2012/365 - Day 122

back to work

I have been slacking off the last few days since the road trip.  I have allowed myself to give in to the allergies and give myself excuses for not getting back to work.  Today I wanted to do two activities to start to make up for some of the time.

These are the tea bags that Karen gave me a while back.  

This is how canvas #8 looked before I started working on it tonight.

This is a close up of the neck of the llama/giraffe girl.  You can see where I previously added the tea bags on the left side of her neck.

This is a close up of a tea bag being applied to the surface.

When I started adding the tea bags today I noticed I must have used the darker ones before.  See the difference in the color of the outline?

I decided to go back over the darker outlines with the lighter tea bags...more work but it looks a lot better.  Also, it gives just a teensy bit of height to the edge.

It is much easier to see her neck now.  The tea bags were just the perfect thing I needed to make her neck different from the horse but still not too prominent when compared to the horse.

I used up all of the lighter tea bags.  I am anxious to see how this looks once it is dry!

Here is the second activity for today.

I made the hand/arm for the left side of the marsupial.

I'm fairly happy (so far) with the way the hands/arms are turning out...they look pretty even.  I took off the upper arm part, though.

The real test will be when I plaster cloth the hands/arms.  I don't want them to become much larger and those are small areas between the fingers.

2102/365 - Day 109

can a change be big AND subtle at the same time?

I've been trying to find a way to tone down the giraffe/llama's neck area and cover up the blue and pink spots, but still be able to have her neck stand out from the background papers AND look different than the horse's nose.  This is canvas #6.

Last week I met up with Karen Monroe to talk about Art-o-mat prototypes.  I know Karen through Leann and the Artist Trading Card Exchange group.  At the end of our session Karen gifted me with some really great rinsed out and dried tea bags...in two colors (from different tea types) (sorry, I'm not a tea drinker...not sure if that is the right terminology).

Karen said one color was from the kind of tea she drinks and the other is from the one her husband likes.  She hadn't had much luck yet with working with the tea bags for her artwork so she brought me a good sized stack to try out. 

VOILA!  They are JUST what I needed for this canvas!

I am working with the lighter ones on the left.

Here is a long-ish shot of the area I need to tone down.

A little closer...the pink and blue aren't quite right for this canvas.

A close up of the area I will work on.

I've never handled tea bags much -- not to mention used, then rinsed out and dried ones.

They are very easily torn and you can keep the thinly folded over edges in tact!

And best of all for my purposes -- you can see right through them once they are applied to the surface of the collage!

I was able to put on a thin layer of matte medium, cover over the Neutral Gray outline I have and adhere the torn pieces to the areas.

You can see in this photo that the edges of the tea bags make marvelous new outlines for the neck.

AND...

...they alter the surface color just enough, plus it is a whole different texture and weight difference from the horse's nose.

PLUS the areas where the torn tea bags shapes overlap create another dimension of color spots for the giraffe/llama.

Most of the left side of the neck is covered -- see? --

BIG changes, yet subtle changes -- both at the same time!

I can't wait to see how it looks when it is totally dry.


Thank You SO much, Karen!