Pink Bird Studio

Daily Paper Prompt # 20 - Monochromatic

Today's Daily Paper Prompt was all about monochromatic colour.  I was first going to just grab a bunch of media that were in the same colour family, but then I decided to mix the colours myself as suggested in the prompt (insert audible gasp).  I used my Primary Cyan paint from Golden, and mixed it with white for the lighter colours, and black for the darker colours (and the one in the middle is straight up).  I believe I have 5 or 6 colours here - it was fun.  I decided to use the ogee pattern again, which is perhaps my new favourite pattern. 

When I work with a limited pallet, there's usually a pop of a contrasting colour thrown in (I would have loved to make the middle of these orange or red), but I decided to stick with the prompt and I think it worked quite well.  You will also noticed there's a book page peeking through.  Well, I was trying to do something clever beforehand, which was more like a disaster than anything clever so I decided to just cover it up and start over. 

Daily Paper Prompts 17 & 19

Daily Paper Prompt 17 was a couple of days ago.  The challenge was to draw a chandelier.  Hmmm - I'm not the best illustrator.  I thought about how I could collage one together but then I thought it's all about the process, I'd better give it a go!

Pretty comical attempt at drawing the chandelier from Phantom as it is being reassembled.  Just thinking of it gives me goosebumps - my card? Not so much.  Oh well, I tried and I put it here to encourage you all to try something new - it may not be a masterpiece but you might have fun!

Daily Paper Prompt 19 was Mail Art - oh I'm not sure if I want to do that!  Of course I'm kidding - I'm a mail-art-making fool.  I had to make two. 

the first is destined for a local mail art show with a rainbow/equality theme.  I tore this colour wheel clock out of a magazine or catalogue ages ago and I guess it was just waiting for the right opportunity. 

The other started out as a "leftover" paint card.  I was wiping off my brushes and sponges on an index card over a few days.  I added some gel pen accents and then I cut it up and reassembled it onto a sturdy piece of watercolour paper.  I filled in the gaps with black Neocolour II, added more gel pen accents and doodled a bit with a black fine-tipped pen.  It was really fun to make.

For those of you keeping track at home, you probably noticed that Daily Paper Prompt # 18 is MIA.  Well, the idea was to make a travelling art kit.  I take supplies with me whenever I leave town and depending on what I'm doing and how long I'll be gone (and how I'm getting there) it could be as simple as a ziploc bag stuffed in my purse or as elaborate as a rolling suitcase style case.  Usually it's a carry-all bag I just throw a bunch of stuff in and call it good enough.  Anyway, I have no need to do this right now and I didn't want to pack a bunch of stuff up just to take it back out again so I am deferring this prompt.  An upcoming prompt asks us to "make art elsewhere" - I will show you my travel kit with that post.  Where "elsewhere" is and what I decide to work on that day will dictate the size and content of my customized purpose-built kit! 

Daily Paper Prompts 15 (Words) & 16 (Dictionary Love)

Well I did get behind last week (later than I had expected, so that's good).  Today is catch-up day.

Yesterday's Daily Paper Prompt was "Words" - anyone who knows me or my art work knows I love to use words in my work.  One of my favourite sources of inspiration is lyrics.  I chose to use some of the lyrics from the song "King of Sorrow" by Sade in this piece in my journal.  I layered a page from an old atlas index onto my page and then added a magazine image.  I painted with acrylics and gesso, and added "tears" with black NeoColour II (then watered down).  Added some of the words from the song over the whole thing - I quite like the result.

Today's Daily Paper Prompt was another favourite of mine - use a dictionary in your work.  Ha - I can do that with my eyes shut (ok not quite).  I chose "disappointment" as my word.  Painted the page with acrylics, highlighted around words and hearts with white gel pen and black NeoColour II.  Added some dots. 

These two prompts were so much fun (despite the "darker" subject matter) and I'm quite pleased with both pages.

Daily Paper Prompt # 14 - Saturated Colour

Today's Daily Paper Prompt is "saturated colour" - full strength, straight out of the tube or bottle or pen or crayon or whatever medium you choose - I chose acrylic.  Can't say I'm crazy about it - as much as I love colour this seems a bit too much!  But it was fun to do and these prompts are all about the process and not about the results.  I completed this in my "play" joural.

Daily Prompt 13 - Grid

Today's Daily Paper Prompt is "grid".  Of course I immediately thought Bingo card!  But when I looked at the lovely examples I couldn't choose, so I had to do one of each.

First I tried making a grid of little circles on an index card.  I used sequin waste to stencil the circles with Neocolour IIs, and then activated them with a damp brush.  I enjoyed making this and liked the effect.

But I could not possibly make a post with "grid" in the title without a bingo card making an appearance.  I had prepped this one ages ago for some long-forgotten (and never completed) project with some brown ink.  I used harlequin tape, alternating with red acrylic to cover this card, and then added a black diamond on each red square.  This card may eventually become the basis for a collage, or might just stay as is - perhaps as a postcard.

Daily Paper Prompt # 11 - Round

Today's Daily Paper Prompt was to use a round lable or sticker.  I chose to do another spread in my Sketchbook Project Journal. I used a page I had prepped weeks ago with the word "circle" from the dictionary on it. painted an acrylic background and added my red circles with Derwent Inktense blocks. Added a San Pellegrino label and a label from my spicy tuna that I'd been saving. Fun! Accents with gel pens. "Stamped" white circles with the end of my glue stick and small red circles with the end of my pen using acrylics.  Of course you can't really see the word circle any more, but I know it's there...

Daily Paper Prompt # 11 - Ogee Pattern

I have to admit I did not know that this style of pattern was called "ogee" until reading Daily Paper Prompt # 11 and seeing Tammy's great samples. 

