All the little people...

Here are a few pics of the carvings together.

Little People #2

Here is the second little guy, this one is kneeling.

Little People #1

I have been working on "micro"-carving this past week, to complete my heart that i posted earlier. I wanted two little people to sit within the heart cavities. This is the first, as you can see it is only about the size of my thumb.

I stained them both with a cherry colour and then finished them with a gloss varnish.

Sneak Peek...

I thought I'd give everyone a little sneak peek of what Ive been working on this week! Im really happy how it has turned out so far, and im carving a few more pieces to add to it, which im hoping to have done by the end of the week. When its complete i will put up some photo's of the finished product!

New Work! (Finally)

I have finally finished my first mixed media and carving art-piece.

I actually started this piece as a simple mixed media painting/collage, but could never quite get it "finished" it always looked semi-finished.

I finally had an "AHA!" moment, and thought it would be a good place to start adding carving to, so i carved the "frame" pieces. I wanted a distressed look, so i blocked the general shapes out, and then layered lots of paint and crackle medium, heat gunning, sanding and chipping back to add age. I then washed everything with some nickel azo wash to distress.

I glued the pieces on (i did toy with the idea of using rusty wire to secure it, but i dont have any wire at the moment and i didnt want it to end up too busy). At this point i was supposed to have a finished piece, but again it wasnt quite right. The humming bird was originally painted onto the background canvas, but because of the new depth the carvings added, the hummingbird looked like it was falling through the frames, rather than hovering in the foreground as intended.

The hummingbird was now a problem. So I cut it out, canvas-board and all, sanded the edges of both the bird and the background, and painted the cut edges black. I added a second canvas-board, painted entirely black behind the first. I added a small block of wood (also painted black) to the back of the hummingbird, and secured it within the hole from which it was cut. The hummingbird is now slightly higher than the carved pieces, and "hovers" appropriately.

So yay! My first mixed media-caving amalgam! I think im going to use the fairly generic title "Spring-time" for this one.

Eggtastic!

So here are my newest Easter postcards!

The eggs were made from layering scraps of coloured and metallic papers. I cut out the egg shape, gessoed them, and then added the black stamping. I then antiqued the edges to create some dimension to the eggs using sepia and black ink.

I made the backgrounds using the same technique as in the spring rabbits, watercolour pencil with crayon and fluid acrylics on top.

Again, i sewed the egg onto the background and then added some card to the back and sewed that as well.

Then i gel mediumed everything to make it post-safe!

On a side note, I sent the first batch of postcards off to people yesterday...So if you know me you might just be getting one in the mail soon!