I’m participating in Louise Gale’s Creative Color Challenge. At the beginning of the month, she posts a color and a palette around that color. The participants then make something based on that color.
January started off with Pantone’s color of the year Tangerine Tango. So while I was out and about this month, I kept my eyes peeled for something in that shade that I could make an image. I found it in Rockwall, Texas while at a photography retreat.
I was posting pictures on my facebook page for a project I’m doing for the Art House Coop Sketchbook and someone asked how I got the effect of the white gesso under the paint to come up through the paint. So I made a quick video. Enjoy!
Wet Paint Pull from Paula P. on Vimeo.
I’ve been busy testing software at work. That means I often come home at the end of the day and the last thing I want to do is get on the computer and type some more. However, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t had some time for play. I’ve been playing with the Hipstamatic, PictureShow, and Instagram apps on my iTouch. These three apps make shooting with the iTouch so much fun. And it being fun means that I’ve kept up my streak of pictures since December 27th. So that make 17 days straight so far.
Today I got out of work a little early. I had to go down to the George R. Brown Convention Center and pick up my race packet for the El Paso 5K. I won’t be running – I’ll walk the 5K but I’m glad I am participating. I also spent some time making some images downtown. My favorite was finding a Dia del Los Muertes Skull outside of Ben’s Beans.
I love finding bits of street art around Houston and have started a collection of images based on what I find.
The other thing I’ve done fun wise this week is to create a tutorial for a technique I used in my Book of Days. In it I use Gesso and Adirondack color wash sprays to create a background for my art journal.
Gesso and Colorwash technique for backgrounds from Paula P. on Vimeo.
I’m looking forward to the three day weekend. Time for playing in the garden and decluttering. Next week is going to be a short week. I’m going to Dallas for a photography workshop and I’m taking next Friday off as well! I am looking forward to some time devoted to photography and creativity.
I’ve been laying low the last few weeks. After realizing my word for 2012 was “deliberate.”, I started sorting and getting rid of clutter, as well as spending a large chunk of time figuring the projects I want to participate in as well as specific actions I want to take. While 2011 was a good year for me, I was more than ready to see it out the door and have some down time from work.
Working on mixed media art is one of the areas that I want to focus on, so I’ve spent some time creating the cover for my Book of Days Class that I’m doing with Effy Wild. I’ve also worked on a few of the spreads.
I’ve got a couple of other things I want to do and I’ll be incorporating them into my art and blogs.
Today was a quiet day. R and I spent some time with his mom and the dogs. I spent some time weeding onions and getting rid of the thistle patch that has sprung up in the middle of the onions. I was pleased to see that my onions and garlic are doing well. Tomorrow I hope to finish up the onions and maybe plant some lettuce. Later this week I should have a couple of raspberry plants and bunch of strawberry plants arriving. I’m looking forward to adding them to the garden.
I hope you all had a wonderful new year and I look forward to sharing my many adventures with you.
Last week, my friend Lisa who runs Artistcellar.com challenged her facebook followers to play with the new line of Distressed Stains from Ranger. I submitted the following Artist Trading Card (ATC).
I cut the card from cardstock and then put the Peeled Paint and Broken China stain on the card. I spritzed it with some water and then let the colors run together. I hit it with the heat gun to speed up the drying, dabbed more color on top then hit it with the heat gun again. Once everything was dry, I took my letter stamps in a typewriter font and used the Black Soot Distressed Ink as the stamping color.
When I first heard of the stain, I resisted buying it because I wasn’t sure what the difference between it, the Distressed Ink Pad, and the Distressed Re-inker were. I thought if I just mixed some of the re-inker in water I could get the same effect. However, I forgot water activates the distressing properties of the ink. So I did a little investigating and here’s the difference.
The stains are a fluid water-based dye. They are quick and easy way to lay down lots of color on backgrounds or in large areas. The dabbers on the bottle are spring activated, made of nylon, and can used like a paint brush.
The ink pads are used in smaller areas and to add effects to the paper such as aging and tinting. The ink pads allow you to put down a smaller amount of water-based ink on your craft sheet and then blend it into edges of your paper with a small pad. You can also stamp with the ink pads.
The re-inkers are used to re-ink your stamp pads with color, although I found several tutorials for using them in other ways. If you choose to use your re-inkers for something other than re-inking your Distressed Ink Pads, be sure to not add any water to the re-inker bottle as it will activate the distressing properties of the ink.
All in all I was very impressed with the stains. So I’m going to start added to my collection bit by bit.
A long time ago, I started writing how I upcycled a cigar box for storage. Part 1 focused on prepping the box. Part 2 focused on decorating the papers I used to cover the box. And I’m just now getting around to showing you Part 3 which focuses on decopaging the papers onto the box.
You’ll need the papers, the gesso-primed cigar box, Modge Podge (I used the gloss coat version) and a brush.
The first step is to take all those lovely papers you painted and tear them up into strips.
