TAKING A BREAK

I'm taking a break from blogging for a while. I've learned a lot of new techniques in the past few months and I want to focus on practice instead of completing projects.

Thanks for checking in.

Blaiz

TWO NEW PIECES

A couple of months ago, I took another class with Suzi Blu called The Rodeo Girl Workshop. I took it to learn the (...wait for it...) shabby background technique. Suzi provided a pattern of the girl, animal and balloon to trace, but I decided to draw my own elements. Suzi is really amazing -- this class only cost $15 and you get to download and keep 4 videos, which total about two hours altogether!



I've put myself on an art budget in which I can't buy any new materials that I've never used before (because I seem to never use them again), so instead of the colored pencils that Suzi used in her lessons, I painted the elements. I also made my own background papers, either on the computer or by rubber stamping tissue paper. Oh, I was so proud of the sparkly tissue paper that I made using glitter, until I adhered the images on top of them and the glitter created bumps everywhere. It looked like my little rodeo girl had pimples, not only on her face, but on her hat and her boots, too. I wasn't about to start over from scratch, so I did a bit of surgery on the face to cut out the glitter and then had to paint the whole face over again to cover her "scars." I left the bumps everywhere else.

This is the first dog-like creature that I painted. Don't ask me what breed it is. It's a dog, okay? I have to tell you, I just love this piece!

I finished the piece with wax, and since I really liked the look, I decided to finish my next piece with wax, too. Bad idea.



I painted this on a canvas that had already been prepared with molding paste and paint that was intended for another project that I never got around to doing. I'll tell you, it's very hard to paint a face on a textured background, so I won't be doing that again.

When I finished the painting, it was beautiful and sparkly. The eyes and collar were done in metallic paint, the wings in pearlized paint, the background had holographic gold paint on top of the blues, and the halo was gold foil. It looked terrible after I waxed it -- no life and no sparkle. I melted off most of the wax using a heat tool, but a light film still remains. As the wax was melting, it picked up some yellow from the hair color and redistributed it with the wax, so now there's yellow in places there shouldn't be, like on her face and neck. After I buffed it, it looked a little better, but it'll never look the same as before I waxed it. Lesson learned -- don't wax a piece unless you want it to look more muted.

As for the background class that I wrote about in my last post, we're now on week three and I haven't learned a single technique that I didn't already know. So unless and until the teacher shows me something I don't already know, I'm saving the two background pieces I showed last time for other projects. Another lesson learned, don't sign up for a class unless it has been recommended by someone who's already taken that class, or until you check out the body of the teacher's work. If I had done that, I would have been able to see from her work that she doesn't use any techniques that I don't already know.

You may have noticed that I changed my blog template. It gives me more room to blog and eliminates all the pink that had been bothering me for some time. I'll figure out how to get rid of the borders around my banner another time -- maybe by adding more examples of my work!

I also put a better picture of my flying fairy in the post entitled "Ain't She Sweet" a few posts down.

Enjoy!


Blaiz

"I'M SHOCKED, I TELL 'YA, SHOCKED!"

I just know that's the reaction you'll have when you read that I started a new online class on creating backgrounds. LOL! In my defense, I registered months ago and I couldn't cancel. The first class was about gluing papers onto your surface. There was even a video on it. That's right, a video of the teacher gluing papers to her surface.

At first, I was a little disappointed, but then I remembered at one time I had to be instructed in how to use gel medium to adhere my papers. I'm just hoping that the whole class isn't a beginner's level class, because I already know how to use bubble wrap and toilet paper rolls to stamp my pages.

Here are the two pieces I started:





I finally finished the "pages" I started in Portland in Misty Mawn's Little Book of Art Remodeling class. I wrote a few months ago that I was going to glue the pages onto wood and make a wall hanging, but I'm running out of wall space so I'm going to add some decorative paper to the backs and make them into a deck of cards. Along with being something decorative that my guests can flip through, I'll be able to pull out a page and remind myself of some of the techniques I used.





For those of you taking Misty's class in Virginia, it's not just about creating a background and then slapping a collage image on top of it. That's just the way I chose to interpret her instructions for this project. Bring a variety of sizes and types of images and you'll have loads of fun in the class. The other students made some beautiful pages.

In addition to the pieces shown above for my online class, I'm in the middle of two other pieces. Hopefully I'll be able to show them to you next time.

Until then, take care.

Blaiz

AIN'T SHE SWEET?

Here's my latest finished piece.



Well, part of it is my latest work -- the background, to be precise. The fairy herself was one of the first ladies I painted when I took Suzi Blu's Petite Dolls class last year. I had mistakenly painted her on 90 pound watercolor paper, which got all fuzzed up and buckled, so I was unable to add a background. I finally cut her out and adhered her to a painted canvas. I had originally intended to add some colored rhinestone stars, but I got so entranced by the large aurora borealis stars and the small silver stars that I totally forgot about the rhinestone ones. The crown is faceted rhinestone and very sparkly, also in aurora borealis, although it looks light pink in this picture.

I wrote in my last post about some of the challenges I have with my art work because of my previous profession. Another challenge I have, and it came out full force on this piece, is that I'm way too literal. I knew I wanted to have stars around the fairy, so my literal mind immediately stated, "Well, if there are stars it has to be night, which means the background has to be midnight blue and the only other image that I can add is the moon." The problem was, I didn't want a dark background. Man, did I ever have to push myself to paint the background a medium blue (which is what I wanted in the first place), then I had to force myself to stamp images on it. After all, there are no words, swirls or other rubber-stampy type images in the sky, are there? I would stamp one image and then go away for a while, come back and stamp another image and go away for a while, etc. I actually used 4 different rubber stamps and a brayer with stars on it on this piece. I purposely glazed over some of it to push it into the background.

