MATS A course - Home Decor

The next assignment of the MATS (Make Art Thats Sells) course is to design 2 or more plates. The inspiration for the pieces is Staffordshire pottery. If you haven't seen Staffordshire pottery before.... like I did :-)...Google some images. The figurines were a bit too much for me, so I used 2 colorful ceramic birds I once bought in Mexico as my inspiration.

I started with a sketch of one of the birds, and created a mixed media collage from it. You know I love collage and handpainted papers.

 

I combined the 2 collaged birds with a design I did earlier. One of lush green leaves.

This is the final submittion for this weeks assignment. Wouldn't it be great if you could buy these for a summer's picnic?

Make Art That Sells course

I have enrolled myself into a MATS course, Make Art That Sells. I started with MATS A, talking about designing for 5 different markets. I just finished the first market, Bold Fabric. The great thing about the course is that you are guided step-by-step thru the process, with sooooo much information on the market, on what customers are looking for, about technical terms, about colors, and so much other stuff.

This weeks assignment was to create a Bold Fabric Design with pasta and casserole dishes. Here is my submittion. I started with sketching the dry pasta shapes, and while looking at images of vintage casserole dishes on the internet, I thought about the stack of handpainted papers I made. I selected a few papers to cut out the casserole dishes. Then I scanned everthing and combined all of the items to this piece in Photoshop. I am really happy with it!

Mixed media collage's

These Mixed Media collage's are made with vintage papers, mark making, ink, handpainted papers and a postage stamp.

Link naar Etsy

Link naar Etsy

Link naar Etsy

Link to Etsy

I made 8 of the same style mixed media collage's, all 10 x 10 cms (4"x 4"). A few are still for sale in my Etsy shop. They make a lovely holiday gift for your loved ones, or yourself :-).

What to do with all these gelli prints?

Today I decided it was time to do something with the great painted papers I created with the Gelli Plate. I have a bunch of different kind papers (deli paper, regular copy paper, rice paper, etc.), in all colors, with all kind of motives. It is really addictive this Gelli Plate. I was thinking about creating some birthday cards, but started with a collage instead.

I took two similar colored papers for the background and braided them. I put some gel medium on the back to stick them together. The collage is actually created in a Visual Journal 9" x 11". I am going to dedicate this journal only for Gelli Plate prints, collages and journal pages with Gelli prints.
Looking for a table I found this lovely purple Gelli print on delipaper. The vase is delipaper as well, and you still can see thru it.
I cut the petals from the tulips from 2 different kind of red prints.

I love it, and it does feel good to create something with all these lovely prints!

More sunflowers

This week I have been working on another sunflower collage. The collage is created with handpainted papers. The size of this collage (and the previous one) is 24 x 30 cms, 9 1/2" x 12". Both collages are for sale in my Etsy shop. Please let me know if you are interested.

Sunflower 2

Sunflower 1

Getting back into the rhythm

I cannot believe I came home only 2 weeks ago. I have been so absorbed in the daily rhythm, that I almost forgot how it was in California. Well... I know it was warmer there, as I am constantly feeling cold. And I miss the sunshine and the care-free lifestyle. But it is great to meet up with family and friends again. And I just need to make sure I have enough time to create.

Last weekend I met up with the Urban Sketchers Amsterdam, and we went to Artis, the zoo in Amsterdam for a day of animal sketching. I had a great time, and met some really nice people. I sketched in my Stillman and Birn sketchbook, with pencil and later added ink (with my Pitt pens and with the Tombow, my new best friend) and a little watercolor.

And the last 2 weeks I have been working on two collage paintings. I started with the blue apple in Elizabeth St. Hillaire Nelson's workshop and finished it at home. The collage of the sunflower was created last weekend. 

I have registered myself for the local yearly art exhibition at the end of the year. Hopefully I will be able to show some of my new work. I have been in the last 2 exhibitions and there are always lots of people coming to check out the local artwork during the holiday season. Last year I sold 6 paintings (a few monoprints, a pastel painting, 2 alcohol ink paintings and a mixed media collage. Fingers crossed.

Home again

This will be the last blog post from my trip to the US. My normal life has started again, and I am even back at work.

Last weekend I attended a 2-day workshop with Elizabeth St. Hilaire Nelson called Paper painting. As I do have a soft spot for collage, this looked liked the perfect workshop for me. And it was! Elizabeth is not only a great collage artist, but also a great teacher and a lovely person. Make sure to check out her blog or take a class with her when you get the chance.

The first day we painted all kind of papers, rice papers, mulberry papers, book pages etc. Elizabeth demostrated all kind of techniques and then it was playtime! The second day we focussed on our collage with our own handpainted papers. We all had to do some homework before the workshop, we needed to bring a 12" x 12" painting of an apple, to be used as underpainting for the collage.

Here is my collaged apple, I am very happy with the end result and will sure use the new techniques in my future work.

And then to say goodbye to California, to summer and to say hello to the Fall/Autumn I will share a last image of the view from the back porch of the cottage in Penngrove.

