It just doesn't as civilized if you phrase it as: "I wandered through the aisles of the Dollar Tree, wondering if I could paint or emboss or otherwise de-cheapen their plastic chess pieces, then went home and got drunk and painted and glued stuff to a canvas I found in someone's trash can on the next street over..."
So, yeah, "I did a couple canvases, this evening."
Do you follow Miss Dina's blog? It's as purty and classy as she is- so, you should. She's doing this thing- wow, I hate the sound of that, 'doing this thing.' That sounds demeaning, to me. "She's currently running this promotion," doesn't sound right- how can I say this? Oh well, you get what I mean. It's "OUT OF THE JOURNAL 2012" time at Ms. Dina's blog of beauty!
But, Kory, what IS it?!
Her royal inkiness describes it as:
The idea is to stretch yourself out of your journal by working on canvas and exercise your creative muscle.
I don't have a journal. Unless you count the insanely large stack of Post-It-Notes-To-Self that I write to myself every stinking day as a journal. But it definitely isn't the art journal that I religiously keep in my daydreams.
But I love canvas. It has a beautiful texture. Like a brand new blank notebook- one of my number one all time addictions- a blank, brand new canvas feels like pure possibility. Hell, I think they're beautiful just left white.
And did y'all know that, once, I wanted to be a 'real-life' artist? I did. I even had (and sold, believe it or not!) paintings in an art gallery. The hit of that opening night was a gigantic mixed-media piece entitled, "Hard Copy Makes Me Hard." It sold.
And: Just like I mentioned above- I recently found a brand-new, crisply white canvas in someone's trash- so why not give it a go?!
(Yes, it is true that I cannot drive past a pile of trash without pulling over to dig for buried treasure.)
Not only was I inspired by Ms. Dina's work, and even more so by her class, that I recently took- I used stamps. Ink, stamps, paint, paper, collage- I had a great time! Thank you, Dina!
This was done on a nicely sized 16X24 canvas. Acrylic paints, mostly applied with my fingers and a corner of t-shirt. Part of an old dictionary page. A Picket Fence Distress Marker. Anything within reach seemed to make its way to the canvas. I worked fast and furious and felt great. I loved making this...
The stamp is one of my favorites by Daniel Torrente. I love these little critters. I like the creepy factor, but what I love most is the sweet innocence the little creatures have- remember how I said I'm still inspired by Dina's Encaustic Tag Book class? No, there's not encausticality going on here- but I did stamp the little critter on tissue paper- one of the techniques I learned. I ModPodge'd him on and the tissue paper just faded away.
This wasn't my first canvas, today, though-
Early in the morning, I spotted a little stack of tiny 4X4 canvases that I picked up at Micheals, on clearance for 25 cents each. They weren't primed or anything- so I did coat it with some gesso, first.
While I waited for the gesso to dry, I stamped and cut out another of my favorite Torrente critters. I colored him with Distress Inks. I touched up his teeth with my Picket Fence Distress Marker and did his shoes with the Tea Dye marker- but the rest of him was colored with regular Distress Inks.
I sprayed the tiny canvas with my other favorite 'discovery' from Ms. Dina's class- DYLUSIONS Ink Spray. Really? How great is this ink spray?! I used the colors of, 'London Blue' and 'Postbox Red.' This is also when I learned something: let the first color of spray dry before spraying the next color, otherwise, it just doesn't look as pretty. That's why it's so dark up there in a few spots. Luckily, I liked it- so, nothing to cry about. I did touch up/blend a few spots with Barn Door and Tumbled Glass Distress Inks. I picked a word at random from Mr. Holtz's ChitChat stickers, glued on the Torrente critter, and stamped some random letters with a white pigment ink. The word seemed to kinda float there of its own accord. It didn't look right. So I drew a 'cord' to it with a silver metallic marker and drew a circle around it with the Picket Fence Distress Marker. Not happy with how that turned out- but I do like it more than a random floating word.
So that's it for my inspired pieces for Dina Wakley's OUT OF THE JOURNAL. Look at me, I sprang right out from a journal that I wasn't even in! But, art journalling is the number two thing I want to do next. What's number one? I'm a gentleman. I don't name names.
-kory
