Boho Floral Daisy Painting by Jenny

I love daisies! So pleased to find some time the other day to grow an abstract daisy for Sass. Its created for the theme 'Bohemiam Floral' :)

The photos show a short visual description on how it was painted. I've used Dylusions acrylic paint with various stencils by Tim Holtz, Dyan Reaveley and Darkroom Door, foam ink blending tools, paint pens, a watercolour pencil and paintbrushes.

It started off with Dylusions Paint in yellow (Lemon Zest and Lemon Drop) blended over the whole page using a Ranger Ink Blending Tool. Once this was dry, I added more layers one at a time (letting them dry inbetween), using a darker colour with each stencil design until the last stencil where I used Black Marble through the Darkroom Door Grunge Borders stencil. Some stencils I painted and then pressed onto the page.

Once dry, I then sketched out a simple but very large daisy design using a blue watercolour pencil. Flower petals on daisies are simple... draw a circle (or trace a bowl) then add elongated loops or long ovals that butt into the circle. 

Don't worry if it doesn't look like a real flower, you'll find our eyes will see it as a flower whatever it looks like. Around the daisy I painted a wash of blue paint so that the background wasn't completely hidden. The watercolour pencil outline was activated with the water and blended into the paint easily. Any pencil marks still showing were washed off gently after the blue paint was completely dry.

Next was the centre of the flower. This is basically hundreds of overlapping dots (often called stippling) using a basic round paint brush (darker on the outside, lightest near the middle to give a rounded shape). Then for the final layer of spotty highlights and shadows, I used the end of my paintbrush (the wooden end creates fabulous spots). All the exes you can see were initially stenciled and then overpainted with white paint pen.

Lastly, I added more white outlines and some thoughts using Tim Holtz Idea-Ology Stickers and Quote Chips over a strip of Idea-Ology Fabric Tape.

I love how much difference a few layers of paint makes to any artwork. Its amazing!

Make Today Count, Trust Your Heart and Tell Your Story!

Raining on the Rock

It took me a while to settle on an idea for Janie's Australia journal. So many things say Australia to me. One of my clients adores John Williamson and we listen to him at work a lot and he is a pretty iconic Aussie and this song is so evocative.

I visited Uluru in 1996 -97 and it was an amazingly beautiful place.

My page is drawn and coloured with inktense and various other watercolor pencils and I used a signo gel pen for journalling John Williamsons lyrics.

Jenny James' Paper Doll Journal by Janie O'Brien for July 2020

I had such fun creating this journal. My 'paper dolls' are the old fashioned paper dolls with articulated joints. This was accomplished by joining the 3D dolls legs and arms by brads. They are then stuck to the background with velcro which means the dolls can be repositioned. The backgrounds are a combination of water colour and image strips obtained from Pinterest. The dolls themselves were purchased from Etsy.

Melissa's Ballet Journal

  

This is my spread in Melissa's Ballet Journal.  I created this artwork using Ashvin Harrison

 "teal dancer" as inspiration. I used Lindy's sprays for the background. I used water colour and acrylic paint to create the Ballet dress.

I love how majestic and talented Ballet Dancers are. The dedication to their craft is inspiring. 

I wanted to represent this dedication and grace in the flowing movement of her dress.

I wanted to add a sweet poem about Ballet. I found the poem i used on Google.

"The world is full of Fairies,

And they love to dance,

Are they hidden under lillies,

Or beneath a willow,per chance.

We know where they're hiding,

Where they play and sip their tea,

Where they scatter fairy dust,

And leap and dance with glee.

Yes, we know where they gather,

And, we will tell you where to look,

At Fairy Ballerina Camp,

This summer at Storybook!"

Thank you Melissa for creating a super fun theme to work with. I adore how my Ballerina turned out and i hope you love her too

Rebecca's Gypsy soul.

And as my mind turns to the journey ahead,

My gypsy soul arises.

The words came before I had decided what I was going to do for this spread. 

I kept it very simple, just straightforward painting with acrylic paint. 

Blues, greys and dark red. 

Slowly out of the corner, the gypsy emerges. 

A bit of stencilling, a few bubbles. 

And the words. 

And it is all done. 

A Bit of Whimsical Dancing....

by Lisa for Louise

Louise's Whimsical Creatures journal is a really cute little journal - I guess it's whimsical! The fact that it was Pam's journal, and Louise has put a page together with both of their work - heartwarming. 💛

I wasn't really sure what kind of creatures to do, but Louise's page gave me the idea - it says Australia, home to many whimsical creatures.  So I came up with the idea to do some dancing brolgas! 

Whenever we go used to go to Sydney, we'd usually end up at Darling Harbour - Scott and I love it there.  I've always admired the statues of the dancing brolgas there.

So, as usual, I didn't take any progress pics.  But I gessoed my pages so I could watercolour them - the pages of this journal aren't very thick.  I then added some lovely Art Spectrum Australian watercolours - Pilbara Red, Australian Red Gold, Yellow Ochre and Tasman Blue!  Once dry, I sealed the pages with Micador Matt Spray. Stinks, and I can't stand the smell, but it works... 😑

I found some pics of dancing brolgas on Pinterest, and sketched them onto a scrap piece of paper first.  I then drew them freehand over my pages with pen in a really messy style. 😄

The sun was added after watercolouring - so much easier!  The white bits at the bottom were an attempt to add salt - memo to self, this works sooooo much better on watercolour paper!

I added the words in pen, sprayed it all again with the sealing spray, and called it done. 💜

Hope you like it Louise!  

Stay safe everyone, and keep making art!

Cheers, Lisa xx