I appear to have forgotten to post that I’ve created my tenth tag for my Twelve Tags of 2012 series, featuring the flower of the month, Calendula. Or at least my approximation of it! And I’ve learnt to use my new camera and MovieMaker to do a ‘how to’ video as well. Please let me know what you think!
[youtube=http://youtu.be/NyeP7octFCw]
For those of you that aren’t familiar, or are a bit rusty at, or may be just want to have some good tips and tricks to improve, I’ve written a photo guide to heat embossing for beginners, complete with troubleshooting tips. It’s over at the WOW! Embossing Powders blog if you want to know more.
I had to hit the ground running this week, with the first day back at college for Year Two, Term One. We’re starting off with six weeks of Jewellery, several weeks of Drawing, Life Drawing, Painting and lots and lots of Ceramics. Later on we’ll be doing some more Print.
The theme this term is ‘collections’ and we’ve been researching ‘artists who collect’ from those that seem to curate lots of objects (e.g. Portia Munson) to those who do assemblage (e.g. Joseph Cornell). I have to say I fail to appreciate the artistic creativity in curation, but I’m sure someone will put me right! I know these curated collections are art by definition, given it is commissioned and displayed and appreciated, but not what I would see as creative arts by any means.
Painting this week was set to stretch our comfort zone. We were handed bamboo pens, black Quink ink and told to draw our collections and then use clean water to move the ink around the page. We were encouraged to explore the media and work loosely. My collection is of beads and buttons, just in case you can’t tell from these images!
The ink has so many different colour pigments in it, more and more become obvious as it moves with the addition of water. Wet-on-wet creates more feathering, and translucent wash layers can be built up. I left the paper-white areas as highlights. It was difficult to add more ink back into the image as the paper had become more absorbent and spongy. I think I did ok…
Well I don’t think these will win any prizes! They are a quick and somewhat crude card, using punches and Bazzill card stock. What’s punched out of one, fits into the other. The colour strips were added on top, and the sentiment is cut using the Cricut Opposites Attract cartridge. I made them for a quick entry to the Less is More challenge, and I think they show I’m a little out of practice!
I still don’t ‘do’ Hallowe’en, but when you’re on a design team, you have to do what you’re told! I’ve created this card for Wow! Embossing Powders for their Hallowe’en theme this month, and used several different mixes to get the shading. Find out more here. And the template for the pumpkin sections can be found on my templates page.
This is a beginner’s kit from Bojangle Beads in Loughborough, which is quite an Aladdin’s Cave if you happen to be in the area. I bought it at Christmas, but it’s been languishing unmade since then, and in a spurt of creativity yesterday I got it done 🙂
The kit contains all you need (apart from pliers) including plenty of beads, and the coil section is ready made. There are instructions included, though these need editing, don’t contain any illustrations, and aren’t all that intuitive for a first timer to follow.
And I’m having fun with my new camera trying out all the different ways to photograph products! Seems shiny things, as I’ve discovered before, can be quite tricky, but dialling down the auto-exposure has helped a lot 🙂
I actually crafted for pleasure yesterday, rather than just to meet commissions! This is the first piece I completed:
I’ve just received a complimentary set of the new Letraset Neon Markers (6 set), on sale from 1st September 2012. According to the information sent with them, they are twin tip fluorescent markers offering water-based pigment ink which is lightfast and ‘perfect for adding vibrant highlights to art and design work’.
I decided to put them through their paces. Firstly – colour on white, and then because they are pigment inks, on black too, and across text:
Allowing for poor colour reproduction of fluorescents, the colours are what you’d expect to see on white – vibrant and in your face. The ‘spark red’ isn’t all that sparky, but I guess it joined in to make the six pack… On the black, there’s going to be a colour shift, and I put three layers of ink on each of the blocks to get enough pigment on to show up – all but the ‘Luminous Yellow’ have good coverage, and may well have a role to play on dark backgrounds. They clearly work well as regular highlighter pens.
Do they blend? I love to use Letraset ProMarkers as they blend so well together. The AquaMarkers also blend and merge nicely. So I put the new Neon markers to the test, and since they are water-based, I used them on a good quality watercolour paper:
Well, I’m not so impressed. Direct blending from the pen didn’t really happen – it rucked up the paper, and the colours tended to keep distinct from one another. Adding water caused the crossover to become blotchy and granulated. Washing out with a wet brush was slightly better, but the colours behaved differently, some moving readily, others less so.
I can’t see these markers making their way into my artwork – I don’t think they have the flexibility of use I enjoy from the ProMarkers or AquaMarkers, and I already have highlighter pens around the house that do the same job. I think Letraset have missed a trick here – the Neon Markers don’t seem to be either ProMarkers or AquaMarkers and that’s a pity.
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:
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 🙂
This is a bit of a tangle pattern, but more of a guided doodle for my Twelve Tags of 2012 – September tag. Of course, a true forget-me-not doesn’t have tendrils as I have shown in the embellishment, but artistic licence rules here 🙂