knew what colours I wanted to use and then I just made it.

The quote says "Don't grieve what you miss, be happy for what you have". I like that quote. It's so easy to forget to be happy over the things and people that fill your life and to focus on what you don't have.

Anyway... I started with painting one layer of gesso on the canvas, then went on with decoupaging some napkins and after that painted with different blue, green and white acrylics. Then I did some stamping, and  making circles with metallic paint. Some washi tape and a brown string and then it was finished.

I'm really happy with the result!

The first zentangle of the year

New year, new goals... or maybe the same goals as before but with a few additions :)

I have no idea if someone is still reading my blog, but I've decided to write in English as many of my new found friends from 21 Secrets are English speaking.

For the moment I have run out of inspiration. I don't know why and I don't know how or where to find it again. I google, I visit blogs, I read books and papers, I look at tutorials on Youtube. Or maybe my problem is not to actually find inspiration it's more the lack of energy to do the things I want to do. There are so many techniques to use and so many different kinds of paint to choose from and I can't decide what to do first. So instead I do nothing. But I hope that will change soon :)

Anyway, I started this new year with finishing a zentangle I started making a few days ago. That was an achievement. I had no inspiration at all when I made it but it was kind of fun to draw the bird. The background is made with Dylusions inks, stamps and different circles painted with acrylics.

Journal Soup och mixed media

Faktum är att det är augusti nu. Osannolikt men så är det. Vart tog semestern vägen? Jag hade fyra veckors ledighet och började jobba i måndags. Maken hade bara tre veckor men vi hann åka på en solsemester och göra några småresor här hemma också. Men nu är jag tillbaks på jobbet igen. Säger inget mer om det tror jag.

Min sista semestervecka var jag alltså ensam och kunde ägna mig åt min hobby fullt ut. Jätteskönt, otroligt givande och kreativiteten flödade. Jag kollade igenom vilken av alla workshops jag ville gå på 21 Secrets och fastnade för Kate Crane. Eftersom jag jobbar en hel del med art journaling i bokform så tilltalade Kate's  format mig mycket. Det går ut på att man gör sin art journal "i lösvikt". Man gör sidorna lite mindre och på olika material. Jag har använt mig av baksidor på block, kartong, gamla förpackningar och hårdplast. Jättekul och annorlunda för mig! Sen förvarar man allt i en låda så att man har lätt att titta på sina alster. Sen är det ju lite roligt att de är synliga i lådan också. En bok är ju alltid en bok som måste öppnas.

Till saken hör att jag är totalt ovan vid att blanda material som det går ut på i mixed media. Penslar och färger är helt nytt för mig, likaså metoden att måla det man känner just då, liksom planlöst för att se vad som händer. Jag är van vid att göra prydliga kort som jag oftast något så när tänkt ut i förväg hur de ska se ut. Nu bara skapar jag efterhand och det är fantastiskt roligt att se vad det blir!

På den första sidan använde jag mig av Dylusions som bakgrund och sen gick jag på med akrylfärg, ProMarkers, Molotowpennor, Washi tape och Liquid Pearls. Jag hittade några bilder i skräplådan och fick till  riktigt färgrik sida.

  

På nästa sida grundade jag med ett lager notpapper och sen målade jag över med akrylfärg. Man kan se notpappret på några ställen. Sen målade jag igen och... ja... det blir liksom vad det blir.

 

På den tredje sidan gjorde Kate tre änglar och jag provade också. Så himla svårt att måla när man inte är van vid penslar. Jag har ju alltid målat med pennor och det är stor skillnad kan jag lova. Jag är jättestolt över mina änglar :)

 





På den fjärde sidan skulle man rita en egen figur på ett separat papper och sedan infoga det på bakgrunden som man förberett. Bakgrunden är målad på en pappersförpackning och man kan se fyrkanterna i kartongen på bilden. Så häftigt att det är olika material på alltihop! Jag kan inte rita men jag försökte ändå rita av en kung som jag har i vardagsrummet. Sen gjorde jag en drottning av henne och texten kom jag på eftersom det är så jag känner det (ibland i alla fall).

 

Den sista sidan skulle man göra på hårdplast. Jag hittade en förpackning till några stämplar som var passande så jag tog den och klippte ut två sidor :) Målade och fixade på ena sidan och sen blev det så här. Avslutade med att sy ihop de båda plastsidorna.

 

 

Så här ser allt ut i min lilla låda! Jag kommer helt klart att göra en massa fler sidor att fylla på med. Detta var en fantastisk workshop och jag längtar till nästa!