On The Bench - Obsession with Faces

Something about painting faces fascinates me! Female, Male, doggies & kitties, they all are becoming a great obsession to practice so that I can get better... I'm not wanting to become good enough to make faces that look like real life (my aesthetic is too abstract for that), just to get a better perspective on eyes, nose, lips, forehead, hair, etc., so that later I can abstract the heck out of them. :D

To that end, yesterday I stood in front of the mirror with a sketch pad and pencil figuring to tackle my own self portrait first. Wow, this can be an uncomfortable experience if you're not used to staring at yourself in the mirror, but who knows your special features better than you? And, it's a great way to be sure your model stays put while you work! After 10 minutes or so I had a nice rendering that I took to my computer and scanned. Now I can print copies in various sizes to use in my sketchbook for experimenting. Idea #1 tackled!

Several articles in the Winter 2014 Cloth Paper Scissors PAGES Mixed Media Art Journaling magazine feature drawing and painting women; go figure! (Pun intended :)

Jane Davenport shares in her article 'Hair-Raising Adventures', "The way to master anything...is to simply practice. Be willing to make mistakes. Put pencil to paper and let the lines flow." Then artist Monica Zuniga gives a great lesson from start to finish creating a journal page about herself in her article 'Illustrating Life'; starting with a sketch and building it up with watercolor, then she finished up with fun inspired imagery and journaling.

Reading techniques magazines and books always get my creative juices flowing, so Idea #2 was to look at faces in the magazine and online to create one woman's face and one man's face. (Actually, the man's face I did first and intended it initially as a woman's face, but decided to take it more masculine after seeing where the graphite and charcoal took me!) My Art Journal is the perfect place to play and experiment with these new projects and art materials.

I like to write what materials I used to create my images in the borders when trying out new techniques. The image on the left was painted on a smaller piece of mixed-media paper, then taped into the journal.

Idea #3 was to take the techniques I just experimented with, grab a Victoria's Secret catalog, and make a whole journal page with my new found confidence. Below is what I came up with:

BONUS - Here are the instructions for creating the journal page!

I started on a 9in x 9in square journal page that already had on it some practice calligraphy and a light blue wash of Ranger Distress Stain. The face inspiration and printed words came from a Victoria's Secret catalog. I sketched the face with a pencil then outlined with a Micron pen, added a light layer of gesso to the face and hair so the bottom calligraphy practice would still show through, re-emphasized the lines again with pen and Ebony pencil, then painted with watercolors. I glued decorated paper and the catalog quotes to the page with a glue stick, then outlined the quotes in marker. At this point I added a light coat of gesso on the other areas of the page so I could easily journal and stamp on the surface, wiping some of the white away with a damp paper towel to allow the calligraphy and color wash underneath to show through. To add drama, I outlined the face and quotes in charcoal and smudged them with my fingers, spraying after with a light coat of fixative. Next I wrote colorful words in Faber Castell Pitt big markers, outlining them in Micron pen, and used the same Micron pen to journal my thoughts. Last I stamped and embellished the surface. Yes, those are crystals on the hearts and liquid pearls paint along the bottom to add some bling bling and extra dimension to the page.

So glad I could share today's creative Art Journal inspiration with you. HAPPY ARTING! Tristina

Fun With Charcoal Drawing

Thank goodness for Holiday Weekends! I have started and stopped Dynamic Charcoal Drawing with Chris Wynter on my computer several times in days gone by. Today I went for it, got out all my charcoal drawing supplies (fat charcoal, skinny charcoal, charcoal pencils, white 'charcoal', blending stump and charcoal/pastel paper) and sat down to spend 2 hours following along with Chris on the video. I'd be lying if I said I enjoyed an uninterrupted 2 hours of bliss, but stayed with it until I was done!

I enjoyed Chris's relaxed style, and he kept talking about what he was doing even when you could not see his hand on the paper. His insights were very helpful. I recognize after having watched the video that it would be even more helpful the next time I sit down to draw a charcoal still life to set up a table with real objects in front of me so I can better see the light and texture in the objects. Here's my finished drawing...

