Sunday, February 9, 2014

DLP Challenge 4

I promise that I'll have more to write about other than DLP coming up shortly. I thought this week would be easy. Simply write down some quotes that I like, incorporate my saying of the year, which is "life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself" and call it done. Well...I decided it might look cool to stamp the quotes instead of just writing them. And to make it more interesting, I started stamping the quotes in different directions and yes, I did make the mistake of stamping a quote upside down and realizing that the saying would be backwards as soon as I stamped the first letter. Oops. Anyway I stamped the quotes, took me quite a chunk of time to do as well, then decided to go with my iridescent Lumiere paints over the quotes, as they are a bit transparent. Made pretty colors on a messy, stamped background.

Before painting, see how sloppy it is?

After my finger painting

I really wasn't happy about the way this came out, so redo! Instead of sloppy stamping and with the perfectionist in me coming out, I drew lines with a ruler and started writing my quotes over again, in my own handwriting. I've always been conscious of my handwriting, until recently, finding that I'm quite content with my handwriting nowadays. You know after some odd years your handwriting starts to look like "your own"? Well I think I found mine. 



I masked off some key words with some skinny artist's tape and started with some Tim Holtz tissue in some areas, keeping in mind my taped words. Then I went to town with some Lindy's Stamp Gang Starburst sprays through a Finnabair stencil and made some splatters with my Montana markers (can ya tell I love my splatters with my Montana markers?). I was finally satisfied with the way it looked. Challenge 4 down, only 49 more to go!

Thank you for reading, say hi in the comments below!

xoxo
Erika aka MsShutterbugg





DLP Challenge 3

Ah yes, DLP challenge 3, I thought it might be a bit tricky. Ya see, I don't get much mail, never really have, so I thought this challenge might well, pose as a challenge, but alas it was my lucky week as I got bills! Yay for mail, nay for bills. Insert frown here. Then I started open my beloved bills, but yikes! I started opening them from the top when I wanted to open them from the side as to create a pocket, but I quickly realized the error of my ways and started opening them as to have a pocket opening from the top. And no, there was no wocket in my pocket *sad face* but I did look! I didn't know exactly how to embellish my pocket o' mail so it just laid there open on my journal sitting beside me on my desk everyday. I started finding snippets from magazines and laying them down on the envelope and you guessed it, started to collage my envelope. I just kept tearing out images from magazines for my collages and the items that were reasonably sized and that caught my attention more so than other images ended up on my envelope. As it were, it was also the week of my dad's birthday and I just happen to wrap his present in a wrapping paper that I loved and of course, it was one he might like as well. I wanted to repurpose his wrapping paper and use on my envelope as a background for my collage elements. You can't really see the wrapping paper all that well now, but it's there and I know it. I also used some images from a Chipolte paper bag that was used in a package I got in the mail that week. It had some funny images and sayings that I incorporated into my DLP and on the envelope.






Of course I had to put something in the envelope after going through all that trouble to create a slit at the top for a pocket, where there was no wocket. Usually I just use tags to wipe up excess paint from my craft mat, but as it were, none of them turn out all that well so I decided to create a new tag. I started with my Montana paint markers on the front with some splatters and then used ink on the tag on the back. I used some some lace on the side and added FINDING made by my trusty ol' label maker to complete the saying "finding perfect balance." And no, perfect balance was not on the Chipolte bag, it was simply something I cut out from a magazine. And there you have it. 

Thanks for reading,

xoxo
Erika aka MsShutterbugg

DLP Challenge 2

I dreaded the second challenge of DLP: the selfie. *Ugh* I do not like self-portraits, nor do I like photos taken of me. I take the pictures, I prefer not to be in them. I thought of just skipping this challenge, but then I thought might as well suck it up and do it. So I ended up taking a head shot, focusing on my eyes as I find its my most prominent feature. But as soon as I got on the computer and started fiddling around with cropping I decided to just crop to a close up of my face, leaving out my unkept hair. I still wasn't happy, so I started playing with effects. I came across solarization and as this was my favorite technique to do in the darkroom, you know, the place where you, dare I say it, develop pictures! It's sad to think that coming generations will have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. I found the dusky, dark (no pun intended), quiet, lonely darkroom as a happy place for me. I found the smell of chemicals oddly comforting, not quite a soothing fragrance as they are not, but comforting. Back to solarization, I solarized my face and adjusted the settings to my liking and voila! My selfie...



As you can see, this is not exactly your typical selfie pic. I distorted everything with this effect and am quite happy with the results. I used a gelli print on deli paper as my background and added some PL cards (I may not do PL (yet), but I do love the cards) and some shiny ribbon and a mesh sort of ribbon (which I think is awesome) and called 'er done.

