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

Inspired by a receipt for paints

I'm excited and honoured to be hosting at AJJ this month where I chose the theme 'Inspired by'  

I am inspired by so many things I see, as well as people of course -  if I was to write a list, it would be never ending :) 
My first page was inspired by a receipt for some art supplies - mainly water colours paints but I liked the list of all the beautiful colours on it - so paint and colour just had to be the theme for this piece.

I cut the receipt up just to show the list and stuck it on my A5 page and put a light coat of Gesso over it. Then with a water soluble pencil I drew my images using some of my supplies as a reference. I then painted them with watercolour paints and painted the rest of page with ‘Nougat’ and ‘ Sherbet’ Paperartsy chalk-acrylic paint. Next I outlined everything with a black Pilot pigment pen and finished with the words.

My A5 book is 130gsm cartridge paper so the added layer

 of paper  helps makes the page a bit more sturdier.

you can just about see the words coming through,
 sorry the photo doesn't show it very well.

What inspires you when creating?

Was it something you saw or heard, a song maybe,

  or a book or your favourite place,

 a favourite colour, a memory, a dream, another artist,

  or an art product  or something else ?  

I hope you will come join in this theme at AJJ

I look forward to seeing what inspires you.

thanks for stopping by today

and I look forward to visiting you very soon.

Gill x

Flora and Fauna - Forget-me-nots

Hello

this is probably my last one for AJJ this month for the Flora and Fauna theme hosted by the lovely Jo from Let's Art Journal.
It is a water colour with a tiny bit of liquid acrylic green ink added to some leaves and stems.

And as Moon Mania still has 'even more flowers'  for their theme I shall link to them as well :)

Gill x

Flora and Fauna: cat.... and more flowers in a vase

Another acryl-gouache painting to join in with the lovely Jo's Flora and Fauna theme at AJJ

 I used an old photo I took of a neighbours cat many years ago for reference.  I did a very rough drawing on to black card using a white Stabilo All pencil and painted with the acrylic gouache.

 and still using the same paint - another flowers in a vase painting with negative painting for the outline followed by painted details.
I am linking this to Moo Mania where the theme is 'even more flowers'.

 This messy background was my starting point. 

My subconscious brain knowing I was intending to paint flowers,

 probably created some marks that looked like flowers which helped with this fun process.

  
 OK - I promise this is the last of these... but this one is slightly different as it had
 acryl-gouache over painted with normal gouache. Why do that? well the normal gouache can be reactivated with water and moved around/thinned etc without altering the layer beneath.
I also added some further colour on the plant and shadow on table using acrylic inks.

all for today...

thanks for stopping by.

Hope you are having a great weekend

Gill x

Flora and Fauna - Spider Monkey, flowers and some Acryl-Gouache fun

This little guy (mmm maybe he is a bit on the tubby side) is for Jo's Flora and Fauna theme at AJJ.
Painted him using normal gouache.. ( I say normal as further below the paintings were using the acrylic gouache).

Below are painted using the new acrylic-gouache called 'Acryl Gouache'  I got last week and I've been experimenting with for the last few days. The instructions are all in Japanese so no idea what they say but I've been diluting them with water and flow enhance medium. Unlike normal gouache these dry permanent so can't be reworked after.                                                     I love gouache as it has a sort of flat/chalky appearance and often the colours are vibrant.                                          Use them like acrylics or water colours - great!

 I'm going to link this to Moo Mania and More where the theme is flowers

This started off as a messy background followed by negative painting

 for the shape of the vase with flowers and then further flowers etc added. 

 

This was inspired by a wonderful video by Bob Burridge

 

I got carried away with this paint so will save some paintings

 for another post but I did have fun just playing..

and I had fun doing an upside down painting as encouraged to do so by the lovely 'Sheila' aka Orange Esmeralda 

Sheila said it was tremendous fun - and she was right!  

ha ha - I think I might have painted this after lunch and after having a drink :)

 

thanks so much for stopping by

hope you have a great day...

Gill x

Flora

Hello....
Another Friday again - and it's lovely, warm and sunny - hope it lasts for the weekend :) 

I'm again linking to the  Flora and Fauna theme at AJJ   hosted by the wonderful talented  Jo from Let's Art Journal      
I have another water colour, a bit of an abstract, this time painted in the 'Hahnemühle' journal I had for Christmas and only started to use in the last couple of weeks. 

This week there was too much time spent on gardening and weeding and a stressful sorting out of my PC that has too many files (an almost 12 hour scan told me there were nearly 1 and 3/4 million items being scanned)  the joy of taking so many photos and creating digital images from my art :)
So for the next few days I'm looking forward to relaxing and playing with some new paints the postman brought yesterday - a set of 18 Turner acrylic-gouache. I didn't realise until recently there is an acrylic version of gouache so that will be interesting to try. 

As always...thank you so much for

 stopping by and for any comments.

Happy Friday

 - and I hope you have a great weekend.

Gill x

Flora and Fauna

Hello

The lovely Jo from Let's Art Journal is hosting this months   Flora and Fauna theme at AJJ
 which is a great theme that I shall enjoy this month. For my first piece I've a water colour on cartridge paper with digitally added a quote.

Thanks for stopping by today...

I hope your weather is better than ours here

and you have a lovely day.

Gill x