Tropicana
December 23rd, 2009
This was for a colleague who is from Fiji. When I asked her what colours she likes, she told me pink and orange. I was going for a lush, tropical feel and highly saturated colours.
Tropicana
I had a lot of fun with this, and got to use some of my bollywood braiding. It was also great to use such a colourful palate.
Photography
November 4th, 2009
I forgot to say that the past two posts contained photos that I took myself, with Daedalist’s funky camera. He has taken all the other photos for me. The white on the face of the lady in Etoile is due to the flash making the sealer all shiny, but it was my first attempt and it’s all cool.
Etoile
November 4th, 2009
Etoile
I made this for one of my work colleagues, the 2nd of 5 that I want to finish by the end of the year. (Previous effort was Put on your wings).
Etoile is named after the stars on the woman. I wanted to use black and red for my colleague, and I really like the geometric look of the harlequin stamp at the top of the canvas. I added some white and gold to lift the light a bit, and I like the effect with the dangling beads at the bottom of the canvas.
The picture is a different style to the vintage woodcuts and the art nouveau images I have used in the past. The image is still vintage – probably from the 40s or 50s I would guess – but from an actual photograph which adds a different texture to the overall image.
I’m not sure what B thought of it, but I’m happy with how it turned out. And now I have to do 3 more in about 8 weeks. I know what I am going to do next, hopefully I’ll get it done on the weekend. It will be with wooden shapes like Waterlily, so I’ll see how I go.
Waterlily
November 4th, 2009
Waterlily
This was the class I did at Darling Harbour a while back. It was very quick, about an hour all up. First I put texture paste on the canvas, then added the acrylic paint. What that was drying I painted the shapes – the big flower and the two buds. Then they were glued on and then I put on the swirls with tacky glue and added the gold leaf to the canvas (and also a little on the flowers for highlights).
Obviously no Monet, but I’m really happy with it overall. It was interesting to use the acrylics instead of the watercolours (twinkling H2Os) that I normally use. I haven’t played with texture paste before, so that was really fun. And I have used the tackly glue / gold leaf a few times since then, as it is easy and really effective. The swirls are done with solid glue streaks, while the highlights are done by smudging a little bit of the glue around.
Series review: Ultraviolet
October 26th, 2009
This is a classic BBC miniseries from 1998. I had seen the first two episodes when it originally screened, but never seen the whole series. Dave had not seen it at all, so when I discovered a friend had the series on DVD, I thought it would be great to watch the whole thing (thanks Keat!).
Ultraviolet is only 6 episodes long, each fully self contained. It revolves around Michael Colefield (Jack Davenport), a Detective Sergeant, whose best friend goes missing the night before his wedding. It leads to his involvement with a secret government department – with ambigulous ties to the Catholic Church – that investigates people who are no longer exactly people.
a bit of an update
August 23rd, 2009
Last weekend we went away, and amongst other things had a few Rock Band 2 sessions. We have unlocked the Endless Setlist, and even made a start on it, but decided to wait until we were less tired and there were more of us (as it is better to have a few extra people to allow swapping in and out.
I finally managed to delivery the set of cards that my friend Belinda ordered – a dozen mixed cards including theatrical, fantasy / gaming themed, assorted birthday cards, and elegant floral offerings for more refined tastes.
I have also started on a new canvas for a work colleague’s birthday (which has, of course, already passed by). It is a square shaped one (my first efforts with a square I think), which is currently bright red. As are my hands. I have also added some green, white, and gold coloured paints around the edges, and a similar red but slighly different has been dabbed over the base coat to add some texture. I have an image ready, so I just have to stamp and embellish the canvass and then attach everything down.
Due to work commitments I will probably not be able to finish it this week, but I will see how I go.
and now . . .
July 28th, 2009
introducing my new theme!
It took ages to find one I liked that I felt reflected the look and feel I want for the site. Initially I was looking for ’shabby chic’ styles, and was unable to find any designed for wordpress (only for blogger). Then by accident I stumbled upon different search criteria – apparetly wordpress designers call this look ‘grunge’ rather than shabby chic.
And of course there is a huge variety within the grunge category – mostly they are black backgrounds with red and / or white writing. Whereas I wanted swirls, flourishes, florals, and lovely colours (this blog is all about colour, after all!). I did find some that I liked some elements of, but this is the first one I have liked pretty much everything.
I would like to move the RSS feed thing to the bottom of the sidebar, but I haven’t been able to work out how so far – I did manage to remove some other crappy links so I guess it is just a matter of playing with it a bit. I was also unable to put my synaesthesia definition under the name of the blog, but after trying for a while I just created a new page for it with a more information.
Anyway, let me know what you think.
Nature Study
July 28th, 2009
This was delivered to Tanith a few weeks ago – I finally resolved the issue of looking unfinished. I added ‘Exhibit A’, the microscope slide, the gold foil swirls, and the braiding down the bottom. Very happy with it now.
Nature Study: Litoria Chloris
baby card
July 17th, 2009
This is for someone at work who is about to have twin girls. I tried to use the baby stamp twice but it looked stupid, so I just went with one. I was going for a colourful, funky feel – it is ok, but not what I was trying to achieve.
Ali's baby card
This time I have also scanned the envelope (which I always decorate for hand delivered cards).
Glam Pete
July 15th, 2009
I made this for one of the guys at work (called Pete) for his birthday. Pete is very attached to his man-bag. The pink polka-dotted bits are from a sheet of stickers. I think the bow is supposed to be a hair accessory, but it complemented the bow tie in the original photo so I added it there. I already had the hat, so I added a strip to it from a matching border piece. And of course the handbag was a no brainer. I used the background paper for a kind of vintage-retro feel.
The caption reads: With his new hat and matching accessories, Pete knew he was the most glam person in the room.
Glam Pete