Mixed media canvas, Bird with ceramic flowers

I wanted to create a palette backround on cardboard, at this art project, and also wanted to find out, how well a canvas surface would this turn out. The cardboard was primered with gesso and black colour, and after drying, was painted with layers of several hues of beige. I was also experimenting with flowers made of air dry clay, and had these hand sculpted roses available. I painted them in colours to match a decoupage napkin. Created some air dry leaves as well. I cut a second cardboard in an oval shape and decoupaged it with a bird on a branch image. Then I stenciled the canvas and created a matching colour for natural bricks result. Finally, the canvas was assemplaged in place. It will remind me the many hours with sparrows flying happily among trees, when the summer heat was giving place to summer afternoons.

Enjoy!

With love,

Green Dot Creations 

Flower journal's Roses, step by step acrylic painting

The black canvas painting book, with the wooden cover I have mentioned in the previous flower painting tutorial, I have decided to be an art journal only with flower paintings' step by step tutorials. I could not capture this flower painting that well, after the shiny varnish was applued at the final painting, so I will take care at next paintings to take the photo before the final varnishing.

I sketched out the roses with a soft pencil, and started the painting using basic colours. Green, red, yellow, black and brown.

...My Art studio is always my happy place....

The first layer was enhanced with shadowing

Then again lighter hues for detailing and highlights

Darker hues from the same palette at the next layer

Light yellow, green and black for the flower's center

Layer after layer using different intonations of greens, and white and yellow for the lining

And there we have the final painting of our roses. Capturing black canvas painting after the varnish layer, I found to be challenge both in daylight and indoors as well.

I am happy with the result!

Enjoy!

With love,

Green Dot Creations

Step by step painting, white flower with oil pastels and acrylics.

The water soluble oil pastels I bought some days ago, just really made me happy. I was amazed to discover how nice do they collaborate with acrylics as well. I have had in my art supplies, a black backround canvas book, bound with a wooden vintage covering, that was for when I would feel flower painting not to be that difficult for me. I sketched out a rough outline of the picture.

The edges were smoothened  with a wooden stick and some paper towel, so that the acrylics could start being applied layer after layer.

I made a watery mixture of colours, chose a brush with with an angle and started painting. Emerald, ochra, a little cadmium scarlet and amber to make the green colour no that cold, and titanium white. 

I kept painting in layers to the final result. 

I decided not to add further to this one, and leave some of the oil pastels' details to be highlighted among the overall paint brushes.

Or would it maybe one more layer be a better idea? While the art book continues, we will find out.

Enjoy!

With lots of love,

Green Dot Creations

Spring Flowers Bouquet in a Vase.

Just in time from spring to summer, between working hours and organising the free time, here is a painting with a vase with spring flowers bouquet. I have taken some photos from the starting to this point of the painting, which I find very likely to be set aside for a future rework. Let' s go through some steps of this painting together.

A basic idea was aligned among the canvas, using simple brushstrokes and intuitively spreading colour around.

Leaves were sketched out to create a 'diagramm' for the flowers.

Next day, I quickly started to add flowers here and there, using basic colours before I had to leave for work.

Same day's afternoon it was that there were added some more details.

Blending and adding, highlighting and shadowing getting happy or not comfortable with the result, was the next step.

Layers later, I could feel that there was no need at present to keep adding. Flowers gave out a vivid result, although there can be alterations at the painting.

I am happy with the result.

Thank you for being here.

Enjoy!

With love,

Green Dot Creations

Art studio adventures: Oil pastels, a quick experiment, a new canvas pad and a surprise!

I needed a canvas pad, and yesterday it was the day that I made my way to the art store. I chose a canvas pad that was affordable and would give me the chance to experiment with a different surface material. For the time being, I seldom use canvases in frames, though one canvas, the details of which I have been working the last week, is almost ready, in a next post. At the art store there was  also a packet of water soluble oil pastels in an offer, so I decided to buy this as well.

Actually, what I was intenting to buy was a pad for mixed media and acrylics, and I chose to try this one, which was in a very good price and seemed to be also of a very good quality.

I returned home and unpackaged the canvas pad and there there was, a big surprise, as, rather than a blank canvas, there were classical  paintings printed in a thicker than a magazine paper, bound next to a canvas  surface of a very good quality, that was guidingly shadowed to the basic scketch of the classical artwork.

