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Sunday 29 January 2017

An easy Do-It-Yourself Window Technique

(...if you already have frosted patterned windows)
All you need are these:
ChalkOla Premium Wet Wipe Markers

..which are water soluble, so you can change your colour scheme at any time - or even remove it all together, if you wish.  

The window I was working with, as I mentioned, had an ornate frosted glass pattern on it already, and it's original Victorian, I think!  
All I had to do to make this beautiful pattern was to prime the pens (shaking each of them for less than a minute and pressing them gently onto a paper surface to get the ink flowing) and then draw over each of the lines of the existing glass pattern.
(Arty picture of my hand drawing over the pattern)

If lines were a little 'squiffy' (as in that pic above) it was very easy to wipe them away with a small wet cloth (or cotton bud) and to redraw them.
(Above) This was how it looked early on. Here I was avoiding the 'difficult' sides.

TIP: Prime all your pens at the start then you can just pick up any pen and use it rather than having to stop and prime each one when you want to use it.  I learned this on youtube and found it useful.
The colours do dry fairly quickly, so I didn't find myself smudging them as I worked, which was handy.  The frame around the window also helped me to keep my hands away from the ink.

An 'in progress' shot:
In the daytime the colours looked very 'girly,' much to both of my teenage boys' dismay.  The one boy also said that the design was too 'hippy!' (he,he).

And this was it finished:
But the surprise was when it got dark!  The colours looked so different!:
This was the same window, the exact same colours, but with the night sky behind them.  What a difference!

(I think I prefer the night version better, I'm not a girly, girl either. {grin} )

Disclosure:  I should point out that I was sent two sets of these pens to review here on this blog, so thank you to the company that sent them to me. I found them very easy to use and the colours are really vibrant.  I would definitely recommend them to anyone wanting to do a similar project.

(Unfortunately, these pens are out of stock at Amazon UK at the time of writing, hopefully they will be back soon).

Thank you for stopping by today and reading this MASSIVE post.
Back soon with some more Creative Flourishes activity,

Nicky 

Wednesday 4 January 2017

Creative Jump Start 2017

A Happy New Year to all my readers, old and new and hope that you enjoyed a good festive season.  I have once again signed up for Natalie Kalbach's inspirational new year video course called 'Creative Jump Start' and thats what it is.  A series of videos, every day for 30 days presented by some of my favourite artists from blogland (Julie Fei Fan Balzer, Dina Wakley, etc. etc.) that motivate us with ideas and tips that can help us in our own creations.

The first video was by Marsha Valk and this was my finished piece:
 
I should point out (as those of you on the course will know) that this isn't anything like the dreamlike, flowy, abstract quality of Marsha's example(s) but when I started I had no idea that mine would end up like this. It actually started out the same!    

This isn't one piece, if you look carefully you can see that it's three separate pieces 'joined' vertically and I painted them so they could look as one.  In fact the final effect with lines coming from all directions mean it could be infinite! Panels could be added on all sides to this, not that I'm going to, this size took hours to create!

The way it started was three pieces of mounting board painted with black gesso and then lines added with a white paint pen. With my initial lines, I had the idea to do a kind of plumbing/sciency look - a bit like those comedy science lab set ups you used to see in humorous horror films years ago.  
(I actually like this as it is!)
I then added some 'science-y' themed stencils to suggest liquids and directions.  And then I filled in the loops and decided to make the lines more prominant by outlining them in pink and yellow:
And this is when the problems began! I used Posca paint pens and, much as I love them, they drove me barmy on the black gesso.  The black gesso background somehow mixed itself in with the colour and changed it to a 'dirty' shade.  I ended up having to go over every line about 4 times - which made it a very late night!
 
At this stage, my frustration with the yellow and the white made me change tack. I had this idea to keep the science theme and add bits of a photocopy from a book on machines:
(I did try the tissue paper in the printer technique but my printer refused to print it!)

I cut the photocopy into random pieces and stuck them onto the panels...
...and continued with the frustrating task of outlining the tubes with the paint pens. I came back to it the next day and quite liked it:
...but thought all the tubes were leading the eye downwards so it 'needed' (not sure it did, really!) some more horizontal lines and more pictures to cover the black - and then connecting lines to 'fix' the pictures to the tubes. (I also 'forgot' how much extra work that would make - each white line had to be drawn over and over again as it turned grey on the black gesso).

I added text bits from the machines book and one quote in the bottom panel:  'Creatiity is intelligence having fun' by Albert Einstein. 

So this was the finished result, a super super busy made up science-y thing!
..and this is the three panels shown separately:
I like the fact that they work individually as well as together. 

Thanks for looking and commenting, do me a favour and remind me never to use paint pens on a black gesso background ever again - life really is too short!...

Nicky 
Creative Flourishes



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