Thursday, September 17, 2009

Is It Thursday Already?


Here is one of my miniatures which I've been working on forever. It's 4x4. I drew a portrait of a little girl I sponsor through World Vision. My idea is to use portraits of two of the girls I sponsor along with symbols of their countries ( India and Bolivia), using the colors of their national flags. Each portrait is on gallery wrapped canvas, so on the sides I first glued newspaper stock report pages and then painted over that and added national symbols on top. I did that to contrast our materialistic society with the sparse lives these girls live. Behind her head you can see part of a letter from her that I traced and stamps which I made. But.....while putting a last minute touch on her portrait, I ruined it. I have to do it all over again because I used a permanent magic marker to darken the outline of her head. Stupid, stupid. See how it bled through her shoulder? I already tried to salvage it by cutting her face and now it's uneven. Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!

Below is my first attempt to copy Anne's instructions on a wonderful video I bought from Creative Catalyst Productions. I want to understand everything about her method before I incorporate it into my work. Her instructions in the video couldn't have been clearer. Without a doubt, her video is well worth the money.

Of course, Ann does a lot more than I did here. I'm going to watch the video again tomorrow and add to the notes I took the first time. She shares a lot of information. She stamps over and over her stamps. Believe me, I don't in any way think my example is a hundredth as good as hers!



2 comments:

CHummelKornell said...

Lovely!

alex louisa said...

Hi Deb,

I didn't even notice the black bleeding through until you pointed it out, and it still doesn't look like a mistake to me. I'd say a happy accident! (Love those - they happen a lot round here!) It helps her 'emerge' from the background. And your drawing on her face is fantastic!

I love making stamps too. Must do it more often, since I just bought some Mastercarve to try.

Thought I'd suggest (if you haven't already seen it) Geninne Zlatkis' blog. blogdelanine.blogspot.com

She makes gorgeous hand-carved stamps and combines them with her watercolour bird paintings. A bit of collage too, which you might like! And videos - we like videos!!