lara

A co-worker of mine who has seen a few of the cards i make for friends asked if she could commission me to make a birthday card for a friend of hers. After some thought i accepted which planted a little seed of idea in the old mind grapes...

Anyways, i asked her what her friend likes to do and colors and she said she likes to dance and loves bright colors... and this is what i came up with!



The background is gelli plate printing. This is one of those "throw away" prints i thought sucked because it was too busy and i just completely over did it, but good thing i've learned to never throw anything away because it worked perfectly as a backdrop for the other imagery i put on it!



See? The subtle design blends into the back as i layered light molding paste mixed with color pigments through stencils over the top. I actually dont believe i've ever done two layers of stencils with molding paste and since i let the first dry completely it worked like a charm!



The dancer was created using my, now, coveted, technique of glass bead gel and dylusions ink spray. I think i found my niche y'all! I also cut up another "throw away" gelli print to put as a shadow behind the silhouette adding extra depth and layer.

To finish it all off i added one of my all time favorite quotes (handwritten!!!!) and used the staples in double duty - to adhere the piece as well as provide a bit of a border/stop for the eye.

So, yeah, i'm thinking of taking commissions for more cards now. It's fun being stretched, and really i have discovered i am most inspired when i am creating something for someone specific.

More to come....????

This project is featured over at Gauche Alchemy today!

Me so love Golden Glass Bead Gel + Dylusions Ink Spray!



And me so love Gelli Printing and Stencilling!



LOVE!

This is one of my favorites now. I found this quote one day on facebook and already had the background done without the white splotches and start stamping. When i saw the quote i knew where it had to live. And it rings so true for me. The balance of life, experiences, emotions. I love the way the colors are dark with peaks of bright.

I finished it off with the white splotches with the Dylusions Spray Ink in White. Worked perfectly!



All the paint layers added some really interesting texture!
Obviously, Im still loving these painted layer backgrounds i've been exploring.
90% are made from cleaning my brayer between Gelli plate layers :)




A topic i keep revisiting is fear, and on this day it occurred to me one of biggest fears on a day to day basis (besides snakes and a loved one dying) is failure. I feel like i am constantly working towards something successful but quit at the last minute. Am i afraid to succeed or fail is the question. Seth Apter's stencils pulled this one all together.




The background on this page truly is a catch all for cleaning my shit off. Whether is be cleaning a stencil of extra paint, using excess paint through some punchinella or another stencil so not to waste it. its been a couple of months in the making and was so dark and chaotic i didnt know how i could ever use it.

For the last two months i've been sidelined by some internal health issues which has basically put me back at step zero at the gym. And i was doing really well for about six months, going to bootcamps 3-4 times a week. But now that i am starting back i find i have lost so much of my strength and conditioning. Like an insane amount of conditioning and it feels horrible and some days even impedes me from wanting to get up and work out.

I took some photos of myself boxing to see just how crappy i look and whether it looks like a joke that i am even attempting to box, but after i saw a couple of the photos (not all mind you), i thought to myself "this fatty can kick some ass!" I got on pinterest as i have been doing to look for motivational fitness quotes and found the perfect one for where i am at "everything is hard before it's easy" because thats exactly how it feels every time i step foot into the gym. I made my own meme with one of the boxing photos. And so it wouldnt just live on my computer or on facebook, i printed it and incorporated it into this page. That target in the center works perfectly.




Lastly a vertical page, which i rarely rarely do! This was mostly to test out the Dylusions sprays through different stencils. Again, the words jumped out at me one day and i wrote them down to remember them. I was able to mask the area off and stencil around them. Again, with the fear... but more importantly ... again with the hopes and dreams!