Sister, Sister

In 1976, while on vacation in Ocean City, Maryland, my mother had my sister and I sit for portraits.  We were on the boardwalk and the artist drew our portraits with a charcoal pencil in about 15 minutes.

After watching Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's video, All About Faces, I became inspired to try my hand at some faces.  Julie sells face stencils to make it easier to get started.  I've been meaning to buy a couple of her stencils, but being the procrastinator that I am, I just haven't gotten around to it.  So I decided that I would make my own stencil out of the charcoal portrait of my sister.


First, using tracing paper, I traced the primary lines around the face, hair, eyes, and mouth.  Then I used a black Sharpie to darken the lines.  I used a plastic file folder for my stencil.  Transparencies are way too expensive and stencil plastic comes in a roll that is impossible to straighten out.  The file folder worked perfectly.  I just cut it in half, taped the paper with the facial lines to the folder, and started cutting with a razor knife.

I painted a background with acrylics, then glued on some ripped up book pages and sheet music with gel medium.  When that was completely dry, using the stencil, I drew the outlines with a pencil onto the background.

Then I painted the face and hair with Golden Fluid acrylics filling in the outlines.  I used pink and orange to do some shading on the face just like Julie Fei-Fan Balzer said to do.  Then placed the stencil back on and, using black Liquitex paint and a sponge, totally painted on my stenciled face.

I touched up the eyes and mouth afterwards and continued adding stamps and other miscellaneous designs to the picture and it was finished!!

I'm pleased with my first face.  I don't how much it looks like my sister (she doesn't have red hair), but it is a face.

Here's a very fast video from Julie Fei-Fan Balzer on stencile faces.

Spring - When Everything Old is New Again!

Here's last night's art journal page.  I started out by painting some pink flowers with watercolor.  They make watercolor look so easy in the videos.  But no...........it is not easy!!  I decided to add some birds to hide some of my watercolor mess.  Then I kept adding and adding, and it just kept getting worse.

Never one to give up, I decided to start putting glitter on it - hey, what could it hurt?  Then, finally, I reached for the Dylusions spray inks and Liquid Pearls and figured it may not look like what I was going for, but at least it would be colorful.

Spring is a time for starting over.

Material used:
Artists Loft Watercolor pencils
Pigma Micron pens
Rubber stamps
Stickles by Ranger
Liquid Pearls by Ranger
Dylusions Spray Ink
Stencils
Tim Holtz Distress Ink
Adirondack Acrylic Paint Dabber
washi tape


Watch how easy this girl makes it look.

What a Peach!

I can't believe it!  We actually have two tiny little peaches on the tree that Mark planted a couple months ago.  They are so cute.  They're about the size of a gumball.  I can't wait to see if anymore pop out.

The tomatoes are almost ready to go into the ground.

And.....the lettuce seeds that were planted a week ago have germinated.

Isn't it amazing that everything starts from something small, a tiny seed, or a tiny grain of sand, or a tiny egg, or a drop of water.

Zentangle Peacock

Here is the 4th and last zentangle drawing in my little series.  I can't say that I'm thrilled with it.  It needs something on the bottom so that it will be similar in size to the other three.  I've been staring at it for about an hour and can't think of what I want to do to the bottom.  I really wish that I had just made the peacock a little bigger.  Oh well..........

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Zentangle Fish

Here's #3 in my four piece card series.  I love fat little goldfish.  The jellyfish were an afterthought.  They could have been better, but as my, Italian, father-in-law always said "whatta ya gonna do".

I think I have an idea for #4.  I was doing some organizing today in my studio/craft room and I found some pictures of peacocks.  I think it will be really fun to zentangle a peacock.

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Zentangling Flowers Again

I just finished my most recent zentangle drawing.  I've decided to do a 4 piece series.  I would like to turn the 4 drawings into blank cards.  I need to look into the printing process.

So here's number 2:

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Zentangle Flowers and Lena Dunham

I love "Girls" on HBO.  Lena Dunham, who plays the main character, Hannah, is fantastic.  She's not thin.  She's not beautiful.  She's smart, yet insecure.  Talented, yet a total mess.  The actress is so confident with her body, even though she is exactly the opposite of what Hollywood leads young girls to believe they should look like. 

The first time that I saw this actress was in the independant film, Tiny Furniture.  In that movie she played a character exactly like her character of Hannah in "Girls".  Several of her fellow actors in Girls were in Tiny Furniture.

Granted, it's HBO, so "Girls" is sexually explicit and has nudity.  However, the nudity is one of the strongest parts of the show.  Hannah has no problem running around with cellulite jiggling and tiny breasts exposed.  When you see her like that, you think "Wow, THAT is a confident girl!"

I think this is the best thing that TV could do for young women (heck, woman of all ages for that matter).  The characters in this show are smart and real.  The men look like real guys, not department store mannequins.  The woman look like real woman, not starving, size zero, porn stars with boob jobs.  Don't get me wrong.  I dont have anything against plastic surgery.  I just hate to see teenage girls saving their money for breast augmentation before they really even know who they are.  As we all know, beauty fades, and you have to still be able to love yourself when your hair is grey, your skin is sagging, and you don't recognize the stranger in the mirror.

Anyway, while I was watching "Girls" last night, I worked on this zentangle.

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