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.

WIP Dusk at the Marsh

I am working on a stitched story piece about one of my favorite local marshes and my stencil Black Birds in Tree are the main focus in this new series.  The marshes, Cooper's Marsh & Larson's Marsh, which is just a few miles east of Ames, Iowa, are surrounded by farmland.  

Seta Color Fabric paint on cotton fabric, I painted this fabric using a salt technique sometime around 2004/05. The orange piece is a non-slip gripping pad that holds the fabric in place while I surface the fabric.

I should be able to get four smaller pieces out of the larger piece of fabric, the piece directly above this photo.

For the purple stenciled areas I'm using Galleria thick body paint as it is less inclined to bleed. I applied the paint using a stencil brush and very thin layers of paint building the image up onto the fabric, why yes my hand is sore now!

Finished, the stencil did stick to the fabric, where it came into contact with the wet paint that soon dried.

I have to admit this is my all time favorite stencil in my series!  I will probably leave this particular piece of fabric as is for the moment and work on the other three pieces.  I am toying with using my inverse stencil on one of the pieces, more to come!

Organize Me!!!

I decided today to drop some coin on some studio organizational tools, I bought the Clip and Spin Organizer at Hobbly Lobby this evening.  I almost didn't make the purchase because I wasn't sure if I could fill it or not, now I see I should have purchased two of them!

Another thirty or so rubbing plates that I will clean up tomorrow, seems a mouse managed to make a nest in my storage tub, and will hang the remainder of these plates on the spinner.

I still have a dozen or so alphabet stencils that need to be hung on the spinner as well, yep it's really starting to look like I should have purchased two of these!  I have to admit it is really nice to have all of my stencils out where I can see them now, I have quite a few I forgot about that I could have used at Easter for cards and such.

My Black Birds in Tree Stencil looks so good  hanging on the organizer!  For damage control I backed most of the stencils with a sheet of paper to keep them from hooking onto the next stencil.

Yes, I definitely see another spinner in my near future!

A Crow Project

Crow Stencil  from StencilGirl Products outlined in Pitt Pen with Shiva Paintstiks in iridescent copper and white, on madder lac dyed silk organza layered over white silk dupioni fabric.  Timtex core with white cotton backing.  Machine and hand stitching.

The paintstiks don't show up well in this photo, will take a photo tomorrow using natural light.

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.

 

WIP - Birds in Tree

First design made with the Birds in Tree stencil design.  The stencil to the right is Birds in Tree Inverse - works best as a mask or with a large brayer full of paint!  More photos later...

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!

Oooh Stencils

 

Yesterday something absolutely wonderful arrived in the mail for my approval, my sample stencil from one of my own designs "Birds in Tree"!  I've been playing with it ever since it arrived, and of course the inevitable wait time for layers of gesso to dry had to be endured, but over all I'm having a blast this afternoon!

 

More layer as these two layers should be dry and ready for the next several processes, which includes some ink/pen techniques and then more layering.  I see some numbers and text in this piece as well. 

 

Tomorrow I will have some fabric samples to show and tell. 

Sketch Book - Motifs

I made my own sketch book journal to fill with various patterns and motifs I was finding around the house, this one is from a stencil I'm in love with.