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 :)

 

Recycling

I went through all our cd-records the other day and decided that I no longer need them. A strange feeling that the cd-epoque is over, but all the music I need is on Spotify and available at any time, easily and at a low cost AND it doesn't need any physical space in my house :)

I found inspiration for cd coasters at Crafts by Amanda and made my own interpretation of it. I sanded off the surface and painted it black, then used some of my stencils and painted it white. Tip: I painted the wrong side of the cd, the shiny side, and unfortunately the "ring" in the cd is visible. It's much better to paint on the side with the label. I didn't know what kind of varnish to use so I first painted a layer of matte gel medium and then one layer of glossy decoupage varnish. Then I cut out a circle of dark grey felt and glued it on the other side of the cd.

I like the result. It was really fun to make so I'm sure I'm gonna make some more :)

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!