Art Exhibition

Yesterday I went to fab art exhibition organised by Colour Your Life.  It had artwork in from the various art clubs run by them in my area and even included a couple of mine!!!

Between me, my Mam and Dad we never thought about taking a camera but luckily Carrie came along and reminded us that it'd be lovely to have photos and promptly started snapping my art on the walls.

I had one more piece in the show too.  Its possibly the same size as the mask canvas (I can't remember!) and I didn't take many photos while I was doing it.  Simply because I was having too much of a good time, laughing with Lisa and Len.

I started by brayering yellow acrylic paint onto the canvas.  I've now learned why brayering doesn't work so well on canvas but I really like the effect.  I highlighted the wooden stretches on the back of the canvas by rubbing the paint in with my fingers.

Next I mixed some ochre paint with the yellow to get an almost orangey colour that I sponged through sequin waste with a paper towel and dabbed some paint off the towel directly onto the canvas.

The colour that the canvas turned out to be, was determined by the fact that I managed to die cut the word 'dream' from sticky back chipboard on the wrong side.  Jo was having a play with alcohol inks so I got her to colour it for me.  Hence a green and orange canvas with yellow added in for good measure. 

I used torn Brenda Pinnick scrapbook papers and a piece of corrugated cardboard my Dad had ripped from a box that he was putting in the bin.  The bird is from a Sissix die and cut in sticky back chipboard.  This time it didn't matter which was the right side.  I used a picture from a magazine of logs for the body and trees for the wing.

The branch was in the stash at the art club and *had* to be used ;)  On the left hand side of the canvas you can just make out some white netting.  Its from a bag that contain tasters of cheese and gives the canvas another texture.

Colour Your Life

After going to see The Vagina Monologues at my local theatre, I keep being sent 'what's on' guides for it.  Buried in the last one was an advert for Colour Your Life.  Its an arts programme partly funded by the NHS and its to aid well being through art.

So far I've been 3 times and have *loved* every minute.  There is an artist in residence who will help if you want / need it.  At the moment its Paul who does incredible art work.  If you want him to he will guide you through a project or you can just get stuck in and do your own thing, which is what I've been doing.

They have loads of stash there - canvasses of all sizes, paint (acrylic and watercolour), pastels, brushes, pencils, mod roc, corrugated card and if there is anything you particularly want they will try, within reason, to get it for you.

So far I have completed 2 pieces.  The first is called 'Windows to the Soul'.  I initially covered the canvas (15.5" x 11.5" shallow edge) with mod roc (the stuff plaster casts are made of) and attached the masks with that.  I then took it home and me and the masks had a falling out and they came un-stuck.  So I covered the whole thing with paper taken from an altered book I started at a workshop ages ago.  I painted the background with a weak wash of black Ecoline Ink.

Before I reattached the masks I printed 'art, beauty, passion and love' out from the PC and and traced round the words using Promarkers and stuck the words behind the eyes of the masks.  I then stuck the masks back to the canvas using my new fave glue - Hard as Nails!!!

I painted the masks with a weak wash of ultramarine violet Ecoline and finished the whole thing off with individual letters stamped using a See-Ds tiled alphabet stamp.  I wanted to convey the thought that despite all of the background noise I still have all of these things in my soul.

I'm really chuffed with it :-)

The second piece I've done is called 'My World is full of Colour'.  I started with a 20cm square deep edge canvas and planned to colour the background with a nice smooth layer of DI's but as I clagged them on ready to blend, Lisa and Pauline who I sit with stopped me blending them.  And I'm really pleased they did!  

The colours are Spice Marmalade, Broken China, Mustard Seed and Dusty Concord.

I already had a picture to go on it, cut from a magazine and just need wording.  I used the Artistic Affirmations stamps set from Chocolate Baroque.  I stamped them using Tuxedo Black Memento Ink onto tissue paper.

I used Golden Matte Gel Medium to adhere them all to the canvas and here is the finished article.

I think the picture is advertising a body wash or moisturiser that contains no chemicals but I just *love* the picture!