Happy Mother's Day To Me!

My dogs are so sweet.  They gave me this Mother's Day poem.  Alright, actually, my sister found this poem online and sent it to me because she thought it was cute.

A Mother's Day Poem
from the Dog:

You feed me when I'm hungry,
You keep water in my dish,
You let me sleep on anything
Or in any place I wish.

You sometimes let me lick your hands,
or even lick your face,
Despite the fact I've licked myself
In every private place.

You taught me how to come when called,
You taught me how to sit,
You always let me go outside,
So I can take a s- stroll.

You'll always have my loyalty,
up to the bitter end,
'cause after all, it's plain to see...

You are a dog's best friend!

Happy Mother's Day

Such a Pretty Girl Collage

I wanted to make a little plaque.  Here's my step-by-step process.

First a painted a wooden plaque with gesso.  You can get these little plaques in different sizes and shapes at Michaels for a dollar or two.

I ripped up some decorative paper.

I glued the paper to the surface with matte medium.

It's hard to  see in this next picture, but I painted around the edges of the paper with Golden Fluid Acrylic in Titan Buff.  It just sort of blends the papers together to give it kind of an aged look.  I use Titan Buff A LOT when I paint.

Next, I started spraying and stamping.  I used Dylusions Spray inks.  The Tim Holz Distress Paint Dabber bottles are great.  I used them with the stencils.  The arrow-type stamp at the bottom is one that I made out of adhesive foam sheets.  One of these days, I'll take pictures of all the stamps that I have made out of foam.

I kept working on the background, adding a lot more ink, then I started on the girl.  In Suzi Blu style, I drew the face on a sheet of regular paper, then shaded it with Prismacolor Colored Pencils.  I cut the dress pieces out of decorative, scrapbook paper, and attached paper arms.  I glued the girl to the background with matte medium.  I sculpted the hair with Golden Molding Paste.  I wrote the words with a Micron marker on regular white paper, cut them out, rubbed black ink around the edges, and glued them with matte medium.

After allowing the hair to completely dry overnight, I used craft paint in brown and glittery gold to paint the hair.  I added some ornaments in the hair and on the dress, painted gold around the edge of the plaque and VOILA, finished!!

This is a great book if you want to learn how to draw faces.  I had never drawn a face before I got it.

Waiting for plaster to dry.

I'm still working on faces. Right now I am working on a girl with textured hair. I just applied the molding paste for the hair. I put a few thin metallic strands of yarn in with the paste. I want to make sure that it totally dries before I start painting it. I am pretty pleased with the face. I think I'm going to do bright red hair. Or maybe, blond with some pink and green streaks. We'll see.

All About Faces

I worked on my faces again today.  Several months ago, I downloaded a video by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer called All About Faces.  I had watched it before, but today I decided to actually DO the exercises.  I had purchased a couple of these little chipboard things at Michaels for $1.50.  It's 4 pieces of 5 X 5 inch chipboard, held together in the corner with a metal ring.




I gessoed each piece of chipboard, front and back.  The one in the photo, above, had decorative edges.  The one that I used for my faces had straight edges.

First she shows you how to draw the outline of a face and learn the different areas that are recessed and protruding and how to shade them accordingly.

Then we moved on to painting a face.  Basically  I drew the outline, painted the hair, then used 3 colors to shade the face.

Here's my laughing girl -

She does this little tag exercise in the video.  I used a tag that I had decorated with alcohol inks, acrylic paint, and stencils.  I think this turned out really cute.

Here's a link to the workshop.  I enjoyed it. Julie also shows you how to collage a face with fabric, paint a face on fabric, and using a stencil for the faces.  It's $16.95 and you can download it right away.  I have gotten a few videos from Julie Fei-Fan Balzer.  She is very natural and easy to understand.  She shows all of the supplies, which I really appreciate.

Which came first? The chicken.............

I've made up with the chickens.  They are off the sh-- list.

I've been wanting to do a little piece of chicken artwork for my kitchen.  My mother has a collection of hen on nest glass dishes.  Recently, she gave me a few.  Hen on nest covered dishes have been made by over 100 glass companies for over 150 years.  I've never collected them before, but since I have real chickens now, it seems to fit.

Here are the "hen on nests" that my mother gave to me.

And, today's work of art -