GPP Crusade No. 52: Seasonal Wardrobe

Cover art on Strathmore Visual Journal

 This month Michelle Ward challenged Green Pepper Street Team participants to share seasonal "wardrobe" changes in our art.  Do I change my color palette with the change of the seasons? 
How does the changing of the seasons affect my art?

I tend to work with a limited color palette and usually prefer saturated colors.  But looking back at the past winter months I see that I played a lot with softer colors, especially aqua.  Maybe a desire to be at a warm beach during the long cold winter was influencing me.

Lately, I've been experimenting with bright green.  Today's project was to embellish the covers of a Strathmore Visual Journal.  They have a tough, shiny cover that I sanded to give more tooth for the paint.  Then I applied gesso that I distressed with waxed paper.  While the gesso was wet, I lay a piece of waxed paper on the surface and lifted it off.  The gesso dried with an irregular texture.
Next, I painted a thin layer of lime green paint on the surface and dabbed some off with damp cheese cloth.

The special seasonal touch to this cover came from the leaf masks. A short storm left bunches of leaves and twigs on the ground yesterday. I picked up a few and pressed them over night.
I laid the leaves on the covers and sprayed a couple colors of diluted Liquitex Acrylic Ink.

I really like the results of this project so far and have started a similar project on canvas.

This crusade has me thinking about the influence the seasons have on my work and I can use that awareness.
 When I get stuck for inspiration, I can let the unique qualities of the season spark ideas.  The bright green that I'm working in seemed too intense when the ground was covered with snow.  But now the outdoors is bursting with green and it just seems natural to be working with it.

GPP Crusade No. 39 -Pulling Prints, Part 2

What happens when inspiration strikes, you have a stack of cardstock and palette of paint?
This is just a portion of the prints I pulled following some of the steps outlined by Michelle Ward at the GPP Street Team Crusade blog.

Michelle says you can use tyvek to make a mask. I bought packs of plastic masks for pennies in the clearance aisle at Hobby Lobby a few months ago. They work great for this technique. I like the results so much that I would even spend the time to cut my own. ;-)

Following are some of my favorite results....




Better go over to the crusade blog and learn more. You have to try this!

GPP Crusade No. 37: Love Letters (part2)

Could it be any plainer?

This is a love affair with X's & O's!

Have you visited the Green Pepper Street Team yet? Take this link to the site where you can link to other artists who are participating in the challenge. Their names are on the left side column.

As you can tell by the post title, this is my second entry. I worked this journal spread during the same sessions as the previous post. It's good to have simultaneous projects going. It helps me stop long enough for a layer of paint to dry before going on to another and causing a muddy mess.

I used the same magenta and phthalo turquoise as the previous spread, but the look is very different because I omitted the gold. As a result, I didn't get the range of secondary colors.

I'm not sure if I will do any journaling on these spreads. Thinking about it. I did a bit of research on the origin of X & O which was interesting. Just google the phrase with your question. It's amazing how much info is on the web! I think I should scan these pages before I write anything. Maybe I could write on the print out because these pages have lots of texture from the gesso spattering and writing could be a challenge.

XOXOX

GPP Crusade No. 34

Collage of elements from my experiments on black paper.
When this Green Pepper Press challenge was announced, I was excited about the possibilities and wanted to explore ideas I have for working on black backgrounds. Earlier this summer I painted a design on black for my husband and have wanted to do more. But it's been a busy month with other priorities. I didn't know if I would get to follow through.
I decided to tear 8-1/2 x 11 sheets of black cardstock in half. Late in the evening I would spend a few minutes trying different media on the paper. It's the end of the month and I have a collection of papers to show for it. I plan to bind them into a journal.

I monoprinted and stamped white gesso on some pages. When dry, I experimented with adding color using opaque watercolor, water soluble oil pastel, and stamping. The gesso was very porous and the colors were very muted on it.

Opaque watercolor and soft pastels were worked directly on black paper with more dramatic results.

Metallic pigment markers were used on glossy black cardstock. I also used them to ink a rubber stamp which is the butterfly in the collage above. The shimmery quality of these images doesn't show up well in the photos.

I used masks and applied soft pastel to a page for dragonflies. I stamped with white chalk ink over hand-shaped masks. I scumbled white gesso around the hands to make them stand out against the page better.

These are among my favorites. I used heavy body acrylic paint - regular and metallic. Paint was applied with a brayer. The papers on the right and the left have been stamped as well. I used acrylic paint on the stamps.

I made notes with more ideas on another black page using a metallic gel pen. I bought black illustration board with the intention of cutting it into covers for the journal, but I cut pieces for new artworks instead. I have already started a new work on one of the pieces.
[I will NOT be pursuing art pieces on this black illo board because the top layer of paper began to delaminate when I put juicy washes of color on the gesso base coat.]

This was a great idea for a challenge. I learned a lot and now have a new set of inspirations to work from. I found that a few minutes spent on a consistent basis will turn into more than I could have imagined. Thanks Michelle!

GPP Crusade 28: Portion Control Part 3

After warming up with the pages in my last post, I went very abstract with my circles. The paper was painted with an uneven mix of yellow. Next I used an incomplete cardstock circle as a mask. Using a stipple brush, I rubbed paint onto the surface starting on the circle mask and moving outward. Using the corrugated insulation paper from a cup of gourmet coffee, I punched circles. Paint was applied thinly and I used them as stamps. I also painted onto a round makeup sponge and used it to stamp more layers of color. I used the circle template as a stencil just a tiny bit, but turned it over and pressed the dabs of paint around the edge of the circle onto the paper for more texture. I just kept building layers of color until I was satisfied with the composition.
I'm looking at this image two days later thinking I could have given it more punch. But the photograph is a bit flat compared to the reality. And I can always do more and go further next time. Right? Right! Some of you would have journaled in such a lovely fashion over this. I can image it. I just have a horrible time doing it myself. It's such a luxury to be able to play with words in PS Elements. Well, time to get something done around here. See you later.