I had prepped a spread in m Sktechbook Project journal weeks ago with some leaf napkins.  8 leaves formed a kind of grid and I was not sure what I was going to do with it.  Howevr, when I saw this prompt I realized the leaves would make a great guide for an ogee pattern.  I drew and painted and collaged and layered paint over paint until I thought it was done.  Unfortunately you could no longer see the leaves that were the inspiration for the spread!  So I drew some leaves back in with a black sprarkle gelly roll pen (that shows up like pencil).

I enjoyed this so much that when I went back and actually read the prompt properfly I was NOT disappointed to see that the idea was to make three patterns with different media. 

First I used my Derwent Inktense blocks on n index card - ok but I really need to prep these with gesso first (note to self!)

Next I tried NeoColor IIs on an index card - better, but still need gesso prep or better paper!

I wanted to try this in my brand new journal.  It was on sale at my local art supply store likely because it had the ugliest cover in the world (really it did), but the paper was great!  So I tried another NeoColor II piece - such a difference on better paper!

I thought that was the end until I saw that my paper towels actually have and ogee pattern in the "quilting" - say what?!  I had to try something with them too!  I coloured them with NeoColor IIs and then separated the plies (but stacked them together) and spritzed the daylights out of them with water.  Great blending but the absorbent towel lost a lot of definition of course.  Anyway I will probably use these for something down the road.  The lower photo shows the bottom layer when seems to be a bit brighter than the towp one.  Disppointingly I had outlined them in black which got completely lost in the process (although showed up a bit in the bottom layer).  But then again it was an experiment and I really wasn't expecting anything too great to happen (although we always hope right?)! 

All in all this was SUCH fun!  I learned a lot about my supplies and the name of this fun pattern that may show up in my work some day. 

Daily Paper Prompt 10 - Stitch Paper

Oh - I was so tempted to haul out my sewing machine for this one but I just don't have any room left on the art table right now, so I decided to stitch by hand. 

I painted some silly little flowers in acrylic and added some accents with black felt-tipped pen and green gel pen.  I then stitched the stamens using red embroidery floss.  I learned at least three things with this challenge: (1) I absolutely cannot thread a needle without my cheater glasses on; (2) I still remember how to do a French knoot (it's probably been 30 years since I "embroidered" anything); and (3) paper is an unforgiving medium to use a neele on - I have several extra holes there that aren't going anywhere.

The Daily Paper Prompt series is by Tammy Garcia at Daisy Yellow - anyone can join in at any time.

Daily Paper Prompt # 9 - Games

When I saw the Daily Paper Prompt for today was "Games" - you know I immediately thought "Bingo"!  But just doing a bingo card background seemed like a bit of a cop-out since I do that - All The Time.  I bought a great dart board stamp (B Line Designs) in Toronto a while ago that I had not used much so I thought why not darts?  Well one good reason why not is that I didn't have any dart stamps and can't draw, but I decided to ignore that small detail and press on.

Bingo card was painted lightly with gesso.  Dart board stamped with black Stayz-on ink and then filled in with white gel pen and red pen.  "Safety darts" (so named for their dull points) drawn with a black sparkly gelly roll pen that looks more like pencil.  Background Derwent Inktense blocks.  White pen highlights and various black pens for outline and lettering. 

I like the colour scheme of this card, and I like the dart board.  The dards I'm not too keen on, but they are not the worst thing I've ever done by any stretch.  :)

Daily Paper Prompt # 8 - Faded

Today's prompt in the Daisy Yellow Daily Paper Prompt series is "faded".  Never being one to obsess over "directions", I thought - I know exactly what I'll do!  I have a technique that would be perfect for this!  However, when I did take time to look at the directions, I had completely missed the point!  So now I have a whole bunch of examples of faded stuff, which is a good thing right? 

Tammy challenged us to put some colours on paper and spray the living daylights out of them with water to created a faded effect.  The first one I tried was not on her list (see what I mean about not obsessing over directions?) - my Derwent Inktense Blocks:

Well they faded a bit I guess but they didn't really blend and I was left with that "meh" feeling.

The next thing I tried was on Tammy's list - NeoColorII water soluable crayons:

Definitely more blending here but still not much dripping.  I was also disappointed that the black dots didn't drip at all.  Perhaps I needed to be more heavy handed with the amount of colour I put on.

Next, also on Tammy's list, was acrylic paint:

Now we're talking!  I loved the way the colours mixed and mingled.  I dripped a few drops of fluid acrylic on the top of my card and sprayed and sprayed and sprayed some more.  Careful if you "paint" the colours on as acrylics natually dry up very quickly.  Some options would be to use some glazing mediume or the Golden Open acrylic line, both of which extend drying times in order to allow for more time to play around with the colours.

Lastly I tried activating the colours (back to NeoColorII) with a damp brush and then spraying.  I liked this a bit better.

All in all this was a fun exercise.  I didn't end up with any masterpieces but I did learn a bit more about how some of my favourite supplies can do more than I usually do with them, which I think was the point.

Oh, and my faded technique that I originally thought I would use?  Here it is.

I had a spread my my Sketchbook Project journal already prepped with security envelopes and gesso.  I painted and stamped with vibrant acrylics and inks (respectively):

After that was completely 100% dry I mixed up some Titan Buff soft body acrylic paint with some glazing medium and covered up the whole thing - this takes some nerve - especially if you are loving what you have already, but keep going!  Because the glazing medium extends the drying time I was able then to wipe off the excess with a damp paper towel.  When that was completely 100% dry I added my image and words.  I was going to have her sit lower, but she just looked awkward so I constructed a little "balcony" for her to stand on using tissue tape.