To learn more about the Documented Life Project, it's creators and a Facebook group filled with other people's challenges, questions and discussions visit Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thedocumentedlifeproject/ 
Or visit the website that lists weekly challenges and links to the creator's own artwork go to:

Thank you for stopping by & I love to read & respond to comments!

xoxo
Erika aka MsShutterbugg

2014 Documented Life Project, Challenge 1: The Door

The first challenge of Documented Life Project (DLP) was a bit challenging for me (pun intended). I definitely didn't want to do my own door. It's a beautifully decorated door, but for other non-art related reasons I chose not to portray my front door in the DLP. Now I was left with little inspiration and no way out (metaphorically speaking), but I wasn't going to give up on DLP yet. I expressed my frustration on Twitter only to find the inspiration needed from a jolt from a friend. I don't remember her exact wording, but it was now clear to me that I wanted to have a drawbridge leading to doorway into a fortress, perhaps even, to a castle, but my main focus was that beyond the drawbridge, beyond my door was my sanctuary, the ocean. Now I was left to the challenge (no pun intended) of how to convey my vision. I'm a little rusty on my drawing skills and have recently been reintroduced to the ditigal world of art, by ironically the same friend whom led me to my vision as to solution to the door challenge, and thought perhaps, I would start there. I depended on good ol' dependent Google as to search for my drawbridge door. I found a couple that really caught my eye and finally settled upon one that best suited my vision. Now my amateur digital art skills come into play, I do know how to digitally fussy cut an image, in this case to erase the door at the end of the drawbridge, but I also know there is an easier way to do it, however I could not remember, nor did I care to learn the alternative to fussy cut at that time. So I fiddled with my mouse and the trusty eraser tool to, of course, erase the already existing image within the doorway frame. I already knew within my vision that I wanted to use one of my own photographs of the ocean to symbolize my sanctuary as it truly is my place of peace and serenity. Although I was born and raised in Colorado in close proximity to the mountains, my place is among the sand and water not with the rocky, sometimes snowy mountains Colorado is know for. After asking that same friend, you know the one who led me to find a solution to my door dilemma, also assisted me in finding a way to correctly layer and combine the two images to merge flawlessly. While my final result is not really all that flawless, I really think it's good for a digital amateur like me.



I didn't quite like the look of simply printing out the image and pasting it down on the page, so I decide to try my hand at an image transfer. I've had years of experience with them and while the method I choose can be a bit unpredictable, or to me, temperamental, I decided to use gel medium for my transfer technique. I bought a squeeze bottle of Amsterdam Gel Medium and decided to give it a try. I don't know if it was my experience with gel transfer (*laughs* I highly doubt it though) or it was the particular brand of gel medium, but the transfer was just what I wanted, a clear, yet not completely crisp image that was a little rough around the edges. Perfect for the look I was going for. For the color, I felt the strong urge to use Golden's Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold and while it was suggested to me by another arty friend that I could paint the sunset over the ocean, with the way the sun was reflected onto the water, a sunset would not have fit and it would be too tedious a task for me to attempt. I do not have that much patience and are too much of a perfectionist to do a sunset over the ocean that small. I thought I would simply use a watered down primary blue to cover the small photograph tucked into the drawbridge doorway. But I was afraid that wouldn't work and to assure that I could remedy any mistake I was to make with my doorway or with the art piece I coated the entire page with fluid matte medium (Liqiutex), a trick I learned from another arty friend. The dealio is, if you coat your image with fluid matte medium to can take a baby wipe or wet cloth and wipe away the paint while it's still wet.  With all that said and done I was ready for the next DLP challenge, positively convinced I would make the next simple challenge into a hair puller and complicate the heck out of it. But you shall see the next challenge while it's one of my least favorite photographic subject, proved to be mostly an enjoyable experience.

To learn more about the Documented Life Project, it's creators and a Facebook group filled with other people's challenges, questions and discussions visit Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thedocumentedlifeproject/ 
Or visit the website that lists weekly challenges and links to the creator's own artwork go to:

Thanks for visiting, I have lots more blogging material as I am behind in posting

xoxo
Erika aka MsShutterbugg

Thursday, January 16, 2014

To PL or not to PL

This is a daunting question as it is quite an investment. Do I attempt my hand at Project Life (PL) or do I go a different, more personal approach? I have invested some in the PL products; I got the big honkin' binder and some 12 X 12 layout sheets, but I have yet to open them. I also purchased some PL cards from the Becky Higgins line. There are some other PL products on Amazon I have my eye on, but I'm not sure PL is for me. What I've always wanted to do with photographs or to document my life (insert Documented Life Project pun here) is to get an old photograph book, you know the kind with photo corners to insert your photographs, but when I've looked for them, they always seemed so pricey, well in retrospect to the investment needed for PL, it's downright cheap! So...I still need to decide if I attempt PL or find an alternative.