Yesterday, I posted a picture of this mixed media work. I thought it was most probably finished, However, as I looked at it, there was something not right about it, something, or somethings, missing. I didn’t know what.
When I woke up this morning I knew what to do, kind of. So, after searching through my stash of bits and bobs, I sorted it.
I think it is now finished, apart from some shadows around the cogs which I can’t do until the glue has set.
Much happier with it now.
More Foamiran flowers, this time rather more stylised or abstract. Background is texture paste mixed with distress ink and some pearlescent paint from Liquitex and stenciled over a distress ink background. Papers coloured with distress inks or distress oxide inks.
Embossed paper and ACEO card are coloured with various acrylic paints from Pebeo and Liquitex. They’ve been used to create a collaged pattern behind the previously made ACEO/ATC paint.
Liquid pearls have been added in places, and gems in the flower centres.
I die-cut the leaves from Centaura pearl paper and coloured them with Copic markers; the sheen they have is subtle and fits in nicely with the more pastel colours used.
The last couple or so days I’ve been working on stuff in preparation for this, though I wasn’t quite sure how it was going to work out, if at all.
The background I made earlier today just wasn’t the right thing…so had to re-do that. I’m happier with this one, and the first background has been consigned to patterned, coloured, embossed papers for future projects.
There’s still a fair amount of work to do on this one, and I think it’ll work out OK in the end.
This one is mostly finished. I need to add shadows around the elements and some shiny patterns to the layers I think. Oh, and the hole in the tag needs something added.
The fungus I drew and coloured myself. That was enjoyable to do! In fact, the whole thing has been satisfying.
I’ve spent some days preparing backgrounds, die-cutting some items for my stash, drawing and just ‘being’.
I started this one yesterday, but finished it today…well, I think it’s finished!
No quote or words on this one…yet. Maybe something will come to me, or maybe someone will suggest something…feel free to message me if you wish to suggest something!
I’ve had a bit of a week with appointments and then yesterday was a day where I needed some self-care. I did, however, begin work on this particular piece, and I’ve gone crazy on making ATC sized backgrounds ready for work on them, particularly using the Dylusions paints which have laid dormant in my stash for a long, long time.
This particular mixed media pieces has a colour scheme that is not typically ‘Angela’. There’s lots of god in it, and the flowers look more like succulents than flowers, bu tthey do kind of work!
The close-up image shows the ATC that’s become the focal point of the piece, along with the metal charms and keys that have been added.
A second done today! A4 in size, just as ‘Hope – flowerpunked’ is.
I’ve just realised I’ve not done the shadows around various elements, but that’ll have to wait as the drops on the petals are drying.
It’s deuced hard to photograph these well; the butterflies shimmer with different iridescent colours, as do the flowers . The leaves have a kind of verdigrised bronze look to them. The background is very matte in contrast to the shimmer of the elements affixed to it. There’s also some vintage paper behind the elements – from a very old science book! Well I am a scientist as well as an artist.
I’m going to have to find something to do with all these mixed media pieces as storing them is going to be difficult as the latest ones have a lot of ‘dimension’ to them. On this one both the butterfly wings and the flower centres are raised up somewhat.
I also have to decided if I’mg oing to continue having acrylic nails and nice gel nail finishes as all this mixed media work has just about wrecked them! I thought that was nigh on impossible, but perhaps not!
Just finished this one.
Hope.
Sometimes I have to walk away from something I’m working on as I despair it will work out to be anything near good enough. Actually, it’s not sometimes, it’s most of the time! However, I do persevere.
When I went to bed last night, this one was looking horrible. I had the background done, the first layers of collaged patterned paper and the kind of hessian looking die-cut added too I really wasn’t happy with it at all.
However, a good night’s sleep and a bit of inspiration on waking meant I knew where I wanted to go next, especially after I sorted out the jumble of die-cuts I have (note to self-get some way to organise these!).
Once started from the point of inspiration, the picture just grew to it’s finished state (well, I think it’s finished, that may change when I look at it again later on).
Hope. A really good word here. There’s always hope that no matter how bad I think something looks, , pushing past that often results in something good. Indeed, sometimes the work can just be cut into pieces for use in another piece, which is how the iridescent, textured circles came to appear in this one.
Hope. Making art always gives me hope that I can overcome the trials I face when my anxiety/depression/complex post-traumatic stress disorder kitcks itself up a few or several notches. Art always gives me a place where I can lose myself in something that is meditative, mindful, self-soothing, and shows me that I can succeed even when the self-critic is telling me I’m useless, I can never get anything right, nothing is good enough, I’m a failure, and so on.
This past week or so, challenging myself to work with mixed media – something I’ve tried in the past and not really felt I was successful at – has been good to help me with the aftermath of a couple of rather strong anxiety attacks. I’ve not had any for around a year now.
I was surprised by them and at their intensity and how they have impacted on how I live my life at the moment. I find it difficult to go out into the world, want to hide away from people, and when I do go out it’s often in the dark hours so I’m not seen.
It also surprised me that this is how I used to live every single day for a very long time, most probably most of my life, until a few months ago.
Even though these two episodes have happened, I know I’ll get past them; I have in the past, and I can learn more about the triggers for them and also where this all comes from, which will help greatly in the counsellinge process.
So there’s hope I’ll improve in the long term, and blips are just that. Just as I’ve hoped that my confidence and skill and expression via mixed media would improve. I’ve just had a look back at the mixed media I’ve done in the last fortnight or three weeks, and even I can see how it’s all developed, in a positive way.
What’s made the difference for me with mixed media is finding the confidence to do my best to do it my way and to explore it in my way. I have a lot more exploring to do, and a lot more confidence building in what I do with it. I will journey along this road, along with my drawing and illustration skills, maybe even writing, and with healing what I can of my mebtal health issues.
So, choosing the word hope for it to appear on this piece of art was most appropriate.
This is todays mixed media creation (approx 5.25″ x 11.5″. I think ‘Flowerpunked’ is a good name for it, or for the series of works like this.
I found a way to lift the flowers up so they have more dimension; wish I’d thought of that when I was adding the cogs., still there’s always the next one! It’s all a learning process – it never ends! I also think the stenciled patterns on the background are a bit dark and heavy … and just didn’t quite know what to do about them at the time as I didn’t want to lose the pretty background colours/patterns I’d already created.
Art is the Adventure 