Life Book Week 6 Spray Inks

This weeks lesson was by Tam and focused on using spray inks such as Dylusions. I decided to make my own inks using pigment ink crystals and water and they seem to have given me a similar result. I wanted to create hair with stars and while Tam used a stencil for her flowery hair, I decided to use stamps that I'd made. I tried to graduate the colour from the vivid ink to a muted softer shade using chalks. I wanted my face to look skywards and spent some time thinking about feature placement and the angle of the neck. I do seem to be getting better at this...

As usual the camera doesnt do justice to the colours or pick up the glimmers of the mica paint I used in the hair.

Note to self.... Seal chalk with fixative before drawing over as managed to smudge lead and chalk all over the face!








Tam gave us a composition warm up to get use to the ink qualities and to learn about the rule of thirds and hot spots for placing key features. Especially loved the Autumnal colours as they reminded me of beautiful leaves.

Life Book Week 5 Candy Diva Marieks Blokland.

This was such a fun project! The features of the basic head were exaggerated and completely none proportional. I went for a liquorice wheel hair do with a Candy floss top knot. The background was particularly inspiring with many layeers of medium and paint. This was my first experience with black gesso and I loved the almost chalkboard texture that it gave me to begin with. She is simply funky...

My Candy Diva

Life Book Week 4 Kelly Hoernig

                                                                For Life Book's week 4 , we had to create a multi layered journal page using three of our favourite things; I chose driftwood, shells and a mermaid. I especially liked using scrim like a net under the faux wood, which was made by distressing a piece of thick textured paper. The shells came from Portugal and I dotted the piece with pearl beads. The larger quote was by Anais Nin. Everyone who did this exercise, couldnt believe how much 'stuff' was got out and the mess we made.

Week 4 Ocean

Prismacolour pencil crayons with Suzi Blu

This is my first attempt at a Suzi Blu face, shaded using Prismacolour. The exercise is from Mixed Media Alchemy, Workshop1 Gypsy Girl. The crayons are quite waxy and unlike anything I've worked with before in that they blend using colourless or the white crayon. The head is created on photocopier paper and then cut out and stuck to a canvas board background, before the hair and backdrop are created with paint and spray inks.

Shading finished.

Shading begins....