This Thursday It's All About. . ."winged things", and I've finished another 8X8 that's ready for journalling.
I must fess-up that I really do not enjoy photographing, scanning, uploading, etc., photos to my blog. It's a necessary step in the process, but not one that thrills me. I love working in Photoshop CS3 and Painter X, but it's the artwork I enjoy, not the mechanical process. In my dreams, I have a studio assistant who as well as cleaning my paint brushes and keeping things neat, would also photograph/scan my work and organize my photos so that they would be ready for blogging...or whatever. But in reality, having a "studio assistant" is as elusive as the fairy tea party in my 8 X 8. With that said, I apologize for not having made in-process photos to show you the layers, and how translucent this piece of paper really is. If you hold it up to the light, you can see right through it and all the wonderful layers are visible!
It took a bit of time to create this piece. I began as usual with a generous spread of matte gel medium on top of a smoothed out, clean plastic bag, and began with a layer of very thin white tissue paper. When this layer was dry and burnished, I added metallic flecks by pouncing all over with silver, gold and copper Krylon pens, let them dry, and covered it all with medium. The fleks are just one of the things you could see if you were looking at it in person. Then I added a layer of quality, heavy-duty tracing paper (1000H) that I cut "snowflake" style, by folding and cutting out hearts, so that I ended up with both a page of hearts cut-out and the hearts themselves. I added the clear page into the layer-pool, and spritzed the remaining hearts with home-made glimmer-mist. Some of these were added to the next layer, and 4 were saved for the top. Then I meticulously traced, cut and colored the fairies with a Micron pen, my favorite Faber-Castell Pitt pens--the grey-scale set--and several colored pencils. After I adhered them with gel medium, I drew and cut out the tea cup and tea pot, glued them on and drew the drops of tea, the dashes, dots and other doodles. Lots of fun, and not too quick.
And here's a hint: The images I used are freebies from Dover that are offered at 72dpi. The resolution is usually too small for anything other than very tiny images, so I increase it, and then take the time to trace over the enlarged images as I need them in order to get a larger image with clean lines. A bit of work, but worth it for images you really want to use.
Have a great day, Everyone! And Happy August!!
Wowww, This is so wonderful !!! Great artwork !!
Patti xx
Posted by: Patti | August 01, 2008 at 12:59 PM
Barbara again you have inspired me to have another go with the gel medium, This is really stunning and I wish I could see it in person. I really really must try harder. LOL
Thanks for taking part in this weeks challenge and inspiring me to improve again
Posted by: Tracey Dean | August 01, 2008 at 02:24 PM
Fabulous creation, the budgie is so cute too!
Posted by: susie | August 01, 2008 at 02:51 PM
love your little fairy piece and all the work that has gone into it. I hate taking pics of my work especially if I have been using acetate with the flash glare off the camera!!
Posted by: lorraine | August 01, 2008 at 04:47 PM
VERY nice. Beautiful work.
Nancy
Posted by: Nancy | August 01, 2008 at 07:55 PM
Lovely piece - if you find that studio assistant let me know and I'll borrow her/him! Thanks for joining in with This Thursday.
Posted by: Fiona Whitehead | August 02, 2008 at 03:32 AM
A beautiful page Barbara, great images! xx
Posted by: Alison | August 02, 2008 at 08:34 AM
Barbara this is beautiful and it was great to read how you created it - amazing work!
Posted by: Dawn | August 02, 2008 at 09:43 AM
You sure look like you are having fun with this journal and it really shows in your fabulous work. I really must try this sometime. Adding to my list. Ahh, you mean you don't have an assistent well that has to be taken care of.
Posted by: Barbara | August 02, 2008 at 04:23 PM
I do love these pages so much! I need to have a go and try this technique - it looks dreamy, and I do enjoy layering. Not sure I have the patience required for the drying though! Isn't it weird that we used fairies? I need to go finish bags after breakfast, so I shall be AWOL till tomorrow!
Happy August to you too! xoxoxo
Posted by: Rosie | August 03, 2008 at 02:04 AM
this is fantastic work, I'd love to see the whole book when it's done!!
Posted by: Kaz | August 06, 2008 at 03:49 PM