Here is the link to the preview for Chris' video by Interweave: http://youtu.be/uZled4lnSR4

And, I always have to take the investigation of my projects to the next level, so here is a link to an artist who uses charcoal, white gesso and black gesso to make her abstract paintings. Stunning, and looks like a blast to do too! Will definitely try one of these. Enjoy... http://youtu.be/b3xqQ3bZjC0

Hope you have had the opportunity this holiday weekend to create something! Happy Arting,

Tristina  :)

Art Journal Inspired ATC's

Colorful Artist Trading Cards

I was so inspired by finishing up my art journal for The Sketchbook Project, that last weekend I decided to play with my art supplies before putting them away. I grabbed a pile of blank bristol paper Artist Trading Cards (ATC's) and went to town.

I made two sets of 3 cards, starting at 11pm, before I finally petered out at around 2am. The beautiful thing was that I didn't have to get up early the next morning...Yay!

To create a background for the first set of cards, I used Portfolio water-soluable oil pastel crayons. I love their rich colors and I just randomly grabbed some colors and rubbed them on the ATC's. Then, I used a soft damp brush to move the colors around and get them to penetrate the paper a little and blend. Next I grabbed my box of Derwent Inktense water-soluable pencils and scribbled on the surface just to add my artist's hand to the cards. I had many scraps of paper around my desk from The Sketchbook Project leftovers, so I tore small pieces of papers that interested me and used regular gel medium to glue them to the ATC's after they had dried.

I have a large collection of stamps from around the world (about 2000 that I bought in Paris a few years ago) that always come to mind when I have projects like this, so I grabbed out about 50 and found 3 that matched the background colors that I had already laid down. I added texture with acrylic inks and paint both under and over the stamps and adhered the stamps and some 3-D elements with regular gel medium.

I finished off these cards using a soft charcoal pencil around the edges of the card and/or stamps and in some of the texture created by the paints and papers.

It felt so good to get these 3 little works of art done, that I continued on to make 3 more ATC's with a different theme.

Flower ATC's

I started the two cards on the left with acrylic fluid inks; one blue on the bottom and gold on the top, then the opposite on the second. The third card was an experiment with sticky grid tape that I painted over with acrylic paints. For the two left cards I used scrap tissue paper I had painted left over from The Sketchbook Project, glued it down with regular gel medium and stamped words on after dry with StazOn ink. The third card I glued a piece of scrap paper to and added a word torn out of a children's book.

I am a crazy woman for having elements that pop off my artwork, so I went to my canister of colored Prima Flowers and started auditioning the different color combinations with the ATC backgrounds. The flower on each card is a combination of 2 or 3 paper flowers I adhered to the ATC and to each other with WeldBond glue. I found at scrapbooking stores some really cool multi-colored flat-backed plastic DewDrops embelishments that I also WeldBonded to the center of the flowers, then layed a light book/object on top of each card overnight to help the flower and dew drop stay in place while the glue dried.

The flowers were fully set in the morning...and I was In Love on the big reveal. <3

I hope I have inspired you to make your own small works of art...just for the sheer joy of it...and remember, ATC's are for sharing! Anyone out there want to trade with me? Leave me a comment. :)

Happy Art Making,  Tristina

Love Charcoal!

There's just something about the messiness and feel of holding a charcoal stick in my hand that I love! Maybe the smokey smell too of the vine charcoal...

Recently I picked up a large stick of charcoal at my local Utrecht art supply store and decided to turn it to making a quick Zentangle(tm) sketch using some of the designs found in the new Zentangle 6 book.

Love the smudgy property of the charcoal and used a damp paper towel to smudge in places to get some depth and accents going. After creating this work I found anything that touched it or that it touched ended up with charcoal on it, so 2 coats of workable spray fixative were used to seal in the charcoal.

I find that whenever I am working on an art project, it inspires my 12 year old daughter to work on a project of her own. Here is what she recently created when we were Art Making:

If you get up close at the top of her page, you can see in green the names of famous Creatives like Walt Disney, Einstein, Martin Luther King, Thomas Edison, etc. Very cool!

So in the famous words of a young Creative, "Dream Big, Be Creative, Walk Among the Stars!" ;) Tristina