Creatures of Fey

 Hoped to do a Little more this week but time has been short so here is my newest journal page. I find I am often drawn to painting and drawing mermaids. I found a gorgeous poem called  'I am a creature of the fey' (an old term for the Faerie world) by Heather Alexander  
Its first line reads,' I am a creature of the fey, prepare to give your soul away,' wonderfully spooky!
Up to now I have only painted friendly mermaids, perhaps It is time to give my next one a bit of menace.
As I mentioned in my earlier post on Sunday I have been looking  for inspiration from the mermaids of  Teesha Moore  

 It is a year since I did my last big mermaid canvas. I have started another but it is going to take a little time to finish so  just a journal page for now.

Last year I was commissioned to complete a large mermaid canvas.
I was asked to incorporate two mermaids and a cat! So my mermaids are diving down to look at the cat who is protected by a bubble of air. I didn't want him to be harmed!!  ( I am a huge friend of furry felines) It was strange, and frankly rather disturbing to put a cat at the bottom of the sea and at first I wasn't at all sure, but the lady I made it for seemed very happy. In the end I rather liked the cat in the bubble!

                                                      

This is a little WIP shot, sorry for fuzzy photo, I didn't seem to take any good photographs of my two mermaids!

WIP

And finally my little Summer mermaid

 She hangs in my bathroom. Cerulean blue is one of my favourite colours and the Aqua shimmers in the sun.
It has a very textured surface with embroidery and pearls,beads and shells around the collage.

The shells were fixed and set in Polyfilla, which is a product normally used to fill holes in walls.  It seemed to work fine and I varnished it. It seems to have stood up to a year in my bathroom so I guess the plaster is watertight!

                                                       

Links to the The Artists Playroom

 and Paint party Friday 
and Artists in Blogland

mayflower girl

Using photo montage

I have been experimenting with photo montage recently after finding some exciting you tube videos made by collage artist Teesha moore.

I don't usually use photographs in my collage, but I find Teeshas work very exciting so thought I would give it a go. I love her mermaids so will try that next but to start with I tried a little Mayflower girl.

Mayflower girl

She started off very differently...

Although I don't want to copy her style I think with a bit of tinkering I can use some of the ideas I have learnt in combination with my own more textural style.
Teesha prints her collages at the printers and then works into the print further with pen.
Instead I messed about with the piece on Pixlr.

I  like this one where the green tints make her rather like the female equivalent of the Green man, an old pagan symbol of spring and rebirth.

 Green Mayflower Girl

Links this week... Inspiration Avenue

Fairy Godmother

Birthdays

The APR challenge this week is birthdays, and at first I was a little stumped! Should I paint a birthday cake?
Should I paint a bunch of balloons?
Birthdays are really all about wishes,
Wishing to be younger,
Wishing to be older,
Wishing for a happy year.

When my children were small they always had birthday parties at home. I love baking and it was a great excuse to make loads of tasty cakes and biscuits; It didn't matter that the house was trashed by hoards of rampaging five year olds, it was fun! My youngest daughter loved dressing up, especially as a princess and one year we had a Cinderella party and  I made a Pink castle cake complete with turrets; She still talks about the day over fifteen years later so it must have made an impact!
That memory gave me the idea for the wish fairy.

So here is my Fairy Godmother, when you blow out the candles she makes birthday wishes come true!

It is a mixed media piece done on heavy weight watercolour paper. Using collage ,Gesso and Caran Dache Neocolor crayons.

I started with a background of old encyclopedia pages and Gelli printed paper.
Added some Gesso...

Added some line and colour. I like to blend the crayons with baby wipes rather than water.

 I like her raised eyebrow, it is like she is slightly surprised by the wish request!

This is pink castle cake number two made ( At her own request) for my daughters eighteenth birthday a couple of years ago, not as good as the original,but it tasted nicer :)

 Links this week to Artists Playroom   Where it is Jenns Birthday , Happy Birthday Jenn!

and the most fabulous Paint party friday!!!

Fishing for Dreams continued...

On the easel this week.

Dream fishing

 A few weeks ago I posted a piece called Fishing for Dreams. It was for an art challenge at collage obsession and the theme was emerald. I used Gelli printed paper and acrylic paints.

fishing-for-dreams

 I really liked the idea of  working the idea further and using pastel dream like colours and textures. I also wanted to give my sleeping maiden more detail and make her hair link in to the spiral.
I usually spend a lot of time cutting hair strands from paper as I did in this previous Klimt style piece.

Klimt style woman posted in March

So this time I cut gold and flame orange handmade paper coils to form her ringlets.

Hair detail

And modelling paste impressions made with the nets that come from pre packed oranges in the supermarket.

Modelling paste detail

I am using modelling paste quite a lot these days, it gives such interesting textural results!

 When I played around with the image making it darker and removing the colour it revealed the darker side of dreams, this is an altogether different world! Perhaps this will be an idea for next weeks project. :)

Linked to the wonderful Paint party Friday

Also linked up to Artists in Blogland

Starry night over Gairloch

looking for inspiration

 There are many Artists whom I love and have influenced me over the years. My little' Starry Night over Gairloch' collage is a little bit of fun in celebration of Van Goghs famous painting.

Starry Night, Van Gogh

 Van Gogh was a master of colour, I just love the swirling sky!

My collage used citrasolve paper for the sea and gelli printed paper for the sky. I use Golden Gel medium to stick the citrasolve paper down as it creates less wrinkles than pva glue types.

I have so many favourite paintings this weeks Artists Playroom challenge to choose one seemed a bit tough!
I visited Aberdeen over last weeks long holiday weekend and spent Sunday afternoon in the city Art gallery, I LOve Art Galleries! They are such peaceful contemplative spaces. Aberdeen although the third largest city in Scotland is not particularly large and the gallery is not full of Van Goghs, but it does have some interesting works.

Aberdeen Art Gallery

 The beautiful weekend weather meant Union Terrace gardens finally looked quite springlike!

Union Terrace gardens

 My trip to the gallery reminded me that much of my inspiration comes from less famous artists; the gallery has a beautiful watercolour by contemporary Scottish artist Elizabeth Blackadder. I have admired her deceptively simple still life watercolours since I was a student in Edinburgh ( many years ago :)! )

Elizabeth Blackadder Flowers on an Indian cloth

                                                           
So I did a little watercolour still life tribute to her fantastic work.

Still life with Goss china and little shoes

Spring roses and ferns

Spring roses

 I seem to be in a flower painting mode at the moment, although I have moved on from the tulips. Outside my front door I have a climbing rose and after a long six month winter it is finally beginning to show some signs of life. So these are not as yet roses from my garden, think I will have to wait a while for those. I used acrylics, gesso, water soluble wax crayons, conte crayons and my fern printed paper for the leaves.

Gelli plate

 I had a couple of questions after my tulip post on how I made the fern paper, well this is how!
With my Gelli plate; I collected the leaves placed them on the plate and used them as a stencil. They produce beautiful paper. If you haven't seen the Gelli plate before I have done a couple of previous posts on it. Have a look at Gelli printing for ideas.

The leaves produce paper like this..........

Which I tear up and use in my collages.

 It gives the collage a very textured look

 and means by using my own paper it feels more personal

 So... spring leaves and fresh roses.....

This weeks link is to the APR challenge: click to see what lovely things others have created  Here
Also links to Paint Party Friday