Gothic Arches

Last weekend I had the whole weekend to create art and I had a deadline coming up for the Gothic Arch Swap at ARTchix...so, I knew what I wanted to achieve when I worked on the arches...I just didn't know if I could pull it off.

This is one of the 6 Gothic Arches that I created. See the arch in the middle of the 4" x 4" Chunky? That was the inspiration for the rest of the chunky. I created the rest of the background to compliment the original arch. What is really cool is that I had already created the piece of green paper about 2 months ago and it was the perfect shade and color to match the arch. I got the blue paint out and found my large alphabet stamps and stamped the letters on. Then I decided I wanted a spattered look and got a toothbrush out and spatter some more blue paint along with some white paint to give the affect. I used a soft white pastel to outline the original arch. I used a white chalk stamp pad to go around the outside of the chunky. I love the birds...I'm a bird person...and decided that the feather was the perfect touch to this piece. Added the bird head in the tab and used Diamond Glaze to give it the glassy look. I also cut the word LOVE out and stuck it in the Diamond Glaze while it was still wet and then added more on top of it to give it the resin look.

I was happy with 5 of the 6 pieces...I guess there is always one that never quite lives up to the others....partially because I run out of the images that I really like. Guess I should stock up on more in the future.

I am so thankful for my friends that have left such wonderful comments about the Chunky that was selected for the Homepage Art over at ARTchix's Yahoo Group. Thank you for being my inspiration!

Helga's Weekly Challenge

Helga over at Artchix has a weekly challenge that she offers to challenge and stretch our abilities. I've been participating in this challenges since the beginning of the year, and have found them to be a great asset to me. They have helped me to think outside of the box and to think of art in a new way.

The Challenge for this week was to take Helga's "Master board" and create art out of it. If you visit her Blog you'll see what this started out to look like before I started playing with it. I've added several of Helga's collage sheet images and even used my watercolor crayons in a few areas. I did some paper cutting and folding, and then cut the whole image apart and attached it to another piece of paper and added the words in between for inspiration. Helga started this inspiration in the lower right hand corner with "be you". Things you could also be are brave, lucky, happy, amazed, and anything you'd like to be. I think this would look great framed and might just have to do that and make a gift for someone.

Helga's Weekly Challenge #2

Glad that Helga is back from vacation...and the timing was perfect for me.

I am finished with the play I was in for the past month and we were on vacation last week...so I had time to play.

Helga's Challenge this week was to add turquoise to our art. It's funny, because I'm getting ready to participate in an altered book group...and that was what I decided would be my requirement for my book...to add the color turquoise. Great minds!! : )

So...here's my second piece of art for this challenge. I created the background using AC's watercolor ATC's, and I stamped circles on the ATC using a pop lid. I then used watercolors to add the colors I wanted. I used the bird from the Pretty Bird collage sheet and Chixies Hat Affairs collage sheet. I cut the bird out and then punched a circle out of the rest of the background to add to the ATC. I punched a cirle out of a vintage Dictionary with the word CHIRP as the focus. I'm loving the color combination here.

Swap with Cristal

Last weekend I created these 4 ATC's to swap with Cristal Wooten. Cristal is an amazing artist and teacher from Arizona. Cristal was the first person to send me an ATC out of the goodness of her heart. That really touched me and got me interested in trying some different styles of art.

The pieces that I've seen of Cristal's...she likes to use different paint pens in her creations. I've been lucky enough to get to trade with Cristal a couple of times now. She always inspires me to try new things. I've started using some pens to embellish or enhance my art now. I used paint pens on three of the ATC's I made her...AND I used some H2O's on one of them. Love the shimmer and affect H2O's create.

Our theme was BIRDS and it was supposed to be blue, green, and purple. I tried to stick to the colors, but the top left one I just couldn't. I hope she likes it, as I used a REAL nest to create it. You can't see it, but there is a tiny plastic egg under the bird too.

Three of the backgrounds have pages from my vintage dictionary....I used pages that had definitions for BIRDS.

Thank you Cristal for always being so kind and willing to trade with me.