My new article on the Unruly PaperArts blog

Goodmorning all! Today is a lovely day, the sun is shining, it is my sisters birthday and my new article on the Unruly PaperArts blog has been published.

This months subject is all about Mail Art and Moos. I started my Mixed Media career with making ATC's, artist trading cards. Do you want to know more about ATC's and my love for them? Click here to go to my article on the Unrulies blog.

Mixed Media Discoveries - Stencil Crazy backgrounds!

Always wanted to know how to create marvelous Mixed Media backgrounds for ATC's, inchies, chunky, journal pages and other Mixed Media projects? On the Unruly PaperArts blog I am showing you how in my first Unruly column!



More techniques on how to create lovely backgrounds can be found on my YouTube channel.

Corrections on the Golden Gate Bridge - WIP

After a busy week I found some time to work on my Mixed Media Painting of the Golden Gate Bridge. I was not happy with the of the pillars of the bridge, so I added some more paper. I also needed to fix the background thru the pillars as it did not connect.

This layer is drying and after the next layer of paint I will show you how it looks!

San Francisco in Mixed Media WIP - continued

Time for doing some work on my Mixed Media Painting of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The painting has been resting on my easel in the living room. This way I can look at it every day and can see what still needs to be done. First, the blues from the sky needed an extra layer of paint (and glazing medium). The drips from the alcohol ink were a bit too visible to my taste. And I found the bridge needed be a bit bigger on the right side of the painting.

This is after I added a layer of blue to the sky and the water. The color is now a deep blue, while the collaged papers on the background are still visible. And I added some shades to the painting to create more depth.

After the painting was dry, I added some more collage papers. First to the pier of the bridge, and to the water and the rocks in the background. The color of the painting is more intense in real life.

I still have a few layers to go. I need to work on the reflections in the water and create more depth. But I am happy with the result so far!

San Francisco in Mixed Media WIP

I have been working on the Mixed Media painting of the Golden Gate Bridge.

First I added some Azure blue ink with a little makeup sponge, I used a piece of punchinella with little squares. And then I started painting, I used orange and red acrylic paint with a glazing medium. It starts to come together.

San Francisco in Mixed Media

This week I have been busy with my 'real life' job ;-). Not much time left for creativity. But I did have a good week, I went to a concert on Tuesday evening and got a new laptop on Wednesday. And as always, it takes time to reinstall the printer, the camera, all the software and transferring all the files to the new computer. BUT, I am done, the time has come to start on a project that has been in my mind for a while.

In May/June I was in California and at the end of the trip I went 'back' to San Francisco. And I say back because years ago I came to San Francisco regularly. And I loved San Francisco. And I found out I still do....

I wanted to make a Mixed Media painting of San Francisco and today I finally started. It is not finished yet, but I will show you the progress I made today. The canvas is 40 x 50 cms. I started with collageing pieces of paper to the canvas, I used a stencil with some spray ink, dripped on alcohol ink and painted the blues with acrylics and glaze. It already makes me very happy :-).

5th of October 2013 - World Card Making Day

Did you know that today is World Card Making Day? This years marks the 8th Anniversary of this event which began in 2006.  It was founded by Papercrafts Magazine as a National Holiday when they had the desire to bring their readers and card makers together to kick start the busiest card making season of the year and shortly there after this celebration was adopted by the broader global crafting community to become what is now known as World Card Making Day.  It is celebrated on the first Saturday of October every year.

To celebrate World Card Making Day I have created 2 cards. One is featured on the Unruly PaperArts blog. Check it out for more lovely creations!

 

 

This is a 13 x 13 cm off white double card. I used a piece of scrapbook paper from My Mind's Eye as a basis. I have added some pieces of 7 Gypsies tissuepaper and a piece of a French bookpage. The butterflies are stamped on dark scrapbookpaper and glued to the card. The tekst stamp is from Kaisercraft. For the vintage effect I used some StazOn Sabble Brown around the edges.

 



This is also a 13 x 13 cm off white double card. I glued a background made with alcohol inks to the card and added a tag I found in my stash (it must have been used as a price tag, as it showed $3 on the bottom ;-)). I cut out a flower from a collage image sheet I bought on Etsy and glued dark red ribbon to the card, the tekst stamp is from Kaisercraft.

I hope you have fun making your own lovely cards today!

New YouTube video!

I just uploaded a new video on YouTube. How to create a mixed media canvas in 10 steps. Check it out!

Mixed media collage

I have just added a new original Mixed Media collage in my Etsy shop. The collage is created with different kinds of papers, ink, postage stamps and a lovely image of a blue bird. The collage is 12 x 12 cms in size (4 3/4" x 4 3/4") and fits perfectly in a lovely frame. I bought some Ribba frames at Ikea to show off how the collage looks when framed. What a difference a frame makes!

Here is the link to the item in my Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/listing/162966745/blue-bird-an-original-mixed-media.