Delena Kiss Digital Art

There's a new challenge up this week at the Collage Obsession blog, and theme this week is Butterflies. I was in the mood for some Vampire Diaries art too, so I decided to create some Digital Art with a TVD theme, but it also includes a butterfly. This digital collage, Delena Kiss, is my creation for the challenge.

I'm still Team Delena...all the way to the end!

WIP Sneak Peek - Beauty

I was in the studio all day yesterday. First I had to put away and organize all the new art supplies I had bought at Hobby Lobby on Saturday--and considering I'm already out of space in my studio, that was no easy task! But once I got that finished I started to work on a new Mixed Media painting. The working title for it is "Beauty," but that will probably change. I just needed to call it something. Anyhoots, I wanted to share a sneak peek of this WIP (Work In Progress).

The top photo is the beginning stage of the background. Right now it's a mosaic on canvas made from scrapbook paper. The bottom photo is a drawing, done with prismacolor pencils, that will become the focal point of the painting, my "beauty." I look at her as a stylized drawing of my daughter (and I say 'stylized' because really it doesn't look a lot like her--but that's what artistic license is for!).

I will be building up the background mosaic with layers of paint, texture, ink, and whatever else that inspires me during the process. When I created my Poppy Painting recently, it really made me want to do more mixed media. So I started checking out the work of mixed media artists online, various art books, and so forth...and that was enough to fuel my creative fire. My favorite sources of inspiration were found here:

Diane Salter

Tracy at Thru the Attic Door

Book, Mixed Media Girls

I probably won't be back in the studio until next weekend, but will post more photos as I progress with this project. Stay tuned!

Maple Tree in Blue

I was snapping some photos of one of the maple trees in my yard yesterday. Then I decided to have some digital fun with it. This image is the result.

I've always been fascinated with trees. I think they are so beautiful...so they always inspire me one way or another. Whether it's in photography, digital art, drawing, or painting, I can never get enough of trees!

Flower Trio Canvas

I've really been loving doing more mixed media paintings in the studio lately. I've got lots of things I want to try yet and have been exploring lots of fabulous art blogs for inspiration. But this piece is just a simple canvas I did and I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it. I just knew I was going to create a deep red background and distress the edges with some robin's egg blue, because I've been loving that color combo lately. :) Finally I was inspired by some fabric flowers in my studio, and this Flower Trio Canvas was the result.

The flowers are robin's egg blue (even though the color isn't as pretty in this photo as it is in real life) and are attached to the canvas with antiqued copper brads. Then I took some rusty wire to create stems, and added just a bit of blue paint on the wire too so they'd pop out more. This is a 5" canvas, just something cute to hang on the wall somewhere.

Rock Mosaic

I'd never done a mosaic before but have always wanted to. So over the weekend I created this Rock Mosaic.

OK, so, some things I learned from this project:

1. I really like doing mosaics!


2. I don't like doing mosaics on rocks.


3. I should have a more definite plan in mind when creating a mosaic (the "cross" was not planned...it just sort of happened).

So next time I do a mosaic I'm thinking it will definitely be on a flat surface. I had fun doing this, and I am excited to do mosaics again in the future. I'd love to do something large scale someday...like a garden path or something! It would take awhile, but it would be fun! My daughter will be getting this rock mosaic because I'm just not in love with it. Next time, I plan on flowers...or trees...anything in nature!

Mostly I used cut glass pieces for this mosaic, along with some glass circles (whatever they are called) that I got from the craft store. They are really more of a deep purple color--the photo doesn't do the colors justice at all. Since I do stained glass work from time to time, I have lots of cut glass--but used some pre-cut glass I'd found at the craft store too for this project. Next time I will be trying to incorporate mostly scrap glass pieces in my mosaic. Reuse and recycle, as they say!

Sunset Leaves Digital Collage

I felt like playing around with some Digital Collages today and wanted to work with one of my sunset photos. So I decided to work with one of my Saugatuck Sunset photos to create something new. This Sunset Leaves Digital Collage is the result of my digital play time today.