I've taken all these classes to learn backgrounds, and I still have to push myself to use any of the techniques I've learned. "Why am I struggling?" I ask myself as I push myself to add another technique. Of course, I know the answer is because I'm way too literal, but I like to be a little bit of a drama queen once in a while. So I suffer, and I push myself, and eventually I do it and I'm happy that I did it and pleased with the outcome. It sure would be nice to finish a piece in a few hours instead of a few days, though!

Still more work to be done, still more lessons to be learned, still more growing as a person. Isn't it great that I get to do all of that through art?!

Blaiz

VISUAL JOURNALISM -- THE END

I decided to combine the last two classes on this post. The fourth class was writing on the page. The words themselves weren't too difficult to come up with, as the pages seemed to tell me what they wanted to say. However, even though I had purchased the two new sets of markers, I still had problems. Even though both sets stated they were waterproof and permanent, I could wipe them right off. I think it had something to do with the gel medium that I used to adhere the elements, because I had problems with the shading, too. I hadn't used the medium that Pam recommended because I didn't have it, and I see now that it makes a big difference.

One of the reasons I'm taking these classes is to try to loosen up artistically. Usually, I think and think and think about a project before I start it, if I ever do start it. It's due to the litigation work that I did for 22 years -- I'd walk in, find out what projects had to be filed that day -- and then mentally create a list that helped me organize the projects step by step. If I hadn't done that, I wouldn't have been able to get everything done in time. Good plan for litigation, bad plan for art. Also, everything had to be as perfect as possible, so I've got those two habits working against me.

With the writing on these pages, I did pencil in some lines to write on, but I'm happy to report that I just went for it as far as adding the words themselves. Without even practicing any styles of writing, I just picked a marker and started, not even being sure what style I was going to end up using. That was a real breakthrough for me!

I had more problems with the orange page. Poor little page, I did all my work on that page first, so it got the brunt of my learning curve. There was an additional problem with the dots I had surrounding the woman, so I decided to just paint them out. I felt the words I used on that page were appropriate!

The fifth and last class was shading with charcoal. As I wrote, I had some problems because of the gel medium, but I think they look okay for my first attempts.









I'm okay with these pages. I don't think they're great, but I wasn't going for greatness. I wanted to loosen up, which I did. I followed Pam's instructions to just do each step and not think about the final product.

Pam Carriker is a great teacher and I'm looking forward to taking other classes from her in the future. Along with loosening up, I learned some interesting things about myself doing these pages:

(1) Despite what I've been through since my injury years ago (and the attendant legal struggles), I'm basically a happy person. I can still see beauty in the world.

(2) I learned to accept imperfection and I don't have to gesso everything back to nothingness every time something isn't perfect.

(3) I only want to be associated with positive things in my life, including other people. I let go of a friendship that had been bothering me for a while due to the work I did on these pages.

To use one of Pam's favorite words, those things are awesome! Will I continue to journal? I don't think so. I don't seem to need to write down my thoughts in order to work them out. But I will definitely continue to use the techniques I learned in this class. Especially the last class on shading -- that was worth the entire (low) price of the class.

Thanks for joining me on this journey.

Blaiz

VISUAL JOURNALISM - WEEK 3

Week 3. Doodling. Ugh!

At first.

I ruined the center of the first piece (the orange one) with my doodles. When I tried to fix it, I made it worse. I was ready to throw that page out when I decided to just do what I could to minimize my mess and keep using the page until the class was over. That was a really big step for me -- accepting something that wasn't perfect!

I then realized what the problems were. First, my gel pens wouldn't write over the paint, so I only had a strange white gel pen and black, brown and (a weird transparent) red Sharpie markers to work with. Second, I was trying to doodle the way some of the other students in class had, by making beautiful black and white tendrils. The problem was, those tendrils didn't look good on my work.

So, I went out and bought some colored markers and decided that I was going to let each page "tell" me what doodles to do on it. Here are my pages to date. I may add more doodling after the words are added, or I may not. I'll just have to see.

I'm growing, which is why I signed up for this class in the first place, so I'm very happy with these pages!









What do you think?

Blaiz

VISUAL JOURNALISM - WEEK 2

Here are my pages for week two of Pam Carriker's online Visual Journalism 101 class:









Our asssignment was just to add images and stamping to our pages. We were instructed not to have a plan in mind, not to think about what the page was going to "become," just to do it. That was hard! I'd start holding elements up to a page to see if they "fit" together, and then have to tell myself that I wasn't supposed to be fitting the elements togther. It was exhausting! LOL. On the third page (the pink one), I stamped "Dream" in 5 different colors of Staz On permanent ink. They were so bright (because the stamp pads are new) that they overwhelmed the entire piece. I decided to get rid of them using permanent ink remover, but it only removed part of the image. It also removed some of the other stamping I had done, and took away part of the pink background, but at least it's not overpowering the entire page any longer.

I'm not happy with these pages precisely because they seem so disjointed. I keep reminding msyelf that it's only layer 2 of 5, so I'll hopefully be able to create some cohesiveness in the next few layers.

I also keep reminding myself that these are not collages -- they're collaged journal pages, and that I will be writing all over them.

Really.

Blaiz