Scrapping by Design

Week 33 in Lifebook 2015 is a small lesson by Joanne Sharpe. Joanne specializes in creating art from text or words

This small lesson involved writing what she calls power words using watercolors and an aquapen or water pen. I don’t have any actual water colors, so I used Twinkling H2Os instead.

I was quite surprized at how effective the water pen is for writing text. Joanne demonstrated using wide or narrow strokes to get different effects.

The painting isn’t especially attractive but I do like the technique. I can see myself using the aquapen for more water color text in the future.

This is my effort at Week 24 in Lifebook 2015. The instructor is Juliette Crane, and the title is Happy Painting.

Juliette glued some collage papers at the bottom, mainly. She used splotches of paint and various media to cover the paper. Then she figured out a face and drew the face from the blotches and squiggles.

The whole point is to work quickly and allow your inner “muse” to take over.

Juliette’s face was female. Since I seem to be on a “male” theme these days, I thought I saw a male face in the mess and created this guy.

I named him Andre and decided he was a poet — the sort of chap who wouldn’t wear socks and who resists “the establishment’. LOL

However, some of the gals at Lifebook thought he was a likeness of Vincent Van Gosh. They suggested I add a bit more orange to his hair and call him Vinny.

I did add more orange, but haven’t taken the second picture.

For now, this is either Andre or Vinny. You be the judge. 🙂

Week 23, Lifebook 2015 is entitled Magic Vulnerability. Tamara LaPorte taught this lesson, and its all about painting the male face. We have done a lot of female faces and bodies, but thus far, no male portraits or male shapes.

I was glad to see this lesson because I have been working on painting male.

Since Tam isn’t really into realism, but she does like magic and vulnerability, she created a male “Peter Pan” sort of figure with androgynous features and, of course, wings. She painted a whimsical baby bunny sitting on the man’s shoulder.

I wanted to go for a more masculine look, less androgynous. This is what I ended up with.

Instead of a baby bunny, I put an owl on the man’s shoulder. I like owls. They are my “thing”.

The background and the angel wing is more or less the way Tam did it.

The text I wrote along the edge of the wing reads, “know that true strength is honorable.”  I expect many of us have come across people who use their strength in a less than honorable way. In my view, that is not true strength.

I used collage, acrylic paint, watercolor crayon, a graphite pencil and a black sharpie.

For Lifebook 2015, Week 21, we drew and painted an apple. Tamara LaPorte was the instructor.

We used a real apple as a model. My apple was a bit wonky, and therefore, my painted apple is a bit wonky also.

The background is painted with various colors and then stamped. I used a regular rubber stamp for some of the background images and I also stamped with one of those foam things that keeps your toes apart when you get a pedicure. They make interesting marks when dipped in paint.

We were learning about shading and light.

This mixed media painting is entitled Mark Making. Its a lesson from Lifebook 2015 and its taught by Jenny Doh.

This is another lesson in which the goal is to bypass your thinking mine (also your critic) and just let your creative self out to play.

We added some color here and there, and added splotches and squiggles.

Then we stepped back and picked out a shape from what we had made. We drew in the shape with black ink.

I saw this horselike creature. It could be a unicorn, or perhaps a Pegasus. Its definitely an animal of some type.

I wrote the words DARE You in black. I don’t know why. It just felt right.

This is another lesson from Lifebook Week 19.  Its called Stamping Shadow and Light, and its taught by Jessica Swift.

In this lesson, Jessica showed us how to carve our own stamps. I did not do this, as I did not have a proper carving tool, nor did I have any rubber or other material that would have worked for the carving. I might have tried if I had found one of those great big school erasers, but I did not locate one.

I did have quite a number of big foam stamps so i decided to go ahead and make the picture using them.

The idea was to have a light and dark image on half of the paper, and a dark and light image on the other. We were to use a monochromatic color palette, mixed with black.

I did pink and plum on one side, with white mixed in,  and plum, black and white on the other side.

I just stamped randomly. Sometimes I just drew the paint across with a stick,  forming lines. I also used as a stamp one of those foam rubber things that women put between their toes when they are getting a pedicure.

I like monochromatic color palettes a lot.

This is Lifebook Week 13. Its a project taught by Juliette Crane, and the title is Happy Painting.

I made a collaged background using colored tissue paper, watercolor crayons and white gesso.

I drew the owl with a pencil and colored it as shown. I am fond of owls so when I heard that this lesson would involve an owl, I was in seventh heaven.

The owl was supposed to have closed eyes, but I was in the mood to make the eyes wide open.

I put my owl on a branch.

If you are interested in learning more about Lifebook, this link will take you to the site: Willowing Arts Lifebook 2015.

This is Week 10 in Lifebook 2015, taught by Tamara LaPorte. Its called Layers of Your Heart.

Should you be interested, use this link to visit the Lifebook site: Willowing Arts Lifebook 2015.
For this one, we drew and cut out a number of paper hearts. I used six.

We decorated each heart differently. Each heart represents something we appreciate or are grateful for.

When completed,k we attached the hearts at the bottom tip using a brad or other fastener.

My favorite is the top one, which is blue and has a circular design made with a brass stencil and modeling paste.

This is called Favorite Favorites, and its a project taught and designed by Lynne Whipple in Lifebook 2015.

If you are interested in learning more about Lifebook, this link will take you to the site: Willowing Arts Lifebook 2015.

We drew a jar and decorated it with whatever colors we preferred.  I used Twinkling H2Os for most of my background.

Next, we used marking pens or colored pencils to wrote our favorite things on the jar.

We finished by giving it a label of our choosing, and decorating the top of the lid as we wanted.

I gave the painting a bit of a border by drawing with a marking pencils along the borders.

Week 33 in Lifebook 2014 was a second lesson from Anna Dabrowska, aka Finnabair.

Finnabair typically uses black and white photographs, spray inks and “stacks” of ephemera.

I had an album that Finnabair distributed when I took an in-class lesson with her at Clipper Street Scrapbook Company this past summer. I decided to use this album for this particular lesson.

The picture represents my attempt. I used some scraps of paper, some chipboard letters spelling “breathe”, a black and white photo found on Graphics Fairy, and the usual stack of doodads and ephemera.

I strung  a string of beads across the left hand page.