Inspired by Collage and Painting

Hello ..... My piece today for my AJJ 'Inspired by' theme  was inspired by one of the wonderful art works that my dear friend Beate* created with collage and paint. This is something I have wanted to try for ages.

*Beate's blog is now private, so instead of linking back, todays post will include her full post which Beate has kindly allowed me to show. (see half way down post for this)

But first...this is what I created...

I started with some colour in

 my A5 journal using water soluble crayons

And then I stuck on some flowers from a gardening catalogue and image from some junk mail adverts. I didn't spend too much time cutting the images out exact as I was going to paint around them.

Next I painted some abstract looking flowers

 and added some more colour to the top half 

And when dry I used gouache paints to paint the rest of the scenery

 and paint around my rough edges of the collage to bring everything together. 

Finished off the page with a digital quote which says

 ‘Tend a garden and beautiful flowers will appear, 

nurture a friend and an enduring friendship will bloom’. 

 

I really had fun with this and can see lots of potential to use  all the magazine clippings that I have been collecting :)

 

Below is the piece by Beate that was my inspiration

 

Sonntag, 3. Februar 2013
Sunday  3 February 2013 Bunte Seite mit Ziege 
Colourful page with goat

Draußen war es grieselgrau und ich wollte meine Seite bunt haben. Darum begann ich wieder mit den leuchtenden Neocolorfarben. Die Seiten im Buch hatte ich am Tag zuvor mit mattem Malmedium überzogen.

 Outside it was gray and I wanted my page to be colorful. That's why I started again with the bright Neocolor colors. I had covered the pages in the book with matte painting medium the day before.

Die Farbe verwischte ich mit viel Wasser und klappte dann die beiden Seiten zusammen. Dadurch ergaben sich interessante Muster und Effekte.

I blurred the paint with a lot of water and then folded the two pages together. This resulted in interesting patterns and effects.

Da es mir zu lange dauerte, bis das Ganze trocknete, griff ich zum Fön. Ich war zu faul mir einen Haarfön zu holen und nahm den Heißluftfön, der eigentlich für das Embossen ist. Das war keine gute Idee...

 Since it took too long to me, until the whole dried, I picked up the hairdryer. I was too lazy to get me a hairdryer and took the heat gun, which is actually for Embossing. That was not a good idea...

Denn es machte Plopp und ich hatte diese geplatzte Blase auf der Rückseite.

Because it made pop and I had this burst bubble on the back.

 

Ich spachtelte gelbe Acrylfarbe über die Seite
I applied yellow acrylic paint over the page

riss und schnitt diese Teile von Ästen und Steinen aus einem Katalog und klebte sie auf . Dann kam die Ziege ins Spiel.

ripped and cut these pieces of branches and stones from a catalog and pasted them on. 
Then the goat came into play.

Ich überwischte das, was ich aufgeklebt hatte mit roter und gelber Acrylfarbe

I covered what I had stuck on with red and yellow acrylic paint

 

Schattierte mit Zeichenkohle, beschriftete die Seite und dachte, dass sie fertig sei,

Shaded it with charcoal, labeled the page and thought it was done,

 aber der Heißluftfön lag noch auf dem Tisch und ich beschloss noch ein paar Gräser in den Vordergrund zu bringen. Diesmal war ich ganz vorsichtig beim Fönen und es passierte auch nichts, was ich nicht wollte...

but the hot air dryer was still on the table and I decided to put some grasses in the foreground. This time I was very careful blow-drying and nothing I didn't want to happen...

Und dann mussten noch diese kleinen Glassteinchen mit auf die Seite. Hier sind sie noch nicht aufgeklebt und ein oder zwei liegen noch auf dem Rücken.

And then I had to take those little glass blocks out of the way. Here they are not glued yet and one or two are still lying on the back.

Fertig

Finished

many thanks to Beate for allowing me to show her wonderful work

and many thanks also to you for visiting today

hope to see you soon at AJJ

Have a great weekend

Gill x

Recycled/Collage page and a mini notebook

Hello

I've another piece using a recycled Cheese crackers box for Alison aka Craftytrog theme this month  Recycle and Collage at AJJ and I must admit I really enjoyed making this particular one, probably as it was on one of the days we had recently that was more like summer than spring and that seemed to fire up my mojo too.

I covered my cracker box with some glossy pages from a wine magazine and gessoed over that.

Then I scribbled over the page with water soluble pastels and then gessoed over that to blend colours.

I found some left over flower diecuts and tore up a scrap of pinky/mauve craft paper and wrote the words - Summer in Spring seemed quite appropriate to describe the weather.

Finished with lots of doodling and shading and addition watercolour splashes.

And at last the Tulips are blooming

And the good weather is bringing the birds back to the garden

 The Goldfinch seems to be a regular visitor at present and hopefully nesting somewhere nearby

And do you remember the grey faux leather I was going to make another Traveller's Notebook with?
Well, for several weeks I had been putting off cutting it up in case I messed it up - and then Dave pointed out to me that if I did happen to mess it up - so what, it's not the end of the world I could get some more fabric and start again :)   duh - silly me! 

And so I (carefully) measured and cut the fabric to make a mini book to fit my handbag

I love the traveller's notebook style as it is easy to add and change pages which are held in by elastic cords.

Next project is to make an A5 size one as there is plenty of material left to use up.

OK that's all for now.

Thank you so very much 

for stopping here today

 and for any comments left.

Gill x

Bring on the sunshine!

This month Alison from Craftytrogs Arty Adventures  is the host for  AJJ theme Recycle and Collage

Last week I made a wonky junk journal cover out of cheesy crackerbread boxes and used scraps of paper to cover them. I had no idea what I was going to put in it, but now, with the recycling & collage challenge, it seems perfect to continue recycling the cracker boxes and use them as pages to go in this book.

This is my first page..
I also used scraps of book and dictionary pages, words and bee from seed catalogue and paper offcuts.

To get the size I wanted I used 2 pieces of the box and taped them together so that they can be folded up and eventually sewn together when I have more.
Other items used, Paperartsy chalk paints, Neocolor water soluble crayons, acrylic ink and inktense pencils. 

A few photos below of the process.

Recycle and Collage

The sun has been shining more this month and already making me feel more creative(looking back at March with all the snow and grey and rainy days, I think I lost my mojo quite a bit)

Its a lovely sunny day and I'm going to spend the day (hopefully) doing lots of creative things...

Bring on the sunshine!

Thanks for stopping by today.
Hope you have a great day.
Gill x

Collage playing for AJJ

Hello

My first attempt for Susi's fun collage challenge at AJJ where we mustn't use wings, leaves or faces. I've not really done that much collage before so this should be a fun month to experiment and play.

 

I found it hard to get a decent photo due to lack of light as the days have been shorter and not so bright. I'm not particularly pleased with how the page turned out and so first thing this morning I sat in bed drinking tea watching some tutorials online to hopefully improve my skills for the next pieces.

I started with a few pieces of collage looking paper, plus a couple of postage stamps - and oh no - there's a face on the stamp!

Painted and drew over the face on the postage stamp and added some Washi tape then some colour on page with water soluble pastels and Inktense blocks/pencils.

Finished with some more washi tape

and a bit of stencilling and doodling.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

Hope your day was a good one.

Gill xx