A Frenzy of Faces

I don't do anything by halves do I - 

why create just one face when you can do ten!

After I made my previous whimsical face 

following the video tutorial by Clare Lloyd,

I thought I'd do some more - practice makes perfect

after all, although I've got a way to go yet!

I discovered a better flesh tone (than my previously

very pink one) by mixing a little 'Nougat' coloured

Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic paint with 'Brushed Corduroy'

Distress Ink.

 

 

 

I did each set in pairs and they looked like sisters.

Here's what I did with these two.

Made them some clothes, rubber stamping and a bit of lace.

Stuck them onto a board with a background of

paint, rubber stamping and a little embossing.

I edged around them with black watercolour pencil

but I was a bit too heavy handed!

 I softened the outline by rubbing lightly around it

with a babywipe.

Added some sisterly words.

 Finally covered the

whole board with

beeswax.

Sisters with dirty faces!

Thanks for looking :)

An Altered Key

This month's challenge over on Flickr's GAS MAMMA (group for altered art swaps)is to alter a key with romance as a theme.

Not being the most imaginative of people I couldn't think of how to effectively alter a key - a key's a key right! In the end I decided to make a little piece of artwork - with the key as the focal point - and used a mini canvas measuring just 2 1/2" x 3".

I love the shape of the old key I used and it was very rusty to begin with so I just enhanced it a little with some metallic gold rub on and added two silver heart shaped gems at the top. I entwined some gold beading around it and through some lace too which is attached to the canvas by a heart shape brad. The canvas itself I painted with acrylic, coloured the edges with more of the gold metallic rub on - coated the whole thing with beeswax and adhered some music score with more of the wax (it's an extract from 'Get me to the church on time' from My Fair Lady) A bit of lace top and bottom and a couple of flowers to finish.

Seeing as I was at a loss as to what to do for this challenge, I'm really pleased with the end result.

Round Robin Journal

Today I finished the last page of Astrid's Round Robin - the page being for Yvonne. The idea was to wait until you saw the next player's own first page then make a page yourself for them. However, as Yvonne's page is yet to materialise and as I've done all the others I decided to do her page anyway (after first getting permission from Yvonne of course!)

Yvonne's theme was 'Memories' in muted colours of our choice. I found an old black and white photograph of me aged about 3 (I think) with my aunt Vicky (Mum's youngest sister) and my maternal Grandfather (Bert was his name and he liked a bet and a fag and had a cauliflower ear from his boxing days!) This picture was taken in the grounds of the flats my Nan and Grandad lived in (Bethnal Green, east end of London) and must be one of the few family photos that exists of that time - early 60s. I have a rather pained expression on my face (didn't like my photo taken even way back then - lol), I think it's due to it be a sunny day - it looks as though we're all squinting too! I love my aunt's beehive hairstyle and boldly patterned dress in this picture - so 1960s and very befitting of her big, beautiful and flamboyant personality! She lives in Spain now but we're lucky enough to go and see her and her husband every year and have a swim in their pool!

As soon as I get the remaining pages and my own first page of the journal back, I will bind all the pages together - I have already made the front and back covers for it - and then I'll post a picture of it.

Oops forgot to say what I did for this page! Another beeswax collage - a copy of the photo layered onto lightly inked card, then some layers of tissue and the text - some black paper lace around the edges and finally some buttons to finish it off - the white one representing my Grandad - for the white shirt he's wearing, the green one for my aunt as that's her favourite colour and the pink one for me as I'm a sweet little girl in the picture - say aaahhh!

Art Freebies Challenge

This week's challenge on June's Art Freebie blog was to use an image of some papyrus. I knew papyrus was a type of old paper but I looked it up and discovered that it is 'thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant and first manufactured in Ancient Egypt'.

With this in mind I decided the use the image as a background to the Egyptian Pharaoh 'Amenhotep' (yes, I looked that up too - lol!). So it's a beeswax collage - the first layer is dark gold coloured tissue, then the image (after cutting parts of it away), then the Pharaoh and his name (covered again with some of the tissue to cover up the white paper) - all adhered with the beeswax and finally some gold ink around the edge to give a slight border.

It's turned out a bit green due to my printer ink running low - I quite like the effect though and it blends with the dark gold tissue.

UK Art Raffle - 'Dark'

This is my entry for the above raffle. This month's theme is 'Dark'.

It is a canvas 5"x7" which I've called 'Adore'. This is the first completed canvas I've done and it was a bit scary at first, but once I started it was fine! It's another beeswax collage which I started by scribbling some oil pastels in black and blue over the canvas then melted some beeswax over the top and blended it altogether.
I then put a bingo card on with more beeswax and blended that into the background. I then overlaid some white tissue to soften the overall effect. A piece of wide dark blue ribbon was then laid on and some more fibre at the bottom. The image was next - again adhered with more beeswax. Finally a ticket saying 'adore' was distressed and put at the bottom right hand corner and a flower at the top. This was quite a messy job and I ended up with pastels everywhere - so I sealed the whole thing with some porcelain gloss spray. It didn't take completely but it adds to the whole distress finish (yeah, right!!)

I am pleased with how this has turned out and it's given me the confidence to try to some more.

I hope whoever 'wins' it in the raffle likes it - if not, they could always send it back to me as I'm sure I'll find somewhere to hang it!

Beeswax Collage

This week's theme on Maggies Mondays Musings (MAMMA) is 'The Sixties' - well I am of course far too young to remember them (LOL!!!)but I was a sixties baby and this is always a fun subject. Having said that the ATC I've made for the swap is a bit on the serious side - not the subject but the look of it! I've called it '60s Grunge Fashions' and it is a beeswax collage. The background is an old tissue dressmaking pattern and the pattern is a printed image of one from 'Woman's Realm' of the 1960s. I've melted some coloured wax around the edges in colours to pick up the colours in the dress pattern, but overall it has a rather grungy look - hence the title. I've added some ribbon and buttons in complimentary colours to finish it off. Everything is stuck down with melted beeswax. I can't wait to see what everyone else does and whose ATC I will be drawn with.

Further information on the technique is in my earlier posting on Wed 9 July called 'Beeswax'.