Creatively Made Portrait

Although Creatively Made has technically started it's fourth week, I have just completed some work from week 2. This week was three lessons : vintage hardware art, marks-all pencil paintings, and portraits.

Each of the three involve using what Jeanne calls a marks-all pencil by Stabilo (Stabilo water soluble graphite pencils, I think.. Bascially, this pencil writes on anything. Then, when you use water in it, it becomes paint-like.

And just to remind you, each week has three art lessons, as well as thoughts from Jeanne and other artists. Week two's topics: Change your perspective; Perspective changes; Keep them close;  Accept your beauty; and The grass really isn't greener on the other side.

One of the really great lessons I have taken away from all of this so far, is that this art style doesn't have to be mine. But that doesn't mean that I can't try it, and work at it. It's hard to do something that feels so different. None of us like to try things that we aren't good at, right?

Layering, in general, is very hard for me. My style is pretty simple. This piece came one. stinkin. thing. at a time! It was like pulling teeth. And no, it's not great, but it is a start. I love the way the pencils turn into liquid.

After making the background, I printed out a photo that I liked. Then I scribbled on the back with charcoal to make my own tracing paper. I applied the image where I wanted, and then traced it.

This is the finished product, but if you look on the image to the left, you can see how I traced over the lines.

Ugh. I hated it. I tried to go over it with the Stabilo pencil (mine is thick and looks like a black crayon). I hated it even more. Oh, it as awful. So I painted over it and decided to start over. Or, maybe wasn't going to even do it again.

I watched the vidoes again, to see where I went wrong. Then I decided to just try it again. So, I got out the Stabilo crayon and traced over the pattern that was still showing through. Then I got a wet paint brush and gently started to moisten the pencil. it turns into paint!! It's awesome.

I did the quote the same way as I did the tracing. I printed out a font that I liked, blackened the back with charcoal, and traced. Then, I went over it with a fine black Sharpie pen. I could have tried black paint, but I didn't have a super thin brush.

So, here she is. The dogwood flowers are cut from vintage wallpaper, washed with a cream paints, then highlighted with a white thick paint pen and charcoal.

 Enjoy!