More mosaics

Well yet again I am feeling sorry for my sadly neglected Blog.
Well no excuses, so instead I will show a little of what I have been up to over the winter, which was incredibly cold. Some days snow prevented me from leaving the house so many snowy days were spent in my studio. I discovered the joys of painting in gloves, hat and layers of fleece clothing!
 I started developing my mosaics over the winter months using vintage china and paperclay. This little chaps were made for Skyeworks Gallery Fish Exhibition. 'fish for tea' I love making them and have been working on a series of characters.

Over the winter I spent a lot of time feeding the birds around my house which gave me so much joy and inspiration. Now the little friends from my garden have crept into my mosaics too. Now my main problem is sourcing large quantities of old damaged china as I really don't like breaking up perfectly good things even if they are from junk shops!

Of course I am still tearing paper and working on large collage paintings and I will post some soon.

much love

Morag x

birds and mosaics, mixed media adventures

Well my blog has been a little neglected for the past few months, so thought about time I shared a little of what I've been up to.

During the Summer Skyeworks Gallery had a charity exhibition and this was one of my pieces, made from collage, paint and paperclay. My little blackbird was voted one of the exhibition favourites and is now available as a card. a proportion of the card sales are to go to Scottish Autism.

Time and tide cards

My little blackbird was the first time I had mixed paperclay with collage, but I had made several other bird paperclay mosaics over the Summer.

And new for the festive season, little Robin Mosaics,

Eagle bowl

Long time ago my followers may remember my mermaid bowl...

                                                                                                                                                     

mermaid bowl

                            


Well i hadn't done a collaged bowl for some time and I wanted to try something new. So here we have my eagle bowl! Made with torn paper and acrylic paint on a papermache substrate. I made it to hang on the wall rather than sit as the bowl shape collects the light and it reflects the gold on the sea eagles feathers. Skye is the home to a couple of eagle species, Sea eagles inhabit the cliffs surrounding Portree bay where little boat trips go out on eagle spotting trips. I've been on several, one in particular saw the eagle fly right down over our boat, a magical experience!

The idea began in my sketchbook

then was painted in black gesso

Then I added the paper fragments

Golden eagle

Remember my clay eagle?
Well this is my progress so far.

The eagle is attached to a collaged paper background.

i added lots of gold leaf to both the eagle and the landscape.

I am not sure if it is finished yet so I am propping it up here until I decide :)

An eagle has landed

Trying something new with my air drying clay.

I have made an eagle and am going to try and fix it to this large wooden panel.
Not quite sure how well it will work as it is much bigger than my small mermaid pieces, I will keep you updated on it's progress.

This is a bird of prey I spotted.. high in the sky, drifting on the thermals.

Seascape

 I have been toying with the idea of making a triptych, three panels joined to form one piece of artwork.
As you can see I didn't stop at three, I got a little carried away and stretched to four. I have been producing faces all of February for the 29 face challenge so really wanted to go for something more abstract.

The collaged panels are covered with papers, modelling paste, gesso and  paint.

As always my colours are brighter and more vibrant than the colours of my inspiration photographs, I take photographs as a starting point and they help me visualise what I would like to achieve.

 The colours on the photo above are more similar to the finished piece, for some reason the camera didn't pick up the blues as brightly on the finished piece photo.
 As you may notice I have several bits and bobs going on on the workbench at the moment!

The seascape panels are around 30cmx10 and collaged onto wood they are individual pieces so can be separated like this...

But I like like them together...

mix it monthly

I changed the colour with a pixlr filter to link up to mix it monthly where there is an abstract theme for the month. I actually really love the golden tones and think I need to get busy on four more panels using this colour combination!

Linking up  also to Paint party Friday where artists exchange ideas and inspiration.

The vintage birdcage

collaged papers,acyclic, pebeo liners, modelling paste, embossing powders

This is a little tale of the magical colour-changing songbird!

