The City of Light

available in my etsy shop

I was able to load in some new items into the shop last night.. it feels good to be able to cross that off my list. I feel anxious when I am in the process of making projects.. paint, let it dry, add this, let it dry, add this too, let that dry. I've been working on these pieces since I started the collage background last week! Done.

Special thanks to Neda and Rima for helping me with my French!!

Time to carve the pumpkins and get ready for tomorrow! See you then!

Gothic Arch: Gold

Je laisserais tomber une averse de roses.
Je dépenserais mon paradis en faisant du bien sur Terre.

Thank you, Rima!! Thank you for your help with my French!!

For my St. Therese shrine, I started with two arch cut outs made with pearlescent champagne cardstock. I covered each with a wash of gold acrylic paint and then stamped on the text. I cut an opening in the top layer for the St. Therese transparency. Next, I folded little fans of peach colored tissue and machine stitched them around the arch. Once the stitching was in place, I opened each of the fans to make the flowers. I added a little gold paint to the tips of each flower. The French text is printed on gold metallic paper and aged with graphite pencil. A little charcoal and artist crayon surround the arch. I joined the two sheets together with pop dots for a little dimension.

Making these arch projects is new to me and very enjoyable! You should check out the Gothic Arch blog and try your hand at one today!

See you tomorrow! It was a great day for trash today..I've got a lot of new cardboard to alter!

Artword: Home

Somehow I missed looking at the Artword site last week and wouldn't you know it, the theme was my entry! The horror! I whipped this up a minute ago, I am supposed to be cooking for a bunch of people who are coming for football at 1:00...mama mia...

It's about 12" tall, recycled Cheerios box painted with Golden acrylics and I stenciled on some modeling paste for the swirls.. pen, artist crayon and justjohanna flower. I am so embarassed this is so late!

WS: Tryptich

This was one of my all time favorite projects! Wednesday Stamper's theme is "Tryptich" this week. These are three 2.5x3.5 panels sewn together. I used justjohanna images and Golden acrylic paint. I also wrote a tutorial explaining how I colored these flowers! You can read it by clicking here.

All of my stamps are packed up and I am working out of a collection that fits inside a shoebox! This should be interesting!

Have a great weekend!

IF Alphabets

So the theme this week is "alphabets" and I immediately think "alphabet soup". I was in the mood for something bright and cheery since last week I focused on death. See how versatile I am? Ha! Honestly, it's so hot, I had to make a 5 minute project. That's the truth. I can't sit here and swelter.

Acrylic paints, justjohanna butterfly and scroll, pen. 5x7" canvas panel. I used interference violet on the bowl and swirl of soup; it looks neat-o in person.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Dateline: Lost Luggage Reviews Returns from Summer Break!

6x6" decorative canvas with French mumbo jumbo

There has been a lot of chatter about image transfers recently so I decided to share what I learned at a recent Golden mixed media class. Come on over and welcome me back from summer vacation on the review blog today, won't you? There is a big, fat, tutorial on image transfers...free!

Thank you for stopping by today!!

justjohanna rubber stamps, acrylic paints, vintage French text, Pitt and image transfer.

IF Visitor

“Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: That we are here for the sake of others...for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day, I realize how much my outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received.” - Einstein

This is the finished 5x7 canvas I previewed on the blog yesterday. Golden acrylics (including a generous helping of Micaceous Iron Oxide), image transfer (my grandfather RIP) and some rayon mesh. A justjohanna scroll image is also in there...but it doesn't show up well in the scan.

Thank you for stopping by today!

Artword: Storyteller

before

after

The Tomato Storyteller
Art on recycled paper; approx. 8x5"

All we are saying is give peace a chance.

Mini-Julification for today! This is a 2x2 inch project I made using Ranger Memory Glass and one of the corresponding metal frames. The piece is translucent, making it really pretty hanging in the window!

The bird image (justjohanna) is stamped onto a blank vintage book page and I used salted water color paper for the base of the collage. (See Godelieve's tutorial for salt paper.) I added my usual pencil and pen doodles and a pressed flower from my garden.

Thank you for stopping by today!

IF: Emergency

acrylic paint, paint pen, Pitt, justjohanna image.

Tomato Queen

Part two of last weekend's transfer class using Golden mediums. I set out to make a portrait of the Tomato King, but once I added the pearls, I ruled out transgender bull dog and went with queen instead.

I'll explain the transfers a bit: The dog and tomato image are actually pictures from a magazine. To make each transfer, you cover the transfer area with a "medium" and then place the picture face down to dry on top of the medium. Once dry (After about 12 hours), you can add water to the image and slowly scrub off the pulp from the paper. Once finished, you are left with the ink only, which has "transferred" to the medium.

There are a ton of different types of mediums to handle this process. The tomatos were transferred using a new medium from Golden called "glass bead gel". It consists of tiny glass beads that really play with the light once dried. You can see the texture in the picture above.

After your transfers are dry, the most enjoyable part (in my opinion) is to paint over them. Using paints in different types, colors and washes will enhance the transfer image and once you experiment, you'll find the possibilities endless.

I hope you like my Tomato Queen as much as I do. Her cousins and brothers can often be seen playing poker. Thanks for stopping by today!