mixed media – Welcome To My Side Of The Mirror

Another Week Of #100FunFabFaces

The journal I am using–isn’t really meant to be an art journal. It’s a simple 8 inches by 6 inches book, filled with thin brown-toned kraft paper. The pages are thin–and they do not seem very thrilled with wet media…They are going to have to suck it up anyway because that’s what I fancy working with at the moment.

You can learn more about the #100FunFabFaces challenge that Karen Campbell is hosting (for FREE!) here.

Here’s my second set of faces:

Karen actually had two reference photos for that week (watch her video–you’ll see why)…and this is just the set I made from the first reference, using sharpie and water color…because my Jane Davenport mermaid markers are finicky. Some pages in this journal, those markers work fine. The color moves effortlessly with just a touch of water…on others, that stuff doesn’t move if I use a bucket of water on them, several times….so I turned to my watercolors to play with these faces.

My next set of faces will be coming…soon…

Karen Campbell’s #100FunFabFaces Challenge

#1–I am wicked behind on this challenge. I started it with everyone on time–then my husband went out of the country on a business trip…and then the December holidays hit…along with my being sick, then the small boy being sick, then my husband’s annual ski trip–and he brought back some horrible germs from that trip–although I am deeply thankful our youngest didn’t get it…I did though–and am still fighting off bits of it to this day…

#2–I mean to finish this challenge, one way or another, lol.

#3–I don’t count other faces/etc that I do elsewhere for this project. If I don’t make them in my specific to this challenge journal…just…because…that’s how I’m doing it.

And so…if you are interested in playing along–it’s all free…you can follow along on Karen’s YouTube channel here. You can get all the details and more there.

Here is what I did for my first week…

I started working, trying to do something more like what karen did…and then allowed myself to evolve and play with things.

Some of these I love; some I like; some I am not happy with…and I decided I would just go with whatever came out, depending on the products I used.

I’ll have another post ready to show you soon…

New Video Up

My Last 29 Faces Face For The September Challenge

During the second week of working through the 29 Faces challenge, I created a series of sketches in one of my smashbook art journals (the pages are prepped with clear gesso already, most of them). This was one of the ones I sketched but hadn’t painted out…until now.

She is just charcoal pencil and white gesso, with colored pencil.

I very nearly left her black and grey, but she needed just a bit of color to her…and it really added to her appeal.

Just fyi, I created a little flip through video of my 29 faces expedition...although keep in mind, there are many more than just twenty-nine faces for me this month…

Thanks for coming along. 🙂

29 Faces Check-In

Didn’t expect this today, did ya?

But I love this…

Faces 23? to … uhm, 31… 🙂

This one is an old sketch on a 4in x 6in postcard that I did forever ago. I decided now was a good time to finish her.

This one was actually fun and is more minimal than you think. This is a spread that started as smears and blots of paint from other work. All I did was add in the facial features and a tiny bit of shading…the ‘skin’ was already there.

This is a crop of my Equinox spread.

This is the face of the first full mermaid I have done in a long time. There is a story about this one; I’ll tell you some other time.

This is a second mermaid close-up. On canvas board. Oh, there will be many many more mermaids coming…

Sketch book playing, creating shapes without sketching them in first.

This is part of my Full Moon Spread…which is coming this Monday…

Playing with paint, minimal palette, in my 8in x 5in journal.

This is my truly minimal piece today. Gesso and charcoal. A little color on the lips. Indigo for a tiny bit of shading on the face and in the hair.

Another 29 Faces Check-In

Numbers 16 to 22

I had a bit of a brain freeze…which means my hands froze as well…no painting after about Wednesday…and then there was a *click* and everything was fine again…but none of those faces are posted here as I have not scanned them all in yet.

And please note–I post a lot of unfinished faces and in process faces in instagram, (among other things) if you’d like to see what goes on there…

First, we have the very first ACEO face that I have ever done…working that small is definitely an experience. I do think I will keep it up to see what else comes up with it.

Her nose…now matter what I did, her nose kept wanting to do its own thing…and I had to finally just stop and let it be what it wanted to be…or at least be where it was…and move on …before I drove myself crazy.

To be honest, when I laid down the basic sketch, I hated this piece…but I know I know I know, if I work with it and I let it go where it wants, I will be happy…or at least in some cases happier…this one I am happy with at the end of the day…

This one was inspired by the New Moon…it says, etched into the gel medium: Shine Your Light…

This piece is actually 18 inches x 24 inches…and the face is only a part of that…

This is a 6in x 12in canvas…I have a stack of four –now three, I guess, where I had used an anatomical heart stencil…and once I had the heart stencil on and set on these canvases…I had brain freeze…and then one day last week, I grabbed one of them, grabbed my charcoal pencil, scribbled on a face…and let her emerge from there…and here she is…she is called My Heart Still Beats…