Mixed Media Mayhem - A Layer aDay

I have been participating in France Papillon’s A Layer a Day Challenge.  It has been fun to respond to the open ended prompts she provides. I am months behind, but I want to post these entries for my record.

                                  

Mixed Media Mayhem. - Indian Memories

When I traveled to India in 2017, I was overcome by the color explosion. I took thousand of photographs, collected detritus, bought handmade paper, and bargained for sets of pigments. Upon returning I used the materials to inspire a gell printing class in my home studio. A fun thing to do was to cut masks and to make foam stamps with Indian images.

Mixed Media Mayhem - Art Journal Backgrounds

Playing with art supplies is one of my favorite pastimes.  Since it is too hot to enjoy most other activities, I have stuck to my studio to fling paint around.  With no end in mind, I can print, stamp, swipe, stencil, silkscreen to make blank pages ready for art journaling at a future time.  Here are some of my experiments with some close-up details.

Mixed Media Mayhem - Portraits

Africa Inspired

This post is inspired by the bloggers at Moo Mania with their theme Africa.  The first image is
a drawing I made from a Pinterest post and colored with Distress Crayons and Gelatos.  Hair, as always proved difficult. After I finished, I imported the image to my IPhone to apply various apps. The one here looks like a wax print.  Image Two is a spread using various stash items about Egypt.  I made a polymer clay plaque, embossed it with stamps and textures, antiqued it with dark umber acrylic paint rubbed off. I broke it in half to glue on each side.  For the remainder of the page I used modeling paste with stamps and colored pencils.  Image three is part of a series I have been making about travel destinations, some of which I have reached and some I only dream about.  I used commercial scrapbook paper in my stash and images from Grand Circle Travel's brochure. (For group tours, they are tops).  I enjoy working on challenges presented by other artists on social media. froebelsternchen.blogspot.com, Moo Mania Design Group

Mixed Media Mayhem - Color Stories

I have been neglecting my blog, and I miss my social media contacts.  I am adding this post to show what I have been up to lately.

Here is a page from my Color Stories Journal.

I have used the selected color scheme, this time from an article in Somerset Studio Magazine.  I made a collage of the magazine images to use the colors and themes to challenge my creation.

The first image is the collage of magazine images.  The color story for this challenge is Turquoise, Yellow, Copper, and Black.

The second image is my finished collage in my art journal.  I made the background by printing the whole page yellow using the gel plate to get texture.  I gel printed several deli papers using stencils

to add some glimmery turquoise and black.  I built the layers alternating torn pieces of this deli paper and direct to journal gel printing.  I looked at the page for several weeks trying the conjure a focal image.  Remembering some preserved leaves I brought home from one of my China trips, I selected two of these.  They were printed with calligraphy and laminated, but I was able to hold them down with the magic of heavy gel medium.  I continued to look at the page sensing a need for balance.  I decided to add my own calligraphy for the character, patience, scrawled on tissue paper.  I am really happy with the final result.

Mixed Media Mayhem - Fishes in the Sea - Digital Journal

Techniques from Sebastian at Photoshop Artistry and images from Graphics Fairy combine with my collection of textures, brushes, papers, and backgrounds by itKuPiLLi_ShabbyCrackedPack. Blending modes and layer masks key to assembly.

Mixed Media Mayhem-Digital Journal

For this composition I drew on my own photo, textures, torn paper and ephemera to create the old grungy look.