cjs18 day 4 Michelle Ward

I didn’t get day 4’s page finished yesterday because I had to go to the Dr then deal with a leak in our roof. Yesterday’s artist was the lovely and very talented Michelle Ward, who I have followed for many years now. Michelle described a subtractive process, which I have used before, but forgotten about – so it was great to get inspired to try it again. She talked about ways she uses the resulting pieces, and there were some new ideas for me to play with. I was a bit impatient a couple of times and ended up with some torn areas, but that’s ok…

I’ve shown the page in my journal, which I’ll add some writing eventually, and the extra pages I made for using as collage elements.

A little bit of pink

I’m not normally one for pink, or flowers, but at the moment they make me happy so I’m going with it. This is a progress shot from a journal I’m working in as part of an art journal circle. Dylusions sprays, Distress paints, various stencils and gesso.

Getting there

Remember I said I was burying the evidence? It’s now lost under gesso and ink, stenciling and more ink! It’s not finished but it *is* starting to make me happy. Even Tony could see what was happening once I hauled out a photo of the gardens in Aquino (or was it St Angelo?) that we photographed as we walked down to the bridge over the Rapido River for the yearly commemorative service with the American and Italian soldiers. Edit: my geography and memory is poor – see correction in comments – thanks Kay. Here’s a progress shot, including a blurry one showing the layers, and the original photo I’m using as inspiration:

Making a new art journal

I’ve been converting an A5 notebook into an art journal for the coming year. I usually have more than one art journal on the go. This one’s role is to encourage me to draw more often, and make notes of ideas as they flash though my brain. I coated all the pages with gesso, and have spent a few afternoons painting, inking and stenciling to get rid of much of the whiteness. I’m nearly finished and the process has been very therapeutic as I mourn the loss of Mum, and incredibly messy. I can’t wait to start gluing bits and bobs into it, drawing on top of the paint, and generally just using it – not storing it, putting it on the bookcase and leaving it there or making it too precious to use.

Crusade 27: Shape Up

Michelle’s challenge for Jan 2009 is to explore just one shape – stencil it, mask it, stamp it, gesso it…   It didn’t take me long to decide on the PEAR for my shape. It’s a shape I was using in some figure paintings about 3 years ago and the idea of rediscovering it really appealed.

I spent today in my art room and made stencils, masks and a stamp. I played with spray paint, gesso, acrylic paint and Indian ink. I am so excited my what I’ve done that I want to make an art quilt featuring a pear, and do a big painting using the pear shape as well.

I like the ones where the pears are not so obvious; I think this is perhaps my favorite.

Running kinda late – GPP challenge

Back in November Michelle’s challenge at the GPP Street Team blog was to explore the properties of gesso, and have a play at making some cool backgrounds. So, it’s almost 2009, and I finally got to it. Running kinda late, but it was fun anyway – and I learnt some new stuff along the way.

I used some pre-cut watercolour postcards, fluid acrylics, Making Memories foam stamps and Golden gesso. I stamped with gesso then painted over the top, painted them stamped on top with gesso, dribbled ink, rubbed with metallic crayons … and so on. Here’s just one of the backgrounds I now have ready for when I went to send a postcard to say hi to a friend.