Day One 60 Days of Birds Mixed Media Challenge

Rodney

6x6 inches.

Pastels, graphite, and white Signo gel pen on black scrapbooking paper.

WIP More Black Birds

More crow panels in progress (Black Birds in Tree Stencil), when the paint dries I will be adding more layers and see where this leads.

I'm currently taking an online course on making my own fonts by hand, this is not like any calligraphy course I've ever taken, and hope that some of these designs make it into my artwork and soon.

Black Birds in Trees

Working on some Crow Cards this afternoon using my Black Birds in Tree Stencil.

The orange mat is a non-slip artist map, unfortunately there is no label on the mat so I have no idea where it came from.

I started out with a piece of painted timtex that was painted by Seta Color Fabric Paints.  I will be adding some oil bar, ink, and other yummies next, and then it's time for some stitching.

New Project in Progress

Black Birds in Tree Stencil and craft paints on baltic birch panel board... more later after I add more layers.

Larkspur

Larkspur ~ The juice of the crushed petals was used to color quills a beautiful, if not fugitive, blue color.  The roots cooked up with a pinch of iron yields a lovely black.

Creating a Strategic Objectives Journal for 2014

Am working through Lisa Sonora Beam's "Creative Entreprenure" book again, last time was 2008/09, and am now just creating my Strategic Objectives Journal.  I have to say this has been a lot of fun this time around, it especially helps that I now understand most of what she discusses, this due to five years of reading and researching how to run a business. (Raven Stencil available soon!!!)

And what would a journal be if I didn't personalize it with my own artwork?  Blackbirds in Tree from StencilGirl Products stencil with FolkArt Indigo paint for the first layer of this journal section.  I found these old manilla folders in hubs office, when I say old we're talking 30-40 years old here, and am repurposing them for my new journal. 

How I dealt with the uneven edge of the manilla folder, I simply placed a piece of old reciept journal paper under the folder edge. 

The journal paper freshly stencilled.  I'll add more layers to this piece of paper and glue it inside of the journal somewhere.  More later, I have more birds to paint now that the first layer has dried, while I think about my objectives.

Black Birds in Progress

I'm still in the layering of paint and ink stage, I will be adding more layers tomorrow and then hopefully finishing out the birds.

Black Birds in Tree stencil can be purchase through StencilGirl Products!

Part One - Black Birds in Trees Harvest

With a round object of your choice (I used a 6" plate) and a soft pencil (HB) draw a circle on your 9x12 sheet of watercolor paper.

 

 

 

Using a texture or geometric stamp, and waterproof ink, add some texture around the circular area.

 

 

Now fill the circle with some yellow paint, I used Folk Arts Medium Yellow.

Using a thin layer of grey paint the background.

The thin layer of paint will allow the background texture to show through; allow paint to dry completely.

Now apply alcohol inks and in random manner.  I spritzed the moon area with butterscotch, lettuce, and red pepper.

Not to worry the inks will dry way lighter than what you see in the image here! 

About half dry now, it will become lighter still!

Once the alcohol inks are dried take a baby wipe and in a swirling motion remove most of the ink from the moon shape on the paper.

This gives you a realistic moon shape and fall harvest coloring.  Not all of the ink will wipe away and this is fine you don't want it all to wipe away.

If you need to amp up the color for the background now is the time to do so.  Here I recharged the alcohol ink using some additional inks and a water bottle.  Spritzing with water will cause speckling, etc., to occur giving you more texture.

Place stencil of choice onto background, and using dry stencil brush techniques push the paint through the stencil onto the paper.  Here I'm using my stencil Black Birds in Tree which is available through StencilGirl Products!

Too much paint will cause the paint to go under the stencil and well creates a HUGE mess, but this piece can and will be redeemed!  Folk Art Paint - Licorice

And because sometimes I am a bit of a perfectionist, yes me, I went and created a second piece the steps of which are above, just to see if I could get the stencil portion correct!

And I managed to keep the paint in the lines this time!  Ok, the paint should be dry now I'm off to add more layers to the first version of this piece to see where it takes me, oh and to cook dinner!

Stay tuned for Part Two!

Black Birds in Tree Now Available!!!

I'm so excited to announce that my stencils are now available through StencilGirl Products!!!
 

The stencil is available as an inverse of the design and also as a traditional cut out.

 

Black Birds in Tree Inverse with Lilac and Ecualyptus Tsukineko Inks.

This page is the result of brayering a sheet of clean paper onto the Inverse stencil while it was wet with alcohol inks.

 

Stencil Heaven!

 

 

Tsukineko ink on watercolor paper using my two stencil designs.

Birds in Tree Inverse Stencil -  works beautifully as a mask when laying down color!

"Bird in Trees Inverse" Stencil sample.  I'm in love with both of my stencil samples, if you don't hear from me well you know the drill send whoppers and cheesecake cause it means I'm holed up in my studio!

WIP - Crown on Yellow 052913

Almost done, I have a few spots that need beads on the main body and then I'll bead the edge with black beads.

I was Beading Away

finishing the crows tail and now working on it's underbelly...

 

One view of the tail feathers in matte, iridescent, and shiney black pony beads.

 

 

Another view of the tail.

 

And... then I realized I forgot to finish the wing!  Other than this minor mishap it's coming along and beautifully.

 

Digitally Printed Fabric

Tomorrow it's all about the crows and the redwing blackbirds! 
Silk Organza and Cotton fabrics.

What is Old is New Again!

I used to draw and paint with these paints almost exclusively as a child growing up, so imagine my joy that Hobby Lobby was carrying these as kits.  I asked, no most probably they won't be carrying the single tubes, which is a shame because I ReALLY want a tube of red violet paint. 

I'm hoping that this will be the anwser to my fabric marker woes, I can control a paint brush but the fabric markers bleed, bleed, and bleed some more, and the marker tips themselves... well don't get me started!

Anyway, I will report back as I will be using the black color, and probably exclusively, as to how these interact with natural dyed fabrics.

Gearing Up for New Work

Bjorkboda hanging on the shelf on the far wall.

I compost dyed these about seven years or so ago, it's been so long now I don't remember when exactly.

 

Black gutta on compost dyed silk chiffon fabric.

Look familiar???  Yes I'm finally going to work with this piece, note it's in the header of this blog and one of the main photos in my books.

Brown-eyed Susan

Rudbeckia hirta

Red Winged Black Bird taken at Cooper's Marsh, Story County, Iowa.

Frames in Progress

A new batch of deep faced frames for my textile pieces in progress.  So far the framing material has been cut out and sanded multiple times, now for the staining process, these will be black.  I'm truly blessed because my husband is willing to make these for me.