It's all fun . . .

. . . and games in the studio, especially when there's company.

Gwen and Beverly joined me this past week for four hours of tag-making, topped off with a gel printing session.  The hit of the printing session seemed to be the fun foam prints, so I thought I'd share the tutorial again:

It all starts with a dollar store foam surface.

Luckily I didn't discard/give away/lose my bag of foam shapes saved from other projects.

I've secured some of the shapes to the base with liquid gel medium - a great glue!

I'll be taking this one a little further than I did in the video above, using a round-tipped-impression-making-thingy to add some texture.  Incidentally, a knitting needle or dried-up ballpoint works just as well.

You know that by the time the tangling work is done and it's been used a few times it will resemble all the other fun foam templates - colour extraordinaire!

And while the gel printing session was fun, the main event meant that Beverly and Gwen were hard at work creating layer upon layer to bring a series of tags from background to finished product.

I neglected to get photos of the finishes but they were all certainly looking fabulous when I caught these in-progress photos.

And you can tell from the grins on our faces that it was a blast.

We're already looking forward to round two!

I'm hoping your week was at least as much fun, 'cause it's hard to beat the creative life!

I know I'm 'supposed to be'...

...doing a ton of other things, but I'm having trouble getting out of the studio.  For one thing, it's really comfortable downstairs, given the high temperatures we're experiencing, and for another, it's so much fun to play.

Can you tell the heat is affecting my artwork?  Celebrate - a breath, a flash - combustive, sliding heat!

Celebrate the Heat

The piece started out with a third generation gel print, that I streaked, stencilled and stamped.  Once I added a thoroughly used mask and a candle, it was a done deed.

I've done a few pieces over the years entitled Love Letter to Gaia, and this became another one.

Love Letter to Gaia IV

This is one of my favourite quotes, and I was glad to have an opportunity to use it.

It started with a ghost gel print, and by the time it was knocked back with stencils, stamps and more stencils, it was (somewhat) subdued, although not to many people perhaps.  😃

I did manage to finish a darker, cooler piece (was that a 10 pm time slot?), so at least the colour palette is not totally hot, hot, HOT!

I hope you've had every opportunity this week to get your creativity on and that your locale is somewhat more moderate than what we're experiencing.  I must say, though, that having the studio downstairs means I'm quite happy to be a Basement Dweller!

Squirrel!

Squirrel happens so often in the studio that I should really do a piece of artwork about it, except I keep getting distracted.  I used the large Branches mask by The Crafters Workshop on top of a Gelli print that had been created using one of my foam templates, and then....

I loved the effect, and decided to do another, but the unprepossessing template (photo below) caught my eye.  It obviously needed something more, so I spent an hour or so adding texture to it - rather challenging given it was already heavily painted.

I noticed, too, that the mask was badly in need of a cleaning, since many of those delightful little brach spaces had accumulated sneaky layers of paint...I could blame it on my students, couldn't I?  Oops, there went another hour.

Finishing the new texture necessitated another Gelli printing session, of course.  Don't you wonder why, in a studio the size I work in those prints and foam plates are all on the floor?

Perhaps it's because every surface in the studio is covered with in-progress projects!  I can see I've got some cleaning to do before my next guests and students arrive.

With mask taped in place over one of the prints, I was ready to roll with layer number two.

And of course, the mask got dirty once again, which meant another cleaning session.  At least this time it didn't take so long to get it clean.  It's amazing how much easier wet paint is to remove compared to dry.

Just because I'm on a roll with this mask and these textured prints, I might do another . . . what colour combo do you want to see?  And naturally, there are more layers to come on the ones I've already done - when I get back to them!

I hope you're as squirrelly as am I in the studio...it's certainly well worth it for entertainment value.

 

I got lost...

...somewhere between Creston, Penticton, the kitchen and studio.  Thank goodness I had my camera with me, so you could see I'm still in my usual chaos.

With preparations hot and heavy for a family weekend in Penticton, it was a toss-up whether I would stamp and paint,

play with shapes of paper pulled from clothing packages,

 use scraps to create a birthday card,

 or cut itsy bitsy leaves from my stamping frenzy before, during or after prep time.. 

As you can see, I did it all, although missed most of the photos required.  Then I baked and cooked up a storm before leaving town for a July long weekend with the extended family all gathering in Penticton.  Kudos to brother Neal and his wife Judith, who hosted the madness!

Sixteen people gathered (four kidlets included) with five dogs, one cat, nine dozen cookies, three dozen cupcakes,  four dozen wings, salads, ribs, wine tasting, beaches, drives, walks, a tractor and an amazing amount of laughter.  It was wonderful bedlam:

I do hope that your holiday weekend, whether in Canada or elsewhere, was as much fun.  It'll be back to creativity this next week, and maybe some of those snippets of things will actually get utilized elsewhere.  In the meantime, happy July, my artsy friends.