‘The Bigger Picture’

 Life through a marble series

Acrylic & Watercolour paint, with permanent marker.

Although my theme is ‘Life Through A Marble’ I went off a little on a tangent with this one…

I found some old mountboard in my Dad’s attic, from the days that he used to be a picture framer… and one of those mountboards had a perfectly cut round (marble shape) in it.   I took it and decided that one way or another I would use it.

Then it got me thinking…. What if that was the only view you could see, yet there was so much more going on?

I decided that this would be my inspiration.

Using the hole as a template, I drew a cartoon style earth… and around that earth I drew destruction, despair, damage, and death.

Ice melts, trees dying, pollution, plastic in oceans, overuse of fossil fuel.

I showed the earth heating up and therefore melting.

Animals crying, flowers dying…. What have we done?

I painted the earth in bright metallic acrylic paint, with a shimmer so it looks vibrant and exciting.  Then I painted the background in water colours, quite washed out, so it looks drab and dull and lifeless.

I edged it all in a marker pen for a cartoon like quality.

I drew features on the earth so it either looked happy or sad, depending which way you viewed it.

 Once the drawing and painting was complete, I could lay the black mountboard on top with the hole cut out so you could only see the ‘happy face’ earth.  

Then I added the question…

“Can YOU see the bigger picture?”

Once the mountboard was flipped over then you saw a ‘sad face’ earth.

Then once you remove the black mountboard from the top, you see the whole picture….

Anniversary Special Workshops - Abstract Art

As it is the first year anniversary of The Shed, I thought I would offer some really cheap workshops - 1: To say thank you to all those who have paid for classes and supported The Shed this year, and 2: To try and get new people to try some taster sessions to see what we offer in the workshop.

The first of these classes was to make a funky piece of abstract art.

First of all we covered an art canvas in acrylic metallic paint - I am a huge fan of metallic paint, it just seems to add a whole new dimension to anything you use it on, and who doesn't love a little bit of shimmer and shine?

Then, once that was dry, we added blobby lines with a hot glue gun.  You don't have to have a perfect line with this, the raggier the better I think.

A final coat of paint over the glue finished the pieces off, and ta-dah,  perfect wall art!

There are loads of possibilities with this technique, try it for yourself.

Mandala Art Class

Here in The Shed we have ran a couple of Mandala Art classes.

As I have freely admitted previously, I don't do art, so I work with Marie Lawrence who delivers the class in The Shed for me.

These seem really popular, and the best bit is, you don't need to be an artist to create these fabulous pieces of work.

Marie takes people through the design part step-by-step, and they get to practise shapes and patterns on paper before moving onto the canvas.  She brings loads of inspirational pieces with her for people to use within their own work.

And you truly don't need to be an artist before you attend, just look at the work produced.

If you fancy this class, then keep an eye on the website for the next one coming soon.....

www.soozintheshed.co.uk/store/

Stencilling with Doilies

Did you ever play with doilies and felt tipped pens as a youngster?   I remember my parents going to parties and often bringing my sister and I back a doily each to colour in.   Sometimes they would have grease marks on them, so I guess they tool them from the empty plates once the buffet was done  :)

They were such great fun to colour in, and to colour through the gaps onto plain paper, until the doily actually fell apart in the end due to overuse.

So, I thought I might relive it, in a slightly different way.

I took a stretched canvas, some different patterned doilies, some acrylic paints and a small brush and started to play.

The paint dried quite quickly to I could peel back the doily and re-use it.  I used a couple alternatively to make sure they were perfectly dry before re-using though so there was no colour bleeding.

I am thinking that young folks might like this, it should keep them busy for a while and make a pretty wall hanging for their rooms too!!  (Or a nice gift for a relative).

A Mandala Colouring Book

I got a lovely post Christmas gift from one of my DIL's - Marie.   She is arty farty like me so I get what she likes and she gets what I like - she buys such great gifts!

Anyway, this is it.  The Mandalas colouring book.  

A lovely thick, large book with loads of patterns.  You can find it HERE if you fancy one for yourself.

When I was much younger, I used to look forward to the Altair colouring books that Santa used to deposit each year in my stocking - always with a fresh set of felt-tipped pens, or pencils.  Nothing quite as nice as new pens and pencils.

I wanted a vibrant, bright look, so opted to use my fine-line Sharpies - but this meant sacrificying the other side of the page with it's equally lovely pattern, as the ink bled through.  (I put a sheet of paper underneath to save it bleeding any further into the next page.)

I just went with what felt good, and it felt good to just add one colour at a time and see where it took me.

Orange...

Dark green...

Yellow... 

Turquoise blue...

Purple...

Cerise...

Red...

Lime green...

I think that is a good place to leave this particular pattern.   It has taken me a good few hours to complete.

There was a piece of colour missing though, did you spot it?   It was missing from the yellow section, and I finally found it when adding the cerise parts  :)

You should treat yourself to a grown up colouring book, it's very therapeutic   ;)



ps: The Amazon links I've scattered throughout the page are affiliated  if you click and buy I might get a few pennies.