The girl, the dog & the candlestick!

Here is my entry for ACF 42. Their challenge, to use the image of the sitting girl that they provided.

The background is a photo I took at Skipton Castle. The chair, dog (both recoloured), clock and butterflies all came from iTkUpiLLi. I'm not sure where the candlestick came from.

Finished Petit Doll

This is my finished doll.

The last stage involved adding beeswax. Suzi Blu recommends doing this with a quilting iron, but as I don't possess one, I did my best using my melting-pot and a silicone spatula. Whilst the beeswax was still melted I added some mica and fresco flakes in coordinating colours. The three buttons in the lower right-hand corner were the final touch.

If you would like to see more detail, double click on the picture.

Petit Doll, next stages

This morning I added the next layers to my Petit Doll. To start, I added some string to her hair, to add some texture. Next came rub-ons of various sizes. Then more paint, dark red this time to coordinate with the rub-ons.

Once this had dried, I added some Tim Holtz stamps using Teal Archival ink. Unfortunately, it is hard to see them in this picture, but they are there! Then yet more dark red paint.

This is my interpretation of the theme 'windows', the Three Muses' challenge for this week .

I used two photos that I took on holiday in Yorkshire - one of an old building we visited and the other a window in a castle. I applied the picture of the window over the second image. Having previously erased the backgrounds from the pictures of the two women, I scaled them to the appropriate sizes, to make it seeem that the one woman was looking out of the window and the other coming towards it. Finally, I changed all the colours and manipulated the image to give the feel of a poster.

Hope you like it!

Petit doll

Remember those scary faces (well my sister thought they were scary) I posted at the beginning of September? Well, I thought I would show you how I have progressed. I kept practising the faces and then practised shading them with PrismaColor pencils. I eventually ended up with a few dolls that I was happy with.

Today I made this background using collage and acrylic paint.

I then pasted on my doll using matte medium.

Clearly, at this time she appeared very flat so I started to add some dimension and depth with pencils and paints.

Then decorations, colouring the edges and more depth & dimension.

She's still not finished. I shall probably do some more work on her before the final stage of beeswax, but I am pleased with the progress I have made.

Remember those scary faces ......

Gypsy - Sunday Postcard Art

Here is my entry for the 'gypsy' challenge set by Sunday Postcard Art.

Although it looks simple it actually took a long time to put together. It was created digitally. To start I erased the background from the photo of the gypsy . I then put her in an oval frame. This image was then placed over the rose background and darkened. Some of the script was appearing across her face, so I erased it. As a final touch, I added the lace frame, coloured it cream and cut the surplus edges.

Apologies! Both the gypsy image and the rose background were freebies I have acquired, but failed to note where from. Let me know & I will add an acknowledgement.

Spinning - ACF 41

The challenge set by Art Creations Friday this week was to use the picture of a woman spinning in the forest. It seemed such a lovely image that I didn't want to play around with it digitally, so I made a collage using text from a dictionary (actually the definition of 'spin'), acrylic paints, some oil pastels, some stamps and some metallic rub-on paint.

Lion in forest

Whilst in Saltaire recently, I found these lovely statues of lions. Here is one I incorporated into a digital collage.

The tree background is from iTkUpiLLi and the abstract background courtesy of Stamping Rika.P.S. If you are ever near Saltaire, it is a fascinating place to visit.

Hyacinth collage

I started this collage on holiday - I pasted on the large image of the hyacinths, which I got from a magazine. I then drew the hyacinths in the top right corner with soft pastels. I finished it this afternoon - I pasted on patterned papers in the bottom right and top left corners. I then applied patches of gesso and titan buff acrylic paint. Once dry I added a wash of magenta. A variety of paint colours were then dabbed on through sequin waste. Larger dabs were added randomly in different colours. To finish, the owls (Graphicus) and other images (Tim Holtz) were then stamped on top using brown StazOn ink.

Journal page

Here is a journal page I did whilst away. I had limited materials, just a few coloured pencils, some soft pastels and a black Sharpie pen. The sentiment is somewhat exaggerated, but we did get very wet!

ACF 40 - macabre!

Here is my entry for the Art Creations Friday challenge this week. They gave the image of the woman holding the clock. Obviously, the theme of time springs to mind so I imagined her several years hence and added the image of the skeleton. The background is a picture I took on holiday and recoloured for this piece.

Collage - In the Garden

This is a collage I made yesterday. It measures 18 x 14 inches.

I started by layering several different colours of acrylic paint, with some additional patches of gesso now and again. Once dry, pasted on some very thin patterned paper and a couple of small pieces of telephone directory. I then added the first picture of the statue (one I had taken on holiday). More brown paint. Then came paint patterns, using sequin waste and different colours of paint. The second picture was then pasted on. I then stamped several different Tim Holtz images using brown Staz On ink. To highlight the statues I went around the edges with some oil pastels. Finally, I added a few dabs of metallic paint. I think I will call it 'In the Garden.'

ACF challenge 39

This is my entry for this Art Creations challenge this week. I missed it whilst I was away!

Les Petit Dolls

One of the things I have been doing since I got back from holiday is following Suzi Blu's Les Petit Doll class. The first week focuses on drawing stylised faces. This has been a very interesting process and I have been quite pleased with (some of) the results, considering I had previously thought I would never be able to draw.

I am very pleased with the picture (below)I drew last night and this may be the basis for my final picture, a coloured doll on a shabby, beeswaxed background.

Key cabinet

Well, my holiday is over and since I came back I have not had much time for crafting. I suddenly remembered though that I had decorated this key cabinet a little whole ago and not put it on the blog. It came as plain balsa wood. I first painted it with brown acrylic paint and then went over this with tiger lily and tattered leather Glimmer Mists. I cut a piece of copper colour metal to size and then ran it twice through my Cuttlebug machine to emboss the pattern. Brown acrylic paint was used to age the metal and alcohol inks then applied on top. I decorated the inside with some DCWV card.

Yesterday, I had a lovely surprise when I opened my copy of Craft Stamper magazine as they had published one of the ATCs I had sent in. I am really chuffed!