Thrifted and Altered

I noticed artprints/artwork were being altered  so figure why not.  I found this framed print at the thrift store and knew I was going to alter it into a Halloween theme piece.  

Loved the animals.

What do you think?  How'd I do?  This was fun and I will be setting it out during the Halloween season!  Great trick or treaters!

 

Blue Door, Part 4

The blue door, after sanding, touching up the blues, aging it and now on it's hinges.  Still need to add a door jam stop, the handles, house number and then the bell.  Love how fresh it all looks.   The blue door is so heavy and I'm glad no fingers or toes were hurt in moving it!

Blue Door, Part 3

I've been waking up so early to avoid the heat and the sun beating down on me while I work on the blue door.  We sealed one side yesterday and this morning we flipped it over to finish the other side.  One board needed to be replaced because it was beyond repair.  I also repaired the water damage areas.  

Repaired all the water damaged areas.

Bought three shades of blues to touch up the faded areas, too.

The final look.  Touched up the whole door with the 3 blues.  The replacement board matched up nicely.   Put a light coat of seal, but it's so hot out the seal is tacky.  Hopefully, it will dry in the next few days.  We will be ready to put the door on the door jams, which we also replaced and painted.  I have to clean up the bell and it'll all look so nice.

Blue Door Repair

I took a trip to Mexico many years ago.  We stayed in Patzcuaro, Michoacan for a week and it was one of those weeks where I ended each day thinking this day was even better than yesterday when I thought yesterday was the best day.  The sights, the people, their craftsmanship, the food and which made my soul overflow.  Across the street from the motel was a wood shop full of carpenters and carvers and they let me spend the day watching and learning.  I drew lots sketches and when I came home we put up a courtyard wall and it needed a door.  I built this door from my sketches.  I painted all shades of blues and aged it.  I love my blue door, everyone knows my house because of my blue door.  The bell inside the window was from another stop in Mexico.  This door was built around 2007 and boy it needs some TLC.  Plus, the side boards need some repair so the door had to come off today.  I will be replacing some wood and repairing some boards.  I'll get busy finding matching blue paint colors to refresh the color.    

Side story, when we had our house painted and all the trim was painted black.  As they removed the paper and tape from the windows, I saw my blue door painted black!  Omg, I rushed out and said take that black off!  The painters simply said oh, we'll paint back to blue for you, I'm like no, it's layers of this blue and that blue.  Luckily the wax finish on the door protected blues underneath.  They spent an hour peeling black latex paint off.

 

Creativity

I found my gel plate roll off sketchbook! I also found one of mini gel plates. I know where my paints and gel plate rollers are, too. Guess what I'll be doing soon!

Another muralist

Meet Pablo, "Kaper".  Him and I crossed paths about 30 years ago.  He was an artist who loved to paint "tag" walls and one on occassion he tagged a wall that he didn't have permission to paint on and which lead to meeting me.  I loved his artist talent and he has some community service hours he needed to do so I got permission to have him paint a mural on my office wall.  It was beautiful, bright colors and the word PEACE.  I loved the mural and I can't believe I don't have a photo of it.  A number of coworkers thought it was a negtive message encouraging a "tagger" to paint.  Well fast forward 30 years and I came across  his instagram.  He is a fabulous muralist and artist.  I had the pleasure to met up with him.  Actually, I surprised him and he did remember me.  On this particular day he was painting a mural at the Barrio Cafe, downtown Phoenix.  It makes my soul happy to wittness the success story of Pablo the artist!

 

Paintings

I needed something to do.  Found a pile of  5"x7" canvas panels and so got my paints out. Found some paper scraps and the glue stick.

It's all in the details!

Why one painting when you can do nine!

Decided on painting assembly line style!   This actually was kinda fun.  I plan to paint Latina inspired angel girls on each panel and then I will continue to embellish them.

This year's card

Sneak peek....

Vintage (public domain) images I found on the internet.  Resized them,  desaturated, and painted using my iPad and Procreate app.  I have more embellishing to do!  So far I love love love!

Holiday project with friends!

My friends, Becki and her mom, Alice asked to get together for a holiday craft day.  Becki is very crafty but he mom is not really all that interested but we insisted she joint in.  

Becki found a number of ideas on Pinterest.  I decided on this one.  I pretty much had all the supplies in my craft stash and that's the reason I picked this one.

This is mine.  Free hand painted the wreath and red berries.  Not bad.

Alice's sign, not bad for someone who brags about not having any creative talent.

Becki's sign looks good!

My finished sign!  Love, love, love it!  Had so much fun with Alice and Becki.  Oh, Becki's 4 yr old daughter joined in the fun...she's adorable and full of creative energy!

Wood project

I saw these little white wooden block decorations on Pinterest and thought I'd give it a try!  There are so many examples of these types of holiday decorations using simple wood shapes.

Dug through my wood pile and found a couple of 2x4 pieces.

