Paint Party Friday: Week 24

"Dreams of Long Ago"

Altered Tins

It's PPF and I'm at it again! 

I swear, It's been busy couple of weeks: on top of just getting back from our family vacation in time to take the little one to her first camp - Dinosaur Day Camp at the Natural History Museum - this girl decides that the last week of Summer is the perfect time to tear apart and redo her whole studio! What was I thinking!? I have literally years worth of junk (ok, collectables) spilling out of the room and lining the hall that leads to it . . . . I'll be lucky to be done by Christmas!

Anywho, I wanted to share with you the last thing I did before I left. And while it's not exactly painting, it does have paint poured all over it and so, yeah, here it is:

I actually used to do a lot of assemblages before I got the painting bug, so when my sweet husband (who's always on the lookout for cool things for me to use in my art ;) brought home a few rusted tins recently (they look like old bandaid containers), I couldn't wait to play with them . . .

"Dreams of Long Ago" started with a good cleaning with water then alcohol (so that any substance would stick to it) and a punch on either side of the top with a nail and hammer to make holes that I would eventually use to hang with wire. The next step was an experiment: I literally poured old (and therefore somewhat thick) aqua metallic paint over the surface and waited to see what happend. I wasn't sure if it would stick, but when I went to "test it", I accidentally made a mark in the acrylic skin - that I decided I loved! So I went on and made more "accidental" marks so that the paint had a somewhat distressed look to it. Once that dried, I added the Frozen Charlotte head and arm to the centers with E-6000. The tin was then heavily glittered on the bottom (in a rust color) and strung with pink wire on the top. A teardrop crystal was added to the side of one and vintage text and Swarovski crystals were added to the top of each tin. They were then filled with vintage love letters, a vintage picture of a happy couple and some soft satin ribbons for color and interest.

Thanks for taking the time to look! I'll see you at the Party . . . .

Kristin xo

Paint Party Friday: Week 22

"If You're Going to Learn to Fly"

9 x 12 watercolor paper

It's PPF: I'm so happy to be back playing with you again!

This one is a labour of love: I spent weeks creating this piece - layer by layer - in order to bring her to life. It's something that I would come to again and again whenever I had a few spare moments to just play this Summer. . . .

The first layer started out with scribbles of ink, a brayer and several colors of acrylic, glitter paints, stamping, finger painting and collaging until I felt satisfied with the background. Once that was done, I used pencil to sketch her face and then a dry brush and various acrylic paints to create and define her features. I wrote the word "love" under her right eye and collaged some text that spoke to me to the surface along with more layers of paint for the wings and page. The last step was to melt hot pink and aqua crayon to the surface, which I then accented with my favorite Stickles glitter.

Wanna see more?

Vintage text on a swirl stamp

Melty crayon and Stickles glitter

The final outcome

There she is: thank you for taking the time to look - I'll see you at the party!

Kristin xo

{P.S. We're heading out of town tomorrow for a little vacation before second grade starts . . . please forgive me if I take longer to respond to any comments I may receive. I look forward to catching up with everyone when I get back.}

Sunday Postcard Art: "Quirky"

"Fabulous"

4 x 6 Postcard

Okay, um, sorry about the unexplained absence: I didn't expect to be away for so long, but I can't think of a better reason for return than to play guest host over at Sunday Postcard Art. This week's challenge is to create a piece of postcard-sized art with the theme of "Quirky" in mind. . . .

If my little Alice-inspired lady looks familiar, it's because she was influenced by this piece I created earlier in the year. I love playing with the varied eye shapes (and colors) and thought she would look rather fetching with the Mad Hatter hat that I found in my collage stash. Once that was placed on her head, the rest of it - including the tiny Alice silhouette as an earring - all seemed to come together. 

Thank you for taking the time to visit and thank you to Mandy & Donna for making me feel so welcome at  Sunday Postcard Art. I'd love to see what you do with the "Quirky" theme; why not give it a try? 

"Certain aspects of my personality are always going to come out on-screen. 

I guess that's just me - if they say I'm quirky, I'm quirky. It's better than being boring." 

-- Zooey Deschanel

I'll see you there,

Kristin xo