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

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

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

Upcycling with acrylics and clay

In our every day lives we constantly have items around the house, that are too useful to be thrown away, in need of decorative value however. Recycling and upcycling plays a significant role in arts and crafts. It is a chance for every crafter to reduce costs and effort, and what is more important, to be in thought and in a caring deed for the enviroment of our planet and the own person's ecological footprint. The results can be amazing. Each artist can use the art materials of preferrence to result in either usable or decorative items practicing the creative imagination. In this post, I am sharing a hint to what we are going to be seeing in the next posts of this blog, apart from paintings and step by step tutorials. In the photo shared there are containers of every day items transformed with the help of air dry clay and acrylics, an altered bottle covered with air dry clay, and a waterproof vase made out of carton and the same art materials again, air dry clay and acrylics, made with a homade formula enhanced with building materials, easy to find, cheap and absolutely effective. I am going to be sharing this art recipe with you, among with pictures from scratch to finish. 

Stay tuned!

Love to see you around! 

Green Dot Creations