Making Cards

Everytime I go to write a post I can't believe another week has gone by!  Does that ever happen to you??  

This weekend I toyed around with one of my digital collages of NYC in Procreate on the iPad.  The original is the bottom photo with the blue and copper tones.  After having altered it to the lighter tones I am not sure which one I like best.  Actually I think it may be the lighter version on top!

Thought they would make cool note cards.  I miss hand written sentiments these days.  I better get to writing out some of these!  lol  

I will also most likely be adding them to my etsy shop.  ;)

Which color tones in these pics to you prefer?  Would love input from you guys too!

xo

Quick Face Painting

As you can see I kinda abandoned the pink girl for this gal who showed up in my journal last night.  I am finding that one neocolor II crayon and some white gesso is a fun quick way to paint a face.  And of course I would guess that it could work for anything you want to draw.  I may try this technique with some other sketching of hearts, figures, or some whimsy.  

I drew the face out quickly using the crayon to fill in the darkest areas, then sprayed some water over the whole page which activates the them quite nicely.  while that was still a bit wet I went back in with the white gesso to blend the crayon.  This was a back and forth process between the adding crayon and then gesso till I got the contrast I liked.  As you can see I also added some scratches while  everything was wet to grunge it up a bit.  The color I used was prussian blue.  I have to say though that the gesso dries very quickly so next time I may sub in titanium white acrylic instead.  

Would love to hear what you like to use for quick face painting!

xo

My Eye Selfie

As many times as I use my iPhone I am still amazed at the art that can be created with it.  The other night I took a quick selfie with the native camera on the phone.  Using the native camera will render a higher resolution image.  

Despite the fact that I didn't like the image I knew that I was going to filter it.  First I cropped it down to just one of my eyes looking up.  After stacking filters from SnapSeed and Pixlromatic I ended in DistressedFx for the final layers of grunge with some cool birds.  

Susan Tuttle offers a great online class in iPhoneography.  I am currently taking the class and its pretty amazing! 

Click Here for all the details! 

Are you an iPhoneography addict too?  Do tell!

A Sketch, Some Butterflies, and IPhone Apps . . .

I found an old sketch I had done very quickly on watercolor paper using a stabilo pencil and water.  I hated it.  lol  Well, hate is a strong word.  I just didn't vibe to the image.  

So when I saw it again yesterday I grabbed my butterfly stencil and some homemade black spray paint.  After a few pumps of the black paint I felt I was on to something.  

I quickly took a pic of it with my iPhone.  It traveled from there to my iPad where I started playing with apps.  I added filters to it with Distressedfx and Pixlromatic. If you have not checked out these apps they are really cool!  I also put it through one last filter via PicTapGo another of my go to photo apps.  

You never know what you can create with a limited supplies!

xo

Grungy Love . . .

mixed media on 6x8 inch canvas board

Hope everyone is enjoying their Sunday! Last night I finished this piece. I used a photo of a heart I drew in the sand at the beach. I sanded the photo and added some distress ink the details of which are lost under a layer of white gesso but I do like how it came out. So I used black crayon to bring the heart shape back out.

The layer of paint I started with was a wash of crimson. I hated it. I didn't think it went with the sepia tone of my photo. So I went with my old standby . . . payne's gray. And it felt better to me. The stamping I added after staring at it for a couple of hours wondering what was missing. It is actually white gesso I put on my stamp because of the dark background. The stamp was what I needed to complete the piece.

It looks kind of grungy to me and I like it! I went to bed last night with visions of my photos scrolling through my head. I am wondering which one I will try next!

Tomorrow I begin a new online class with Traci Bautista. Its called "Fashionista" and incorporates faces, collage, digital photos, and graffiti backgrounds. I will be sure to share some of my creations from the class with you!