Ballerina

When I was a kid I danced.. not just randomly, I had lessons. In fact I was made to go 4 times a week and I hated it. I took lessons from being 3yrs old to about 12yrs old. I was so glad to stop. I did all my grades, in ballroom, latin, modern sequence and disco and took part in competitions, I wore stupid frilly dresses with net underskirts and I had ringlets in my hair and I hated all of it. it was never my choice, and after I stopped I never danced again until I was about 40. A friend talked me into trying tap dancing, something I had never done before and it was exhausting but good fun. for the first time in my life I was actually enjoying dancing. Maybe that was more to do with getting new shoes!

Now ballet is something I have never done, I have an idealistic view of it, that I would be graceful and beautiful ... that I would somehow lose 60lbs by putting on the shoes and would grow 6 inches taller. Of course the reality is I would look like a fairy elephant! 

But the shoes... I want the shoes... and not just because I love shoes. 

Ballet shoes have something magical about them..something nostalgic and ethereal. 

So i made a ballet page. 

I started with PaperArtsy Infusions, I painted the page first with Satin Glaze, sprinkled on the infusions and then lightly dragged more glaze to seal them. 

Next I sketched my shoes. 

I then painted them, sorry no progress shots. I used Prima watercolours and just built up the layers using pinks, grey, brown and white. 

On either side of the shoes I added more Infusions this time in blue. I allowed them to soak a little so that the walnut started to show through then I dried them. 

In parts they were  a little dark, so I flicked on some clean water and then dabbed this off to remove some colour. 

I added shading to the shoes using Derwent XL charcoal 

Added some flicks of white paint. 

and a border using black Crayola slickstix.

Finally I wanted to add some text. Initially I wanted to use the text from the Everything Art stamp {#3} but the stamps were too small for what I wanted. So I used a white pen to write the same text out, adding more words of my own. 

I am really pleased with this page, it is as close as I will ever get to ballet lol. 

what did you always want to do but never could? why don't you create a page about it. 

Darcy x

At last a page..

I recently had surgery and while the operation itself was straightforward (keyhole) the anaesthetic really knocked me for six. I must have had some sort of reaction as I was really ill for about a week and feeling pretty grim for another 2 weeks. During that time I did nothing, no art at all. it felt very strange to be doing nothing. I had packed a bag of art stuff to have next to the bed, but none of it got touched. 

I have been up and about and pretty much back to normal now for a week, but I have struggled to find my mojo/inspiration/motivation.. I have been taking supplies around the house to wherever I was sat, but then I have done nothing. 

I really needed to get on with a journal page in Miriam's journal, so I had a serious word with myself and made a start.. 

The bottom layers are all PaperArtsy Fresco paint in browns and neutrals. 

Next I added PaperArtsy Infusions, sprinkled onto areas of Satin glaze. 

I then added stamping still keeping with the browns and turquoise scheme. The stamps are all PaperArtsy Urban Snapshots. I also sketched a hand and arm, then whited this out. Once i had my blank shape I could start to add pinks and browns to shade the skin. 

All this was done over about 3 weeks, so apologies for lack of details regarding colours. I didn't make notes on them. 

Using just a regular pencil I sketched in the details of the hand. 

Now to add the butterflies, these were sketched onto smooth white card and cut out. 

Now to add colour. I started with Prima watercolours. 

Then I refined and blended with Prisma colour pencils. 

and finally added some texture and highlights. The texture is Crayola Slick Stix and Distress Crayons through small stencils. 

The butterflies were glued in place .. 

shadows added under the butterflies and legs added. 

and finally the quote was printed out and glued in. 

I especially like the green butterfly, that one turned out the best. 

Now I just need to crack on and catch up with all the other pages and projects that I should have been doing. 

Darcy x

Houses

As you know on the PaperArtsy blog we run challenges every two weeks. A recent challenge topic was 'Our house' I have been doing the topics in a junk type journal as i did last year. Never spending too long on the pages and not trying to make them pretty, they are more just reminders of the topics and for trying out new techniques or products. 

Generally I don't take photos of the steps, but for this topic I did. So here is my house page. 

I began by painting the page with blues and greens, then I added grunge paste through a stencil. Once dry I sanded this back to back a smooth surface and added a little stencilling in darker shades. 

 Next I added Ranger Crazing medium all over the page and left it to dry. The cracks are very tiny and don't show up well here, but after more layers they show up really well. 

I dug out some old scraps of painted papers and used my house stamps on them. I love these houses, so funky and full of interest. 

I also coloured this die cut using PaperArtsy Infusions. I sprinkled them, then spritzed with water and allowed them to puddle, before leaving to dry. 

Then I added more powders, building up the colours till I had this shabby wood look. 

I used Prima watercolours to add drips to the top of the page. 

I also used Prima watercolours to add more colour to the houses. 

 I stamped out my title, but it was a bit small, so to beef up part of it i coloured this circle and heart die cut again with Infusions. 

once layered up it worked really well. 

a few splats of yellow here and there again with the watercolours, these act like stars in the night sky and start to lift the page. 

White highlights with a posca pen add pops of light too. 

Here you can see how well the crazing stands out after all the layers and washes of colour. 

 Although the houses were stamped on painted papers, by adding more colour with the watercolours they are now really vibrant. 

the finished page. 

Hope you are enjoying the topics each fortnight, if you haven't seen any of them yet then do check out the PaperArtsy blog. 

Darcy. 

Studying Under the Masters {Portraits}week1. Part 2.

Week one. Part Two. 

For this exercise we were asked to choose one of Vincent's watercolour paintings and recreate it. Vincent was in part a mixed media artist, he loved layering different mediums. Often using watercolours with graphite, chalk, charcoal and inks. 

I chose a piece titles Schevenigan Woman Sewing. 

I began with a sketch using a regular hb pencil. So far so good. 

Now to start painting, watercolours are so out of my comfort zone. I used a combination of  a Koh-i-noor set and a Winsor and Newton Cotman set. Here I just blocked in the shapes and added a little shading to the flesh.

Now to add more layers to create the shadows. 

Refining of shadows, and then going in with a graphite pencil to add the details. 

Finally adding some droplets of paint on the right as Vincent had those in his painting. 

I am glad I attempted this one, I found it quite hard. 

Next up is some sculpting, that should be fun.. Though I would like to go back and do a few more pen and ink sketches... decision, decisions.. 

Darcy x

Weekly Face on Weds #6

I started by glueing old book pages into my sketchbook.

I then used white acrylic to blank most of it out. I only painted lightly so that the text could still be seen, and I left some words unpainted (at random)

Then I sketched out a face..

and started to block in with watercolours..

I added more colours..

and then because these were watercolours over an acrylic base they aren't set in place, so I took a damp babywipe and dabbed some of the paint away. I then sprayed the page with hairspray to set it. 

Not entirely convinced that I like this one. I am a complete novice when it comes to watercolours, and I really have no clue what I am doing with them. However, it was never meant to be a masterpiece so I shall call it done and move on. 

Darcy x