Start by covering a working area on the box with a coat of modge podge.
Then paint some modge podge onto the back of the paper.
And then put the paper on the cigar box and either use a brayer or your fingers to make sure it is throughly pasted down on the box. Keep doing this process until you have box covered like you want it.
Note that on the inside of the box, you may need to let the modge podge dry before you continue.
The paper on the inside came from the liners in the cigar box. I spread alcohol ink over the paper and let it dry. The spiderweb pattern popped as a result. It also looks cool when I layered it because the paper is sheer and the colors blend a bit as I layer them.
Once you’ve gotten the sides of the box and the lid covered with your papers. Put at least one more coat of Modge Podge on it to seal it.
For this box, I really liked the seal so I left it uncovered and made it a part of the design. You can label it however you want as well. If it’s a larger box you may want to put a label on the front or the side. If it’s a smaller box you may want to just label the end that’s going to be on the bookshelf.
While this is a two dimensional design, you could make it more textural with glass beads, 3D elements, and more. You’d probably have to use a stronger glue such as E-6000 to make sure the elements stay in place. You’d also not be able to stack the box, which was important to me since I use my cigar boxes for storage.
I spent most of today doing one of my favorite non-computer activities. Playing with Mixed Media Art.
When I went into Texas Art Supply on Saturday, I happened to notice they had a class for Visual Journalling and for Patterned Doodles (a.k.a. Zentangles). Since I believe the universe sends us messages, I signed up and spent 6 very good hours playing with some new art materials and getting some ideas. I can’t wait to do more work. Here’s some pictures from what I did today.
An envelope I made. It turned out to be too big, but I can put it in another Journal.
Geometric Design using Derwent Inktense Pencils and the lid of a cookie tin.
The inside of my new Visual Art Journal.
The outside of my new Visual Art Journal
This past week has been good. The biggest thing that’s happened is I got invited to participate in the TEDx Houston as an audience member. I am excited by this opportunity because the Ted Talks are something that I really enjoy.
I also started Susannah Conway’s Unravelling e-course. There are some really interesting women in this class. It’s been an interesting exploration of self so far. We started off with Feet and its amazing some of the discussion topics we come up with from our pictorial and written explorations.
I’ve decided to start a mixed media Journal to put all my stuff in for the class. I found a really nice $3 Photo album at Half Priced Books.
I sanded the cover and then put some gesso on it to give some tooth so other paints will stick to it.
Then I started painting and stencilling the front cover
I’ve also started playing with some of the inner pages.
I’ll post more of these pages as I get going. But it’s been a lot of fun so far and I’ve learned some things about me:
That’s all I have for now!
I’m absolutely thrilled to be guest-hosting the Traveler’s Show and Tell Carnival for Mental Mosaic, while she’s off honeymooning with her new hubby. We’ve got a lot of entries this week for the carnival.
Steph, (a.k.a. The Travel Chica) talks about adjusting to life in Argentina in “How to Live Like a Porteño” where she talks about the 10 things she needs to do to live like a porteño.
Byteful Travel talks about the beauty he found in a California State Park in “The Wonders of Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park (From McWay Falls to Cliffs of Insanity)” and has some stunning photographs to remember his experience by.
Bryan at Finally Fast takes us to Los Angeles in “The Museum of Jurassic Technology” . This collection of oddities leaves you wondering and if you’ve ever been there, Bryan would like you to leave a note.
Sarah at “Not Just Another “Dolce Vita” talks about her first impressions of Italy as a teenager in “At First Sight” shortly after the SARS outbreak in 2003.
CBCreations at Measure of All Things gives us “Bintan Cycle and Seafood Indulgence“. She describes a 200kms bicycle ride around an Indonesian Island in 3 days and seafood feast indulgences. Could you do it?
Zhu at Correr Es Mi Destino talks about adding another stamp on her passport in “The Thai Adventure“. She shares what it’s like to ride on a “chicken bus” that’s run out of gas.
Aric Mitchell wrote “6 Stories of Extreme Skydiving Fall Survival” as a guest post at Extreme Sports Trader. In this piece, he talks about some amazing skydiving survival stories from 1942-2011. And people wonder why some of us don’t want to jump out of perfectly good airplanes??
My submission to the carnival is over on the Pig E. Bank Adventures site. “Pig’s Big Adventures to Iowa – Day 4” involves checking out some of my favorite places in my home town of Iowa Falls.
Marina K. Villatoro from “International Woman – It’s all about the Experience” closes out this carnival with a bit of indulgence with her husband of ten years. In “A Ritualist Spa Treatment that Rocks Your World” Marina shares us with their luxorious spa experience in Antigua, Guatemala.
Would you like to highlight your blog on an upcoming Saturday Show & Tell? If so, here are 2 ways to submit your post. Either send the link directly to tui [at] mentalmosaic [dot] com, or submit it through the Blog Carnival site via this link. If you have any questions, shoot Tui an email. She’ll respond when she gets back.
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