Art Retreat with Elizabeth St. Hilaire

I recently had the pleasure of meeting and taking a workshop with Elizabeth St. Hilaire, sponsored by Ooak Artisans Showcase in Syracuse NY. What an awesome weekend with a wonderful group of women!

Honestly, when I signed up for this, I had my doubts about being able to do this collage and keep up with the other students, but my fears were quickly laid to rest. Elizabeth really explains each step and supports us as we work. 

I had homework to do before I left home, and I really felt for my students and the homework I used to assign them!  We had an image of an apple and had to do an underpainting to bring with us. 

My workspace before I started....

I think I packed every DecoArt Fluid Acrylic I had and brought them all to play with! Lots of great colors to choose from.

Here's a sampling of papers I made or altered with the fluid acrylics to use in my collage. I used my gelli plate for a lot of these, and I am loving that tool more and more.

At the end of a long and messy painting day, I just caught the sunset and admired those gorgeous colors!

The "easy" part was collaging the vertical wall design...notice how I got rid of those dots I'd painted!

Then, I started to collage the table and apple's shadow, and began to work on the apple.

Just for comparison...remember my clean work area at the beginning of all this? Well, it was definitely not like that by the end!! I really am a messy artist, and I think it took me a few days before I got all the paint off of me too, lol!

My finished apple collage! I am really proud of how this turned out, especially as I had a lot of self doubt when I began the process. I am thinking I just might frame this one! 

I can see myself making some more papers with my DecoArt Fluid Acrylics and creating more collages, as I really enjoyed this!

Guest Blogger at OOAK Artisans Today!

Hello friends! 

Today I have the honor of being a guest blogger with OOAK Artisan Showcase. 

Shelley Graham Turner, an artist herself is on a mission to share art with people of all ages. I met her at the wonderful Color Crush workshop she organized, and she is brimming with ideas, and she and I both love the color green! Please head on over to OOAK to see what I have made!

I have a friend who is retiring from many years of teaching, and I wanted to create a unique gift for her. A local motel always has great seasonal quotes on their sign, and when I saw this one, I knew I had to make something using it - "Live Life in Full Bloom."

Time to play with flowers and colors! I started with this flower mask and used a palette knife and modeling paste to get the flowers defined. Then, I decided to use the knife and spread more paste randomly on the canvas for textures.

First color layer - greens! We have to start with our favorites, right Shelley?

Next up - oranges!

And I have to include pinks, because my friend loves pink!

Time for some black and lots of stenciling. I love to use a cosmetic sponge with just a bit of the paint and dab through the stencil.

Stencil white flowers over it to add another layer.

Now, for a bit of smudgy green and stamped leaves.

I felt the need to add in more flowers and more pink, so mixed up some pink and smudged it in across the center, let it dry and then stamped.

Since my white flowers disappeared into the background, I stenciled more in again on top, doodled around the big flowers, and dusted them with gold.

Smudged a bit more green in, and more stenciling with the black. I don't know about you, but sometimes I have a hard time knowing when to stop and move on!

Unify it all with a bit of black mister...

I stamped these wonderful face images from my friend Andrea at Snapping Monsters onto 200 lb. watercolor paper, then mixed colors to get a skin tone and hair. As you will see, I then changed my mind and made one with green hair! I also typed the words onto the heavy paper to cut out, edge with black and use.

View so you can see the layering - green girl and words are popped up once, pink girl is popped twice.

Thanks so much for stopping by! 

Be sure to head on over to OOAK and check out all the fabulous inspiration there! And...LIVE LIFE IN FULL BLOOM!

SUPPLIES:

DecoArt Fluid Acrylics - Yellow Green Light, Green Gold, Quinacridone Magenta, Quinacridone Violet, Cadmium Orange Hue, Transparent Yellow Oxide, Titan Buff

DecoArt Americana - Shrimp, Pink Tropics, Razzle Berry, Bright Salmon, Apple Green, Sea Glass, Snow White, Lamp Black

DecoArt Mediums - Ultra Matte Varnish, Modeling Paste, Gold Rush Metallic Lustre, Carbon Black Mister

Stamps - Snapping Monsters Wonder Girls, Carabelle Studio/Birgit Koopsen “There are always flowers’, “The earth has music”

Stencils - Carabelle Studios/Birgit Koopsen “2Flowers”, “1/58”, “Decoupage”, “Fleurs by Azoline”

Other - canvas board, 200 lb. watercolor paper, brushes, palette knife, heat gun, foam tape, Ranger Jet Black Archival ink, typewriter, black pens, baby wipes, cosmetic sponges