Sunday 28 June 2015

Hand-Stenciled Leggings

"Hand-stenciled leggings" sound much classier than trying to hide the fact that the lines were stenciled, because otherwise it might appear that I was trying to pass off my stenciling as genuine, where as if I blatantly put "hand-stenciled" in the description, then people will appreciate its unique quality.

These will be sold at my stall at the upcoming Pirate Market Tavern Night in a couple of months.


Here are my pieces on the line to dry.


I soak everything in soapy warm water. In reality, I don't need soap - the acrylic will dissolve in water if it hasn't dried yet. And it doesn't need to be warm either - it just feels better.


And here is my stencil piece, hanging out to dry. I hosed it off after I soaked it.

Happy blogging everyone!


Thursday 25 June 2015

First Art Exhibition

I am very excited (well, at this point I'm rather blasé) to have my first art exhibition at the Victorian Artist's Society!
Not only that, but my teacher is keen to introduce my work to the Melbourne Women's Artist's Society also, which is highly optimistic, however I'm also rather lackadaisical also about that also. Not that it isn't something to be absolutely thrilled about, but more so I don't want to get too excited too quickly. (For example, I've been excited enough to tell people about it, but not enough to actually Google who they are, or to check if their name is correct.)
Thing about trying to do art is that it doesn't work. You have an amazing image inside your head that would make the the angels themselves weep, you try it, it doesn't work, you get stressed and throw a tantrum, and in that splash of paint flying everywhere without really caring, some lands on a piece of paper, you look at it, and think, you know what, that's not bad. That's how I seem to be working recently. Ergo, don't try to get 'it'. Just keep paint.
(I congratulate anyone who read that sentence-paragraph above)

Now that I've typed all that out, I feel like I've rather convinced myself to text my art teacher and ask her about the women's artists society and actually do some research.

Happy painting!

Sunday 21 June 2015

Stamping experiments

A few weeks ago, I set out to create a stamp long stamp for the purpose of edging my fabric pieces for my stalls. I created to (and one of them I'm still working on) and they took about an average of twenty hours each.

The one below is just chilling on it's rightful place on the mantle piece (though now it's much dirtier).


I experimented with many things finding one thing for sure - acrylic paint does not work in the slightest.



These are the ones done with watercolour on paper, dabbing it onto the stamp whilst wet. The pigment comes off much clearer and brighter than acrylic does.


I did a gradient wash with watercolour, and then stamped watercolour onto the bottom while the paper was still wet. It created that ghost-like appearance. The one above it in dark indigo was a stamping done after it had dried. The flecks of white you see are attempts at acrylic paint.

So then I moved onto oil paint.


Sure, I still have blue all over my stamp and everything, however it still works. Still, I should look into how to remove oil paint from things in greater depths.


The blue above is oil colour, and the white one below is acrylic. As you can see, the white doesn't come out nearly as strongly as the oil paint does. My boyfriend even suggested that it didn't come out as clearly as the blue because I used grey, before I told him I used a white paint.


Stretched fabric.


Leather. I definitely like the effects of how it appears on leather.



So there you have my stamping experiments. Next step - working out how to make oil paint come out of my stamp and roller and how to figure out how to make it dry faster!










Friday 12 June 2015

Painting Techniques from Dcreamscapes


Sometimes, when I am totally stuck in the rut of I-MUST-DO-SOMETHING-GOOD-NOW-OR-I'LL-BECOME-A-STARVING-ARTIST, that's generally a time where I have to really loosen up. No one really cares if the pictures look like they do in my head, because they can't see them anyway. That's why it's really good just to borrow a book from the library, open it up, and just pick something to practice.




This one is one I often go to. It may not be 'fine art', but I love her use of colour, movement and her lighting. One thing that you cannot find in a regular art book is how to do fantasy lighting. It's very different to natural lighting. She always goes into exceptional detail about the steps she has taken in her painting - she doesn't keep many secrets.

I've applied her use of light and glow in a small sketch (3'x4')  in watercolour.


Another great thing about picking up a book and just going for it is that you end up doing things you wouldn't usually do, like start with shadows instead of adding them in last, nor would I try shadows in blue for the face.


I've used salt around the edges to create that textured look.


The white spaces were going to be leaves, but I liked them there, so I kept it like that.


It was a good experiment to try, and definitely something I'd recommend to all people with a valid library card!