Seems to have an Autumn feel to it, even though it's Spring. :) But I really like it.

Textured Heart Painting

I love to use tissue paper in my paintings once in awhile. Most recently I used it to create my Poppy Painting.  This time I decided to use tissue paper to make a very textured background, and then I stumbled upon a post on Pinterest where someone had added oil pastels to their textured background and it created a very cool effect. So I thought I'd try the oil pastel technique as well. This Textured Heart Painting is the result.

For the technique: I crumpled up tissue paper and used Mod Podge to adhere the tissue paper to the canvas. Then I painted over that with white gesso to ensure a good painting surface. Once the gesso was dry, I painted a background in a deep, dark red color of acrylic paint. I added some darker areas here and there for some contrast. Once that was all dry, I took an oil pastel that is a light turquoise color--or close to a robin's egg blue, and held it flat and dragged it over the raised areas of tissue paper on the painting. Next I took a wooden heart and painted it the same turquoise/light blue color, and then drybrushed a bit of the red over the edges and top of the heart. I added some brads to the heart for an extra detail, and then used 3-D O's to adhere the heart to the background canvas in relief.

In the first photo the color of the heart got washed out, so I added the second photo with the color enhanced a bit more so you could see it better. It looks so white in the first photo, but it's the same color as the oil pastel. The effect of the whole thing is a lot like a crackled paint finish, which I love. And I always love adding texture in a painting anyway, and this is a fun way to do it.

Just a note about the oil pastels too, if you decide to try this...it's very difficult to seal oil pastels. There are a couple of products you can try to do it with, however, it's really best not to seal them. Sealers (especially if you use the wrong ones) can ruin the colors--or even cause the oil pastels to flake off. Oil pastels never dry out--they are just made that way. So that means they are also easy to smear if you touch them. I will be framing this in a shadow box frame to ensure that the oil pastels can't be smeared. It is always best to frame oil pastels under glass for that reason.

I'll be using this technique again, I'm sure. I love the look of it. I kept my composition very simple with the heart, but there are so many things you could do on top of a textured background like this...so many layers of depth and texture you could create, and ways to add embellishments. The ideas are endless!

Rose Girl Digital Collage

Time for another collage challenge at the Collage Obsession blog. :) The theme for this week's challenge is Faces.  So I used one of my favorite vintage photos of a sweet girl carrying roses to create my Digital Collage.

So many of those vintage photos are so dreamy looking and the faces are so beautiful. It was easy to be inspired by this one to make a digital collage. :)

Yard Art Flowers

I was in the studio yesterday and worked on quite a few different things. I got some primitive crafts done for my Tattered Sisters Blog. Got two paintings started. Did some planning for future projects. And I somehow came up with this idea for some Yard Art Flowers. I was trying to think of a different way I could use some candle pans and tart molds that I always have on hand, so I came up with flowers.

I had several sizes of candle pans in different finishes--some are the plain tin color, some painted white, and some rusty. I punched holes in each of the pans and just layered them together to make them look like flowers, and secured them with brads. I added some rusty wire to create the stems--although the wire wasn't heavy enough for the larger flower and it kept falling over. So I reinforced that one so it would stay vertical. :) The smallest shape on the small flower is a tart mold, and the smallest shape on the larger flower is a bottle cap.

In a way these are kind of Altered Art, since I altered the the pans to make them. Maybe it's a sort of way to upcycle too. But not matter what it is, I had fun making my Yard Art Flowers.

Girls Will Be Girls Collage

The theme at this week's Three Muses blog challenge is Transport, so I created this Digital Collage for that challenge.

I love using vintage photos in my digital art, and this one is the one that came immediately to mind when I saw the challenge theme for this week. I knew I wanted a caption too, but wasn't sure what to put at first. But then I thought...Magic Mike. You know how it is. Girls will be girls. :)