Used the compound miter saw to cut the shapes.

First coat of white paint.  It cover well for a first coat.

I'll post an update when I finish them.

I'm also working on holiday sign with some friends this week and I'll post them, too.

New projects

I took an online class called Dainty Dioramas offered on the Jeanne Oliver website.  Here's my first dainty diorama box.  It's not as easy as it looks.  It's using shrink film.  I'm loving the process and especially loving the look.   It has opened up the creative brain as to all the ways I can use shrink film!  The other awesome idea is using old photos.  Recently, I've come across old photographs of family, aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, etc that family has posted on Facebook.  There's something about using faces that look like me.  I'm loving the idea of holiday themed dioramas using the shrink film technique.  I'll post more boxes as I get them finished!  Thanks for checking in on my blog, I really appreciate your support!!

Art Journal Mondays

Today I begin an art journal journey with my young friend, Reagan.  

She is a academically gifted smart young lady with an artistic side.  She loves to read and has been reading since she was probably three years old!   We began with a kid's book, of course and she was assigned to gesso the pages.  The plan is to paint, paint, paint the whole time she is in the studio.  The goal is let her be free to express her creative style.

Art journal

Art journal pages in progress....  

Homemade Gesso

I made gesso when I worked on my holiday snowman.  It worked great.  I decided to use my vintage journal as my art journal.  It's best to paint with gesso.  I was out of gesso and decided to make my own.

I used equal parts white glue and drywall compound and added white paint.  It seem thick but translucent.  It was gritty and not as smooth as I wanted.

Today I did some research on gesso recipes and found a different one. 

One part plaster of paris (1/2 cup)

One part white glue.  (1/2 cup)

Two parts white paint.  (1 cup)

The recipe.  It needs to be stored in an air tight container.

Not a very good photo of the gesso painted page.  It went on smoother and less grainy.  I think next batch I make i will mix a little water in with the plaster of paris to get the powder wet.  I noticed the powder left grains but once I painted it over and it smooth out in a nice coverage.  I liked this gesso recipe for painting.  It wasn't as translucent as the other recipe and it wasn't as thick.  I'll have to see how it is to paint on.

Art Journals

I had signed up for an art journal online class a month or so ago.  Yesterday I finally sat down and began the class.  I loved it!  I was reminded why I love mix medial art and art journals.  It's a way to use up all those cool pieces of paper and different paint mediums.  I didn't want to use a "journal book" so I dug through my vintage ledgers and found the perfect one.  Not a lot of pages and no writing in it.  I think who ever found it before me ripped out the ledger pages that were used.  I can't blame them since the handwriting was probably awesome.  

In my class she recommends painting the pages with white gesso to give all the paints and papers a good base to adhere to.  I didn't have any gesso so I made some.  

Painting gesso on the pages.

In the class she used various papers and images to glue on to the pages after the gesso layer.  I didn't have any gel medium either! I'm not a fan of mod podge, which I could of use. So on her next video she used oil pastels and pencils.  Here's my page and once I get some gel medium I'll add images.  Once process she used was taking tracing paper and tracing a sketch of the image and gluing it to the page to use as the basis of the painting.  Real cool method.   I have an idea to use a photo of my mom and her friends when she was young  with the tracing paper.  Another idea she gave was to use a color pallet you don't use too often.  I'm drawn to blues so I may challenge myself to oranges and pinks.

This is the pages so far.  I can't wait to add my images and papers!

Snow people

 When I began this project I had no idea what I was doing.  But I tell you it was fun making them.  I started by making balls out of aluminum foil.  That was hard on the hands, gloves helped.

I made five with arms and legs using wire and foil.

After getting the shapes done I covered them with paper mache using tissue paper.  This was easy.

The next step was covering the shapes with paper clay.  I made the paper clay and that was a challenge.  I found a website with the best tutorial videos.  You use toilet paper, water, drywall compound and white glue.  What I found is I needed to follow the recipe exactly in order to get the right consistency.  Once the paper clay dries I sanded them to get a smooth texture.

 The next step was painting them with gesso.  I even made my own gesso.  White glue and drywall compound with a little white paint.  Easy enough.  This gave them the neatest texture and feel.  I sanded them a little but not much was needed.

I started by painting their faces.  Oh, I did add noses either with clay or orange painted tooth pick noses.  This is when their personalities started to show up.  Once the faces were painted I lightly sprayed them with a spray adhesive and showered them with white glitter flakes.  I loved the look of the glitter.  This is a project I will do over and over again.  I loved making them even though it was a very time consuming project.  Most have found new homes this holiday season.  I must admit it was hard to let them go.  Each one definitely spoke to me.   Once I make more I will post for SALE.

I have an abundance of supplies, lots of holiday theme stuff, glitters, ribbons, papers, garland, bells, words, streamers, eyelets, wires, greenery, and imagination.  This was the best part of the whole project was dressing them up.