Summer Wedding Project

Many apologies for the lack of posting! Summer has officially started and I am swamped! Work is picking up and of course so is the social calendar! But I do have some "creativery" to show you today!

I am creating a nearly lifesize painting of my sister-in-law and her husband-to-be for their wedding in August. This is like a carnival piece where the faces are cut-out and people can put their own faces in the holes and take a picture! I think she is going to use this as a guestbook of sorts. Very cute idea.

So, here are a few photos of my process so far. I began by creating a concept in photoshop using a combination of engagement photos and their wedding colors. Then once I figured out the sizing, I went to buy the "canvas" which is three 2' x 4' masonite boards. I painted them white and my lovely husband helped connect them together giving me a final 4 foot by 6 foot blank canvas!
After they were all hinged together, I projected my sketch and traced it onto the boards. It's so much easier than free-handing something that large. Plus it saves me tons of time.
Unfortunately, I could not paint this the normal way one would begin a painting. Paint the entire background first, then add the foreground on top. My projector isn't very strong and I could not see any of the sketch if I projected it on a purple board...so white it had to be and I will be filling in the spaces with a paint-by-numbers approach.

Since the background is very geometric, I was able to use painter's tape and retain my sanity. This was wall paint and didn't dry as quickly as regular acrylic. I was very anxious to rip off the tape!
I used cheap acrylic paint for the blue banner and boy, does that dry a helluva lot quicker than wall paint! I am experimenting with different blending styles for shadows and highlights. So far I like a rough, sponge effect--not perfectly and smoothly blended. We'll see how it goes.
From here we will disassemble the large canvas into it's 3 smaller pieces. It will be much easier to paint and i won't get so much glare from our lights if I can move it around. I cannot wait to begin painting the figures! I really love to paint and work with traditional mediums. It's a great break from all the computer work I do.

What do you think?? Would a cut-out or painting like this be something you'd enjoy seeing at a wedding or other celebration?

Altered Book #2: "Extraordinary Seeing"

I know it has been a long time coming, but I finally finished my second altered book contribution! I technically should be on my 4th book, but it's hard to coordinate 12 different artists across the country to all be on time! :-) Hopefully I will receive my next book soon!

So this book's cover was a drawing inspired by the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti. The quote on the front said: "Look Within. You are the world." I went online and found a huge archive of quotes and teachings by Krishnamurti and decided to use pieces of a quote in my pages. The quote I found was pretty long, so I just took a few lines from it and designed my art around the concept of the quote.

I started by drawing a body on the pages and using an acrylic wash to add color. Since this quote was about the mind, I chose to doodle a little brain. :-)

Then I added the title, which I got from the quote. "Extraordinary Seeing". I also added some crumpled brown paper (which I had left over from my wedding!)
Finally, I did some stamping and painting to the brown paper to give it some interesting effects.
Here are some pictures of the final piece. I really like how it turned out, and I sort of wish I didn't have to send it away! I am starting my next project which is the large carnival wedding cut out for my sister-in-law's wedding in August. I will definitely post photos of that insane process!!

"Extraordinary Seeing"