Mixed Media Collage with Inks

Hello everyone!

The other day I wanted to experiment with acrylic inks. I have a few colors that I have not tried out yet. I did not have anything in particular in mind, but while going through my stash of art supplies I came across a bag of colorful flower ephemera (originally bought to create greeting cards). These sparked an idea! I thus set about to create these semi-abstract collages with "messy" ink backgrounds with additional marks made with crayons, pens and stamps, topped off with little flower clusters. 

What I learned from this experiment was that some inks are more transparent than others. Yes, I know there is an indication on the bottle, but since I watered the inks down I got a different result as opposed to using them straight from the bottle. Surprisingly, the bright green turned out yellow on the page and the yellow ochre mixed with neon pink results in an orange-y color, which is quite appealing. 

Most of all, I really enjoyed making these little collages!

Thank you for stopping by my blog and have a wonderful week!

Art is good for the Soul

Hello everyone!

Numerous studies prove that art and creativity have a positive impact on health and can help process experiences that are too difficult to put into words. Making art is comforting, and  like many others I feel it's more about the process than the result. These past few weeks I've spent lots of time in my studio making a variety of art. As I've mentioned previously, I'm not set on one specific style. The card at the top of this post is made with bits of leftover paper scraps, white gesso and a focal image.

The loose portraits above are done with gouache and colored pencils. I painted the flowers with aqua markers and fine liners.

I used distress inks to create the soft background in the art journal page above. Then layered with a few stamps and a stamped butterfly image.

And I've finally uploaded a video tutorial! The artwork below has lots of yummy layers and cool effects done with stencil paste and inks.

You can watch the full video on YouTube here:

Thank you for visiting. Wishing you a great day!

Sketching with Crayons and Blogger Issues

Hello everyone!

A small rant before I get to my current favorite subject - Art 🎨

I've been publishing this blog since 2008, but I find that I've never experienced as many blogger issues as currently. Everything from not being able to comment on either my own or other Blogger blogs (thankfully, that's been resolved) to changes made within my blogposts not updating and pictures not uploading. Separate to that I've recently been informed by Google, that my domain, which I've had since 2013 has been migrated to a host outside Google/Blogger, so now I have to deal with that as well. It's so annoying! Ok, rant over.

I've really taken to sketching with crayons lately. I've written about sketching/drawing with NeoColor I crayons in a previous post. These crayons have a lot of pigment and a little goes a long way. I find that starting with a light application and adding layers works best. The images look a bit "fuzzy". This is because I am working on lightly grained paper, not smooth. I like a bit of texture in my drawings. Here are a few examples of my bird sketches - and a cat! 

Thank you so much for stopping by. Have a wonderful rest of the week!