some paintings

Last year I have started to do some more painting, watercolor but also acrylic. I don't always take the time to do these watercolors because it takes much more time than thought. Watercolor looks like it is quick and dane with a few strokes, truth is it needs time to dry in between and I don't always have the patience to wait....

Anyway here some of my animal paintings in watercolor :-)

Acrylic painting is easier , you can paint over mistakes as many times as you would like :-)

I eve got publishe in Painting world Magazine this year, how cool is that

But since the last few month I am back to rubber stamping and art journaling, I love stamping and will be doing that the next 31 days for the 31 days of Halloween, so check my blog every day in october for some new scary Halloween scenes ......

Dodo #2

Products used: Deco Art Americana Acrylics in: Lamp Black, Bright Blue, Orange Flame, Lemon Yellow, Snow White, Tradtional burnt sienna.

Deco Art media white gesso, Deco Art Media Gloss Varnish, Deco Art media  ultra matte varnish

Deco Art americana stencil : "Fossil"by Andy skinner 

The challenge was to only use Blue Orange, yellow and black and white for the painting, this being a #STEGERSANDSTEIJN lesson it was supposed to be a girl face again, but I really dont like painting girls all the time so I made a Dodo :-).
luckely the colors mix into purples and brownish colors and black and white was allowed to.

Fot thebackground I used stencils and in the fossil stencil I cheated by using  Traditional Burnt Sienna

ART JOURNALLING

I won a art course by Muriel Steger and Petra Steijn, and it is hard for me to do. It's about letting go and not use you nind but your heart to create art.

I am a control freak and I have not much experience in painting girls faces, so it's hard fr me to do the lessons.

so far I made this:

Deco Art Products used:
Deco Art Americana Decou Page Napkin, Deco art Media Misters in Red and Yellow, Deco Art Media Gesso, Deco Art Americana Acrylic in Lamp black.

For this page, without going into the lessons too much, I made a background using a napkin with a marble print, decoupaged it to the page and usde a red Media Mister and  a Yellow Media mister to give the background colour. Next I used a pencil to sketch the head and painted it white using Gesso.

Next I drew the face and cooured it using Inktense pencils. The words are written using a Sharpie.

The gears were stamped using acrylic paint.

sketch after Klimt

Deco Art Products used:

Deco Art Media Gesso, Deco Art Americana acrylic in : Marigold, True Ochre, Spicy Mustard, Bright Blue, Cherry Red.  DEco Art Dazzling Metallics in: Chanmpagne Gold, Emperors Gold, Venetian Gold. Deco Art Multi Surface Satin in Lemon Zest and Deco Art Multi Metallic in Chocolate.  Americana Stencil Bubbles and Personally yours stencil Strength Deco Art Media Matte Varnish

The background and the bird are made using stencils and the paints listed above over a layer of Gesso.
The drawings are made using a Neco Color 1 oil pastel when done the pages got a layer of Matte Varnish to protect them

ITAC'17 challenge 4 Africa

For Itac,17 challenge 4 I made this painting of an African Mask

#itac17 #itac17challenge4 #aallandcreate

Deco Art Products used:

Deco Art Americana acrylic Gesso
Deco Art Americana Acrylics in:  Moon Yellow, Antique Gold, Cherry Red, Traditional burnt umber,Bright Orange, True Red, Asphaltum,, Lamp black,
Deco Art Americana Multi Surface in Orange Neon and Lemon Zest
Deco Art Media Matte Varnish, Americana Stencil Aztec

I started with a layer of gesso to prepare the cardboard for painting, Next used Oranges and yellows to create the background color.

The patern is a stencil and red acrylic paint.

When all paint was dry I used a pencil to draw the mask and next painted all colors on.


Itac'17 challenge can be found here

Dodo

Deco Art Products used: Americana acrylics in: Moon Yellow, Jack O lantern orange, Butterscotch, Sable Brown, Asphaltum, Traditional burnt Sienna, Blue Chiffon, Snow White, Lamp Black.
Americana Metallic Gold , Dazzling Metallics in Medieval Gold, Venetian Gold, Champagne Gold
Deco Art Media: white gesso and matte varnish
Stencils for background by Nellie Snellen (Dots) and Dutch Doobadoo (fabric)
Letters: Cricut Expression with Base Camp Cartridge

I love Dodos, they are not the most beautiful birds (they are rather ugly to be honest), so that is not the reason, it's the bit of mystery that come with the Dodo.

There are paintings and skeletons but the painting were rarely painted with a life bird as a model and that is why there are so many different shapes when you look at Dodos in paintings. Because I am just starting at acrylic painting, the bird seemed a good subject to practise on, afteral no one really knows what it looked like so that helps if you are just starting out lol.

First I collected all kind of Dodo images on pinterest to see how they were drawn and painted and looked at some skeletons. Next I picked a painting of a Dodo that I liked the most.

So here my reference image, a painting by Jan Savery (1651), I made a screenshot on my phone and used that as an example, I had no intention of copying the painting but I do need a reference so...

Ok if you compare them you will see a big difference but as I said I don't have much experience in acrylic painting and I am very happy how it turned out.  I have taken pictures while I was painting so will show those here for you to see how I did it.

I did not paint on a canvas, maybe I should have but I had no idea how it would turn out and that is why I used my Art Journal, the big Dylusions creative journal. It's less scary as using a canvas and seems less of a waste to practice on paper. Other reason to work in a journal is I like the size and I love having a collection of paintings you can flip through in a book.


First step was painting the page Moon Yellow , I did not gesso the page , just added a layer of yellow.
Next I sketched the bird using a charcoal pencil, just the shape is enough.

Step 2 Gesso the bird to create a white surface and cover the lines of th charcoal as it will smudge in the paint. The lines will still show throw the Gesso but they won't smudge anymore.

Step 3: the challenge begun.....started with the beak and the head and did not think about how I had to paint the rest yet. I used lamp black paint and a small paint brush to kinda map in the details and shade of the beak and face.

Step 4: giving myself some directions where the shades and highlights would be using black and chiffon blue. And trying to find a color to use for the head and body. I tried Drift wood first which is the greyish color and did not like it so swithed to saddle brown.

step 5  practising how to get a feathered look and dabbing with a very little paint seemed to work best to get the small feathers on the head and body

Step 6: working in the small feathers using different shades of brown and finish the face/beak. 

The shades are a mix of  Asphaltum with a little black. the highlights are chiffon blue .

Step 7: the wings have bigger feathers a bit like a chicken yellow ish with brown and black. 

When I thought the Dodo was ready I started the background and sponged Jack O lantern orange over the yellow.

Step 8: I wanted to do a bit of a Klimt like background so used different golds and white and stencils to create patterns. the circles a stamped using different sizes of round items, a glass, lids  anything that wold fit inside the bigger circle to work to the small center .

I used masks made out of copier paper to cover the circles and the bird .

I added some layers of matte varnish for protection

I thought the left corner below needed something more so used my Cricut to cut out the word Extinct out of polka dot paper.

Here it is, my take on a Dodo, I am happy with the result :-)