I have never experienced such an art excersise before, so I guess I wasn't that much of disappointed. Actually, at this one, which is the first page of this art book, I started a layer with the oil pastels to be complemented and enhanced with acrylic colours. 

I also sketched out a quick scenery for the water soluble paints, to experiment with their potentials and their combining with acrylics. I find them to be a wonderful  material to use for mixed media, and a great way to have fun while practicing art.

I am happy with what was bought at this art store exploration. 

Enjoy!

With love,

Green Dot Creations

May flowers Facebook group's challenge: Poppies

A post for a facebook group's weekly challenge, May flowers, acrylic painting, Poppies.

Have a nice weekend!

With love,

Green Dot Creations

Altered, recycled bottle

As we said in the previous post, air dry clay offers inumerous possibilities. In our every day lives, we always have things that there is no need to discard and can be upcycled into decorative or usable items. I have had a glass bottle thoroughly cleaned and labels removed. I decided to alter it using air dry clay. 

It was a project that took me not that much of a time. I wanted to give the impression of rust to the bottle, and I used blue, brown, copper and black acrylic colours. Of course, layers of varnish to seal the colours and the clay.

I used silicon molds, and molds I have created my self, by using household items pressed into clay, then clay dried and was varnished. It is not as easy to remove clay from a clay mold as it is when you use a silicon mold, though it works. And there I had even more options to decorate my bottłe.

I had also dried flowers from my flower garden, and I had created some ribbon flowers, out of spare ribbon and thread attached to dried branches. A really storytelling bottle was the result. Enjoy!

With lots of love,

Green Dot Creations

Handmade, 100% waterproof vase out of carton and air dry clay, with constructing advice and a waterproofing formula.

Air dry clay is a wonderful material. You can use it to create or embellish whatever crafts you are using your creativity into. Air dry clay gets no bake. That means that there is a challenge to make your objects waterproof at the final result. Of course varnish and acrylics do add to this, however, it could be a disaster to create an air dry clay vase only with acrylics and varnish. So I came up with a formula, using a mixture of pva glue and and a waterproofing material for stones and ceramics I bought from a store with building materials, which i thoroughly incorporated into the clay, being careful to keep the suggested proportions as for the water used to dilute. I made two different clay mixtures with two different consistencies: A more watery and a stiffer one, adding accordingly more of the liquid mixture for a clay mixture that could spread on the armatures of the vase. Next I created the armature out of recycled carton and recycled paper as well as pva glue.

I let it thoroughly dry out. 

At this point, it was a sturdy construction out of carton, I could start to apply my clay mixture at. I picked out some clay molds and started creating embellishments that would have to dry as well. Applied the watery mixtured in layers, letting it to set before each new layer. When I was happy with the layering, I added the embellishments at the vase, and once more I let it dry out and set.

Before I started colouring and shadowing, I applied some more coats of the waterproofing material itself. And then it was time to colour. I wanted to keep the finished result neutral as for the colours, because the flowers are beautifully colourful and a neutral vase would just add to the beauty of flower bouquets. I used acrylic colours, simple and metallic, and aging patinas for an antiquing result. 

A result that is 100% waterproof and truly embellishing. It was a delight when I finally added the flowers. 

Enjoy!

With lots of love,

Green Dot Creations 

Red rose acrylic painting exercise

Green Dot Creations loves flowers. Here is an exercise at the art journal. Warm reds, lively greens and testing brushes for an illustrious acrylic colours painted rose. Enjoy!

Dried botanical flowers, mixed media painting

It was while I was taking care of a flower garden,  that I had a break to observe some wild plants that were removed among the flowers. Others in bouquets, and others pressed between heavy piles of books, for home decoration and for crafting. I have also had this canvas available, that it had been used for another painting and wasn't to be compiled among the finished projects. I used this canvas for mixed media, layering materials I have gathered from the garden, acrylic colours and flowers. I really enjoyed layering the abstract backround, kept a hint from that botanical research, and protected the mixed media canvas with thick layers of varnish. 

With lots of love,

Green Dot Creations

Adventures at the art studio

Art studios are every time different by every different art project. It really doesn' t matter what an art studio you have managed to create. It can be a place in a room, a room or a place. Each art studio adventure experienced, absolutely worths the memory.