Seeking ideas

I have been at odds with myself since our art friend/instructor retired.

She was always challenging us with new techniques.

She worked through them, step by step and carefully supervised us in each new technique.

She told us "you do it my way today and from then on, you can take off in any direction."

As a result, we were usually delighted with our results.

This past week I have explored different ideas found on the internet.

I was delighted to find Gerda Lipski on YouTube.  She does a lot of wonderful things and her 

instructions are easy to follow.

This was one of her ideas.  The only board I had was really too long.  This looks better
when done as a square.  It is cardboard triangles set in gesso and painted.

Another one of her ideas but I used one of my old backgrounds rather than doing a new one.

Again I used an old background here but I really like the look of it.

I have also scoured Amazon for books that might give me new directions to pursue.
I got Jo Toye's Book, Abstract Explorations in Acrylic Painting and it is a GEM.
It is packed with ideas and step by step instructions.

This was my first ever attempt with Tar Gel.  It is a bit of a mess to work with but you will see some lovely things she has created with it.

And blooming in the side yard is my orchid Schomburkgia tibicins

This orchid hangs in a basket and has 6 foot long stems reaching for the sun.  As a
result, the blooms are up by my neighbor's roof.  This year there are three stems of flowers.
It is a favorite of my husband and mine partly because of the dramatic presentation.
Wishing everyone a Happy PPF
And if you have suggestions for things that have boosted your creativity, I would love to hear!

Ladies (and gentlemen) start your glue gun!

Recently I took a class at our local art center.  The instructor brought in stencils of trees

which we placed on watercolor and sprayed with assorted colors.

I was admiring the tree and wondered if I could make something similar.

I dug around in the closet until I unearthed my glue gun, some twenty years old, and

a bag of glue gun "bullets".

I made my first tree and when I placed it on my paper, decided to leave it on the paper.

I used matt medium to adhere the tree to the paper.

Then I painted the tree and paper gold.  It was too bright so used a mix of paynes gray

and burnt sienna to wash over it all.  After the wash I wiped it down like I had used a stain.  I added bits of gold and silver paint to brighten it again.

So here is my first stencil/turned artwork.

Once I got going, I decided to do some flowers to see if I could do something with them

Here they are resting on wax paper.  When cool, I peel them off.

Here they are.  After I do the staining, I touch them up with gold and silver (it looks blue here)

paint.  The results are primitive so I decided that surely glue guns have improved from my

20 year old one so off I went to the local craft store.

Glue guns are identical to the old ones!

The 'bullets' I had had a price of $1.99 for 10 on the old package.  My new ones were $9.99 and I got 20.   Well, maybe this week I will make a real stencil and use it the way we did in class but I will be using my 20 year old glue gun.

Blooming has slowed on the lanai.  It has been in the mid 80's and no rain and little humidity.

I have repotted 15 orchids and have about 5 more to go.  It is muddy, messy work but the results more than make up for the work

And my little "Yellow Bird" is blooming this week.

Happy PPF!

Creative Play

This week I have been playing with my matt medium in different ways.

I have used it to collage, I have used it to transfer pictures.  

It has been warm with a gentle breeze so the lanai functioned as my studio

Here, I have collage elements and I played with stamping color

 This one I transferred a figure from a magazine on an old piece.

Here I reverted to my old favorite stencils over a colorful background.

 

And these beautiful dendrobium orchids opened this week.

It has been a colorful, creative, playful week.  I hope your's has been the same.

Wishing all a Happy PPF

Earthly vein

I am a native of Colorado and the colors, textures and flavors are always with me.

This is the result of one of those middle of the night brain storms.

I love it when that happens but am usually disappointed with my results when I try to

create whatever I had dreamed.

So this is a vein of turquoise as I imagined it would be, an "earthly vein"

The process was fun (and messy).

A rough sketch on gessoed paper.

The messy part!  I added another layer of thick gesso and created my rocks.

When all was dry and about 24 hours later, I set about painting it.

Can you guess what these are?  The last one should give it all away.  These are circus wheels.

I was very lucky to have a visit from my daughter last week and we went to the Ringling 

Circus Museum.  It was amazing!  And these were so colorful, I had to take a shot of them/.

Wishing all a Happy Paint Party Friday

P.S.  My bloom this week is a teeny, tiny dendrobium

Happy Birthday Paint Party Friday!!!

Many thanks to Kristin and Eva for maintaining our gathering spot.

Six years is a L O N G time to keep something like this running

I appreciate you and I am sure we all dol

This background was created a couple of years ago on, of course, March 17.

I never liked it so when scrounging around for something to work on,

I pulled it out and added some daisies.  

Lucky daisies?

I think it is headed back under the bed.

Another background on yupo.

Spring has sprung in Florida and I am busy unpotting, dividing and repotting orchids.

It is a mess and I am a mess and the lanai is a mess

All of which makes DH very cranky.

I love it.  I love seeing the plants upside down,   I love having plants to give away.

And I love to see how the plants respond to repotting.  It is like I give them new energy to bloom.

Wishing all a celebratory Happy Paint Party Friday!

Open House

Yesterday I was holding an "open house" and no one came (every realtor's nightmare)

So I had the manila file folder and a ball point pen and my duo tangle just grew, and grew and grew.

Those two hours flew by and I really wasn't that disappointed that no one came.

I kept my self entertained.

Funky floral

About a year ago I created this using little squares as stencils.

It took forever to do and the result was not to impressive.  I had thought the base patterns would show up more than they did.

So it went into the "dead letter" file under the bed.

And then I woke up with an idea one morning.

I decided there was nothing to lose,  so another funky floral was born.

I would say, "what do you think?"...but it doesn't really matter, it is done now and I kind of like it

(and that is VERY unusual for me).

And then there is that background I did a couple of weeks ago

It morphed into a pig.

This one is a work in progress.  I had used alcohol on the background hoping to get 

bits of the background color but only got spots,  The pig is too busy (or maybe the ground is too busy).

Anyway, this one needs work and I would love your input.

Our Florida weather has been hot, like 85 degrees...already, it is only March.

The only blooms this week are the ludisia orchids.  They like to hide in the shade, their blooms are tiny and when they aren't blooming, their foliage is gorgeous.

Wishing all a Happy Paint Party Friday