It was a commissioned piece I finished over Christmas. As you can see below the little bird started off yellow, but something was wrong. He gazed out from behind the bars of his silver cage and wondered....

first he was yellow!

What if I could sing...
What if I could sing so loudly the bars would open and I too could fly with the butterflies....
And he did..
He sang, and he sang, and slowly he changed, from yellow to a warm golden peach,
The clear blue air began to surround his silver cage, melting the bars and setting him free.

Detail ( mixed media on canvas )

                                                                            The freedom to fly

This piece is a very good example of how my collaged paintings change and evolve. I often decide colours don't quite work together and change things after a coat of gesso, I like working with textures and layers so another layer just adds to the fun :)

Linking up to Paint party friday
and for the first time moo-mania now the challenge is accepting larger formats of art

red grouse

There is something very Scottish about the Red grouse. I don't know if it is the colours which blend so well into the heather. Or perhaps it's sturdy stance as it surveys the landscape. Maybe it is it's strong association to a famous whisky brand!

Whatever it is the glorious 12th of August always makes me sad. As a vegetarian for more then 30years I don't believe I have ever eaten Grouse, although I know many people who do. Grouse are seem as Game birds and are shot in large numbers, the 12th being the first day of the shooting season.I thought it would be nice to celebrate the beauty of this little bird and recognise how good it looks away from the dinner table.

My collages always begin life looking very messy and this one was no different! At this stage I know what I want to do, but I think many people would have no idea what all the torn paper and glue was going to look like!

I collaged the paper pieces onto an old reclaimed floorboard. I did change the background as I felt the scenery was too fussy. I wanted the grouse to be the main subject.

The male Grouse have the shock of red on their heads so this fellow is most definitely a male. I think he looks rather festive in his red bonnet.

There is lots of texture, I used some Citrasolv paper for the rocks .Citrasolv paper for those who haven't come across the term before is wonderful coloured paper created from pages of the national geographic!
I sprinkled the Citrasolv natural cleaner onto the pages. The product partially dissolves the ink leaving wonderful patterns. I did a post earlier in the year with a LINK to a great youtube tutorial for those who are interested. I often incorporate pieces of this torn paper in my collages.

I love this photo of the sunlight dappling the surface, it also gives you an idea of the scale.

I have a couple of large pieces to finish before Christmas so will be working on them madly for the next couple of weeks and may not have time to post a great deal before Christmas.

Red Grouse

Linking up to Paint Party Friday; a place to VISIT loads of fantastic artists and see what they have been up to this week.

The sound of Raasay

 This week The Inspiration Avenue are hosting a show and tell week! I do so love show and tell as it gives me a chance to show what I have been working on outside the constraints of the themed challenges. This mixed media collage is just finished. I have been squirrelling away for the past month on it, It is a large canvas for me, the picture below on my easel gives you an idea of size. It is made up of fragments of found, printed and handmade papers along with acrylics and textured pastes.

As you can see some elements are lost along the way one being the Celtic knot which I decided wasn't working. The subject is the 'sound of Rasaay' as seen from the coastline of the Isle of Skye. Skye is an Island which is part of a group of Islands called the Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland. Skye is a relatively large Island being over 50 miles long Raasay is much smaller with a very small population.

Raasay sound

                        

a

.I have taken a few detailed photos of progress and finished work. As you can see I was a little frightened of doing the seagulls so kept putting off starting them!

 But I began by blocking them in in book pages.

The fish are collaged with metallic papers which shimmer, this doesn't show up on camera.

 And finally finished! This is one of the pieces I am submitting for the Skye annual summer exhibition. which runs throughout August.

Linking to Inspiration Avenue

And also Glue it Tuesday! ( this canvas used buckets of glue :) )

And also paint party Friday.

Also a last minute entry to Mix it Monthly and it's seaside theme. Have a look Here at all the other great seaside art!

I am away for a few days so may not be able to reply to your comments straight away but will get back to visit you as soon as possible ;)