Evolution of a painting...

 

Back in October I was lucky enough to take a 2 day painting class
with the fabulous Flora Bowley. We got to work on 2 large
canvases, swapping back and forth between them, doing different
exercises on them and even rotating them every now and again to
see things differently. One of the exercises I had a hard time with
was when Flora made us swap one of our two paintings with

another person in the class. We then had that painting as ours and
had to decide how we would approach this new challenge. The
painting above is the painting I received from my swap partner.

Now don't forget we had been doing different painting exercises

on these just to get us to think differently so all of the paintings
were still in very early stages of the process. 

After working on this for quite a while, changing the paint colours,
rotating it etc this is where I got to. Just trying out different
things, still not sure what direction this painting was going in so
I knew a lot of this was not really how I wanted it. One of the
things Flora said to help people was to look at the painting,
rotate it, see what you liked and what you didn't like and take
it from there.

Well it was still looking like a mess to me so I decided to put down
some colour and block out parts I really did not like. This was
what it looked like by the time the class was over. I was not
worried, I knew I could work on it when I got home.

Well there were a few hiccups, the canvas was mailed to my home
as I had flown in to take the class, it arrived very badly damaged.
The frame was broken in about 5 places and the canvas was torn
a little. After about 6 weeks of phone calls, returning the painting
to Fed Ex, and getting claims forms filled in they finally paid my claim.
The canvas arrived back at my house even more damaged than

before, the side frame was in several pieces causing another hole
in the canvas :(

 

This weekend I had a lot of free time and spent most of it working
on the painting. I must admit that after all the troubles I just did
not feel like facing it.
It really doesn't look anything like I had envisioned when I finally
got it back. There are many, many layers of paint on here. After
painting most of Saturday I went to bed totally lost not knowing
if I would ever get the painting to where I wanted it. Well I went
back at it yesterday and did some finishing up today and right
now I am saying it is finished, yay!!

Happy New Year!!!

Well I am sure you can tell I have been taking a blogging break,
just had too much going on at home for the last month.
I am going to try and post more about my art journals on a new
blog that I created just for that. If you get the chance to pop
over there here is the link :
http://journal-journeys.blogspot.com/

Hope your new year is going well :)

Tag 12, the final tag...

So sad that this was the last of the tags :(  Now I am going to have
to get on with everything I need to do for my son's birthday this
weekend followed by Christmas the following weekend. Just hope
I have enough time left, lol!

Well this tag took me a while because I had a major disaster with
the blue paint. I had no idea I had got blue paint all down the side

of my hand, which then transferred to my desk, then my sleeve
and then finally all over my new sweater that I was wearing today.
I have now finished washing it for the third time and I am hopeful
the paint came out!

As for the tag, again I was missing lots of the supplies so had to
improvise with my Umbrella Man yet again. This is a record for
me having used him 3 times this year. Maybe next year I will use
him in every tag, or maybe I will have to buy some of the xmas
dies and stamps :)

Ok Tim I hope you will be doing this again next year, pretty please!

Day 11 Tag...

Here is my tag for today, had to do more improvising again.
Today's technique called for the use of shrink plastic. Well I
had some a while ago but had used it all,  I improvised by
using some of the tiles I had made months ago with the

shrink plastic I had then. Of course being seriously lacking in
holiday stamps and dies I had to make do with the same
choices. However I think this is the first time this year that I
used the snowman, it was either him or my favourite

umbrella man again!!

Day 10 Tag...

Gosh I have done more blogging this week than in the last few
months. Here is today's tag with another simple but very elegant
looking technique. I have to say that the thing that took me the
most time with this was trying to find the foil tape I had bought
earlier this week!! Spent over half an hour trying to find it then
gave up and then of course it appeared somewhere I had already looked.

I really like using the plastic letters and adding paint or glossy
accents to them to make them really stand out. I really have
enjoyed the last 4 days tags, only 2 more days and then it is
over :(   All the details for the tag are on Tim's blog.

Day 9 Tag...

Yay! I am on time today!! So you may have noticed that I do not
have a lot of the Sizzix Dies that are being used for the 12 Tags.
Well I really don't own many dies at all which is why I have a
hard time doing the tags and have to improvise a lot.

Today's technique was another fun one, for all the details go and
visit Tim's blog.

One thing I have been doing this year that is really cool is using
the Distress Stains to die some white seam binding type ribbon
to use at the top of some of my tags. They work beautifully for
this and so I had to go and buy myself a huge roll of it so I can
make lots of pretty coloured ribbons :)

Tags 7 & 8...

Spent today working on these 2 tags and really had a lot of fun
with them, I think I have got my mojo back! Above is day 7's
tag which was simple but so fun to do.
If you have not tried the Kraft Glassine yet you need to run out
and get some. I made flowers with mine unlike the greenery that
Tim showed in his example here. The background was a quick
technique although I guess I didn't read the directions until after
I had done part of it so I did not do the water spritzing before I
dried it. I really like the simplicity and style of this tag.

This is today's Steampunk style tag and I absolutely love all the
details involved in this one. There was a lot of steps involved
and this is really the first tag this year that I have mostly copied
from Tim. I have to admit that the reason I was able to copy it is
that I actually went out and bought this stamp set today (I did

use a 40% off coupon though!). Looking forward to seeing what

is in store tomorrow :)