whats hidden inside….
31 Jul 2008 Leave a Comment
i’ve been making and creating but forgetting to take pics of some things i’ve sent off, but i did manage to get some pics of this before i sent it off. i’m submitting it for a magazine theme of black and white, its of my grandmother. for some reason i am sole owner of a few really cool old picture of her and my grandpa… and i also a million slides. anyways….i like this one and thought it would really stand out on a black background and i jsut love using my black gesso! fun stuff! also one of my favorite artists in Vincent Van Gogh and i’ve already been to museum in amsterdam and everything…. totally get to check that off my list of things to do during my lifetime! anyways… i found this cool article recently…. also please please please check out this awsome flikr account… just awsome work… its different
Step by Step… crafty this time
30 Jul 2008 3 Comments
in cool, step by step
so today i’m gonna show you how to make a cutie pootie braided ribbon head-band for sweet little baby girls. i don’t know about you but there a lot of little baby girls in my church, and homeschool group. well more at church.
ok so first, tie two coordinating ribbons together at one end…. you will need a lot of ribbon so don’t try to measure… just keep it all connected to the the thingy its wound around. #2 pic you need to make two little bunny ears, and then whichever ribbon is behind (pink), will actually go behing the one in front(white), with the one in front(p) getting pulled down flush, like pic #3,but not too tight because in the end these little headbands are stretchy.
so then that first ribbon(white) needs to folded up inside the second color(pink) like pic #4, and the (p) second color gets pulled down flush. in pic #5 and #6 i’m showing how you continue to push each ribbon up into the next and then pull the first one down flush to keep it there.
pic #7 i pushed the next color up… and in number eight we have an almost finished band. #8 is a totally differnt colors headband that is finished , but i wanted to show what you can do to the end. use the same colored ribbons to make a teeny bow, or most craft stores have lots of cutesy pootsey stuff you could glue or sew on, and sew these things on the end of your head band to cover the ends up.
this is the smallest sized ribbon i’ve ever used for this type of project, but as you can see you can go bigger and it wont be too crazy looking, and down below is the finished headband , not on a baby! in my hairy knee. 
also at the end or begining of this post is a pretty cool video… forgive me if you’ve already seen it a million times. i havent! also please forgive me if you already know how to make these little headbands… somone taught me a long time ago… and i can’t remember who or when…. but i did want to share!
when there’s somthing to say
24 Jul 2008 Leave a Comment
so yeah yeah… its been awhile. but that’s ok. been hanging around not doing much, enjoying the weather when its nice, hanging out in the house when its not, trying not to go out and about too much. i have some cool pics to show you of us just hanging out, and i’ve been doing a few artsy things, but didnt get to take pics of those in time, so to make up for that and not having another step by step right now, i have some cool linkage.
first go HERE … its just…. cool!
then read THIS … good info!
STEP BY STEP #2!!!
09 Jul 2008 9 Comments
so finally here we are again! yessssss. i had a friend, like i told ya before, that commisioned me to do a big painting…. well three paintings as one. she loves poppies… there are fields and fields of poppies here in germany and she had a particular field in mind. i never saw the one she wanted but i found a picture that looked a looooooot like germany, with a field of poppies, so i used that. its at the very end of this long post. this is a really long post again, so if you get bored then just go to the end to see the results.
so first pick out your canvas’. i had two 16×20′s and a 28×36 that were the sizes requested, and i lay them down on my floors to work on. i used my handy dandy CHINA marker to mark out the basic areas i would be putting color, and also especially the lay of the land. i love china markers ’cause you can paint right over it , and it doesnt show through.
next i blocked in the sky with blues and white….. the very fun and exciting thing about paint is you can blend so easily with one or more colors laid down and quickly get the desired effect. i used one of those huge cheapy foam brushes to do this. they really get a lot of paint on big canvas’ quickly.
so then i squirted a lot of white paint on the canvas’ and little light lime green color (cant think of the color name) and did the same thing with the foam brush, but with the direct to canvas technique it really gave it a nice effect. this is the color i want shining through just a little, and also blending in with, my brighter green top grass color. with acrylic painting its better to start with the lighter colors as the base and bottom coats, because its harder to get those lighter colors on top of the darker. unless you are patient enough to let each layer dry…. i’m not!
so next i had a bright yellow that i also wanted to shine through and blend in with the brighter colors, and i squirted tiny dribbles of that randomly on all the canvas’ and used a fan brush to paint it in and blend it in. the fan brush makes really nice grass-like brush strokes.
so you see it doesnt have to look perfect or precise in any one spot… just random fun painting. next below you see i did the hills in the backgroud simply by blending in different yellows and greens and then a nice hunter green for the trees in the background, using a small round brush. if your fast enough then as your adding your trees , the background paint might still be wet enough that you dont need to worry about highlights, they will happen as you add the trees, which are just little fuzzy balls. also i worked on the bright green grass and mellow green grasses for my top colors of grass , with the same fan brush.
so give all that green some time to dry… if you dont then when you paint your nice bright red poppies on the wet green the colors will mix and you will get mud… you do not want mud. red and green are complimentary colors and will make brown when mixed…. do you know all the complimentary colors?
red+green , orange+blue , yellow+purple
so now sporadic red poppies with a nice square brush, using the shape of the brush to make the petals of the foreground larger flowers. the nice thing abotu this painting is that you dont have to paint in the stems… they blend into the grass. anyways… i painted the poppies all in and added the details of highlights and centers ……
then take just a touch of the poppy red you used and a lot of glaze to it … 10:1…. mix it up and glaze all your poppies… it will really make them POP…. hee hee
so WAAAAAAAH LAAAAAAAAAAAH! there you have it! simple and sort of quick, large easy peasy painting of poppies!
change it up….
06 Jul 2008 2 Comments
so for different varying reasons, i’ve closed up my shops. i really really didnt want to, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. but of course you can come here anytime you want to see what i’m doing, and the things i make , that i think are good enough to sell, will be available on the art for sale page….. in case your interested….
these are some journal pages i’ve worked on recently, i also have two people who’ve commissioned me to work on some paintings for them. that will keep me busy, since it sounds like my hubby might have to stay gone for just a bit longer….
