Lost & Found Studio

Today is Friday Free for all!

Today is like that "bonus room" you smart folks are having built in your new houses. I especially like the ones where you are tromping up the stairs to view what you are expecting to be mediocre bedrooms and VOILA! A bonus TV room/den/art space appears! It makes your heart go all a flutter and helps you forget that some brainiac designer decided that lavender is back in style for wall colors....

I love bonus rooms and I love a Friday where we decide to throw caution to the wind and art our way through the day! Today we are planning a brief but much needed shopping excursion for the am activities and then noses to the grindstone doing......WHATEVER WE WANT TO DO!!!! OMG!!

I plan on doing some scrap booking catch up and I believe Nadia is in a kind of travel fog as she has not one but 2 travel journals she is building! Fingers crossed she will post some directions!

Before I head out to pick up Gal Friday..{.get it???...grin} Here are some more canvas beauties I am loving and wishing I could hide from Mr. Post Man...

Nadia's "Observe"

 

Nadia's "Courage"

-L-

Colorful Creative Canvas's

Ok we are counting down to shipping these babies off! Today had us feeling like we could create without pressure.

In fact, most of what we did was completely collaborative and spontaneous. This set of 4x4's moved back and fort between the two of us for most of the day.

"Home girl" had this one already started by the time I rolled into the studio. She ALWAYS manages to use colors I just would never ever in a million kazzillion years even THINK to use!  Can I just say I {heart} the lime green against the purple and blue?

Finally it was time to sign and cry. There are 10 large canvas's in this bin and 14 small.. Just let me be with them a few more days please. I need to make sure they understand that I would give them all a home if I was allowed to....

-L-

and what about these babies?

s'all right!  ifirmado, sellado y entregado a punta cana, ningun problema!

-n-

Lest we forget..

Nadia gets home tomorrow from her beach retreat. Lucky girl missed the bucketful of snow we got last night. Next time I may make her take me with her. Three is so not a crowd right?

Today is Remembrance Day .  An excellent day to remember how lucky we are to be Canadians and to remember those who have either lost their lives or are currently fighting on behalf of  us all. |It makes me personally think of those families out there right this minute who have a mom, dad, son, daughter, sister or brother in a war zone.   I can't imagine your sleepless nights.

It was also a day not to be out and about on the icy streets. Me and my sweat pants ( that NO ONE are allowed to see me in..) hunkered down in the studio. My pants and I..oh and my friend Diane...tried to figure out different ways to print out the sizes of pics I wanted on my new printer. Am I just a little addled?.. because EVERYONE seems to understand their gadgets and gizmos better than I do... I suck so bad at new technology..

After wasting nearly half the day trying to figure out where the print button was on my new 2007 Microsoft program..( who the hell would think to click on the freakin Microsoft icon?? Not me..it took the boy CHILD to enlighten me..another blow to my fragile self esteem..

So this day is not a total loss...I present to all of cyber space a couple of finished canvas's .

Nadia's "Experience Change"

Laurie's "Dream the Future"

Stay warm!

-L-

Evolution of a Canvas

Materials used:

Golden Acrylics

Acrylic Glazing Medium

12x12 Gallery Profile  Canvas

Sharpie, flat brushes, sponges, fingertips..what ever is on hand!

 

#1- Here is my pretty, clean and perfectly white canvas. We work on gallery profile canvas. We like them because they are a 2" deep canvas that gives you the option of not framing as well as the added bonus of being able to write or wrap the paint around the edges.. If you just want to play around, even the Dollar Store carries cheap canvas...

#2- My giant hand..ugh! Ok so I've mixed some  yummy yellow acrylic with a Glazing Medium and put that on the canvas as a base. I really don't want to make it too uniform in color so once the color is on the brush or sponge, I may only add water -not paint. This is why the background yellow has darker areas along with others that appear almost white. Then I went in with Burnt Umber straight from the tube. Almost dry brushing it on so I have more control. Believe it or not this can take about an hour.

Work in progress..

 

#4- Here you can see where I moved that Burnt Umber around a bit more and then cut out some simple hearts from an old Atlas. I like crinkles and wrinkles so I actually balled up the hearts to get more texture before flattening them out and using gel medium(or glue) to adhere them down. A super simple technique to try yourself .

#5- More Glaze Medium here mixed with different color's. I like the Fluid acrylic because not only does it act like a flo medium and give you extra time to move your paint around, it also makes the paint less opaque. I want to be able to see some of those maps underneath the color. It all adds texture.

#6- Letter a Monoline quote or sentiment. At this point it is safe to switch gears and get out a Sharpie or other permanent pen. As long as you know that no other paint is going to go over top, you are safe. (Sharpie will bleed through if you paint over it.)

#7- The finished piece!

You can see though that as I go through each step I re-asses the color continually. I may add some shadows or more detail here and there as the canvas evolves. Take a step back from it every once in a while. When you come back to what you are working on you will see something different. All in all the whole process takes me ..personally about 4-6 hours...I'm slow...

There are literally hundreds of different ways to get paint on paper or canvas. And hey...You don't need to have a fine arts degree to play..so go at it!

-L-

Monday Morning!

Today started out slow. Got into the studio about 10:30. Nadia had already prepped and started painting the base on 4, 12x12 canvas's.  I don't know where her energy came from but I think I saw an empty pot of coffee on the counter.

For about 2 hours I actually thought.."Hey..maybe we can get this all done..there really is a first for everything....."... Well it wasn't today. I was moving slow, and the paint was moving even slower. In the end I finished one in about 6 hours. A sweat shop we are not!

Tomorrow I am going to try and post "The Evolution of a Canvas" I'll try to take you from the blank canvas to the finished product through a picture tutorial. I was going to try and do this today but...you gotta finish the canvas in order to take the final pics..right?

I dunno if we got any pics of my hands today but I gotta tell you..they seem to be my favorite tools at the moment. There is something about the instant gratification of putting your fingers into cool wet paint and moving it around without the brush. In a lot of ways you have more control than with a brush and interesting textures happen from being able to rub it into the canvas as apposed to brushing it on.  Finger painting for adults really.. and soooo much fun!

Bring on TUESDAY!!

-L-