Category Archives: Original Designs

These are pieces of art that are entirely from my own creativity.

Pumpkin Surprise – tangle pattern

Posted on by
3

I don’t normally go for anything Hallowe’en. I do however like some of the crafty aspects of the time of year, particularly the pumpkin carving. I’m not entirely sure why, but I woke up this morning working out whether you could make a Hallowe’en tangle pattern. A quick sketch later solidified the initial idea, and following a few trial runs after breakfast came this:

Halloween tessellation

This is a tessellation tangle, or a tangle that tessellates! You’ll need to draw it several times to get the hang of it (or at least I did). Points to note: bats alternate with ghosts – bats have curved bottoms, ghosts have pointy bottoms (step 2). Bats wings are crinkled top and bottom (step 3), ghost ‘wings’ are smooth tops and crinkly bottoms (step 4). Oh and colour really makes this one come to life 🙂

Continue reading →

Twelve Tags of 2012 – September

Posted on by
1

I’ve been playing with various options of putting colour onto metal – here are the results! I’ll be showing how to do them at the Manic Stamper Craft Club on Saturday.

The tags are first covered with metal foil tape (really thin foil – serves me right for going to the local poundstore!) and then I used a small embossing ball tool to emboss the outlines. Rub over the whole tag with black acrylic paint, and then wait for it to almost dry before rubbing off the paint from the tag – it should catch in the outlines. Add colour with acrylic inks (I used a paintbrush), Promarkers or alcohol inks (I used the Adirondack alcohol ink pen filled with blending solution to pick up dried alcohol inks from a palette). I love the aged look to the metal caused by the black acrylic, and the translucent colour from the Promarkers/alcohol inks. The acrylic inks are more luminous due to their opacity. By the way, alcohol seems to denature acrylic, so if your black coating doesn’t work out, wipe over with alcohol hand gel and try again!

And as a bonus, I’m publishing the forget-me-not doodle as a tangle pattern 🙂

Creevagh – tangle pattern

Posted on by
5

I’m back from a holiday in Ireland, and while there I put pencil to paper and designed four new tangle patterns from scratch. They’re all named after places we visited during the stay. I’m also a bit out of touch with what patterns are out there (including my own!) – so if any are the same, or similar, apologies, and let me know!

I’ve enjoyed playing with the negative spaces on these, and this one can be embellished by emphasising the circles.

Next week: ‘Monaghan’.

 

Mixed Media – Exhibition Piece

Posted on by
2

It’s been a while again since I’ve posted – I’ve been busy finishing off end of year projects at college, culminating in our exhibition last night. Here’s just one of my pieces (I’ll share some more in a couple of days), for the final mixed media module, inspired by the work of Jacek Yerka, my ‘chosen’ artist for this term.

Continue reading →

Drypoint print – the gallery editions

Posted on by
1

As I mentioned in my original post, I planned to further work on my drypoint prints, adding tone and colour. Here is a gallery of the results – and the bottom right is the print I have given away, number 13 of 15 – and may be the winner will want colour added? Most of these are now mounted for the end of term exhibition. There are some other prints available to purchase if you’d be interested…

I think some work better than others – I’m not happy with the tea dye one, it’s too dark. I am happy with the greyscale/monotone trees with the colour window. The pastel is very much in keeping with Jacek Yerka’s work on which this is loosely based as he prepares his paintings with a pastel version first. Let me know what you think 🙂

Yellow Flowers and a White Frame

Posted on by
24

It’s ‘Less is More’ challenge entry time again, and this week, being the first in the month, it’s a colour theme: yellow. I had in mind for last week’s sketch challenge to do a frame with 3D flowers in, but didn’t end up having enough time to make it. So here’s the same plan, with yellow flowers!

Continue reading →

Print – Term 3 – Drypoint

Posted on by
6

Our theme across all our activities this term at college is ‘influenced by an artist’. I’ve chosen the Polish surrealist Jacek Yerka to base my work on, and for print I was asked to do a drypoint. I discovered this is an etching process where the ink is trapped in the grooves and burrs made by scratching onto metal or acrylic and then transferred onto the substrate using pressure. I scratched my drawing onto a sheet of clear acrylic sheet (approx. A5 size), applied etching ink (which is very viscous), removed most of it, and then printed onto previously wetted watercolour paper using an etching press. Any ink left on the acrylic gets transferred to the paper, so removing it from where you don’t want it is quite laborious! I was sooooo excited as the first print was revealed, and that didn’t really diminish as I did a limited print run. I’m going to have a go replicating it at home using one of the many die cutting machines in place of the etching press, and more common crafting inks. Here is the basic print, and I’ll be colour washing some in due course: