Sunday, October 14, 2012
Never Take Advice from the Chesire Cat...
Yes, I know this is my second Alice in Wonderland project, but I just couldn't help myself! What you see here is called a scratch board, meaning everything in white was carved first before the design actually shown through. The one pitfall of using this wonderful medium is that once you mess up there is no turning back because nothing is erasable. Basically I eyeballed each of the characters and first drew them on pencil on separate sheets of paper. From there, I took those drawings and transferred them onto the scratch board by laying the paper over the board and making an indent through it by tracing all the lines with my pen cap. Because I had indents to guide my drawings, I then began to carve away the scratch board to produce each of the characters! By carving out different amounts and using intersecting lines, I was able to produce shading in this monochromatic piece to differentiate Alice/the Dandelions/the mouse/the Mad Hatter/the Card Soldier/the Chesire Cat/Pansies.
This is by far my favorite piece I have made because the detailing is incredible and of course it is al about Alice <3
xx, em
You'll Find Me Chasing the Sun.... OHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOH
Unconventional Project time!!! For this "challenge" of sorts I took an old cloth bag I had laying around the house and painted my favorite band in their new song Chasing the Sun :) So basically I outlined the lettering for THE WANTED and then the boy's backs on a fresh white canvas. From there, I painted the background yellow, and added the swirling sunset on top of it!
I am so happy my boys (Tom, Nath, Jay, Max, and Siva) got to see it and sign it :) My MOM made my life by waiting in line at one of their concerts while I was in school! They loved it so much that they wrote "the Wanted think you are talented" on my bag!!! Definitely one of the best feelings to know that someone loves your artwork, especially if they are one of your favorite bands!!
xx, em
Spilled Ink
close ups on cool color blending!
Watercolors! Probably one of my favorite mediums to work with when I am in a creative mood because not only do they produce terrifically bright colors but also the blend into the most abstract pieces. Which brings me to the downside of using watercolors: don't use them if do not have a good understanding on the amount of water you should use, if you are trying to create something that is abstract! As you can already tell I LOVE sunsets and therefore I painted a sunset behind a green mountain in the ocean!
For this specific work I used what is called a water treatment to create the bleeding effects on the paper. I did this by coating the paper with water before even using the watercolor, and then (especially with the sky) picking up the paper and moving it around to swirl the pigments together.
In the end, I am very fond with this piece because it is an abstract depiction of nature and I was just having fun with it! Experimenting with this new technique was not only fun, but also beneficial because I received brighter more original pigments in the end :)
xx, em
Black and White Roses
So here are the Black and White Versions of my Stamp. I have included prints from all three stages of carving my stamp:
1) carving out just basic outlines of a rose
2) adding in slight details of the rose
3) carving out the entire dark space inside the rose and only leaving the outline of the structure to take in the black India Ink :)
xx, em
Dreaming of Wonderland
As you can see, I had a lot of fun with this project because I was able to take many artistic liberties! To create the multimedia effect in this piece, I ripped up pages of old books into strips and glued them to the corners, and in addition to that, I took cards out of a deck and glued them onto my canvas. The cool thing about what I chose to use as my multimedia is that they both have meaning that relates to Alice in Wonderland, the fact that she is "reading" a book in the first place when she sees the White Rabbit dash by, and the cards are representative of the the soldiers and the Red Queen [I made sure to include the Queen of Hearts ;)]. I painted the canvas first with orange, red, pink, and yellow tempura paint to create the effect of this dream-like sunset that Alice is engulfed in. I then used the effect of photo transfer to place the images on the canvas. Some of the varnish came off when I was removing the paper in the photo transfer process, leaving "holes" in some of the images. The effect produced by this mistake was the concept that Alice was "dreaming" of Wonderland as the images and cards swirled above her. To increase the visual presentation of this effect, I colored in the Chesire Cat/White Rabbit/Queen of Hearts/Mad Hatter/Caterpillar less than I did Alice to give them a sense of not existing in real life, and part of her dream about the fictional land of Wonderland. Lastly, I added glitter to everything except Alice to make everything else look like it was in a dream!
Ok! That was a mouthful, but I hope you enjoy this piece. I had an amazing time creating it not only because I love Alice in Wonderland but because it also had an intricate meaning behind it :)
xx, em
(top) The Chesire Cat with a small amount of purple and pink paint.
(left) Drama!!!! Alice was my first photo transfer ever and she turned out flawless! As you can see she is the Disney version and quite beautiful against the freshly painted background! (this is before she got painted)
(right) Pieces of the book pages in a collage at the corner of the board. In addition, a birds eye point of view of the 3D card which has been altered with some paint and glitter.
The Queen of Hearts <3
(top 2) The finished product of Alice!!!!!! Using small brush strokes, I tried to color her in just enough to make the difference between her and the rest of the figures visual.
(left) The Mad Hatter ladies and gents :)
(right) Some more Queen of Hearts action and of course the White Rabbit!
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