Recyle Month - Plastic Shopping Bags

Melting/Fusing Plastic Shopping Bags

Have spent today cutting up those plastic shopping bags and putting together about 8 pieces for each new piece. Have already discovered that the thicker plastic type of bags don't work that well on their own as they melt into my paper and sticks to it. The grocery type of shopping bag works much better if you have about 8 pieces. Just don't leave the iron too long in one spot as you will end up with holes which can give it a good interesting look if that's what you want. So these are today's "fused" pieces. Now ready for the painting part of the process.

Can't believe its been a few weeks since my last painting. I have been getting side tracked with all the normal chores everyone has, going to work and catching up with friends. It seems if you don't make an "actual time" to stop and create art work and be creative then it doesn't happen. There always seems to be something else that has to be done. Before you know it, weeks has gone past and I haven't picked up a paint brush or pencil and am starting to get a bit grumpy! You go through a slump and nothing inspires you or gets you going. How will I ever get better and improve if I don't stop be creative. How will I ever sell anything or make any income out of my hobby if I don't improve and keep going at it. Will I only ever dabble around the edges and never make a go of it. I feel like I don't put enough effort or time in to art to make it all worthwhile.

Anyway - will make the time to play and try new things or improve on the old. Maybe what I should do is give myself monthly challenges and spend that time expanding on the one idea or thought. I start too many things - something doesn't work like want or I get bored - wait for paint to dry and then start something new and don't finish what I started!! Energy going all different directions - no wonder I don't get anywhere.

So right now I am concentrating on using "recycle" things. Currently fusing plastic shopping bags together, painting on them and creating "new" items from them. Will post when I have created a few. Found this idea in my Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazines which I love and have been wanting to try for a while now.

Chilli Painting

Li-Sa and I have not had any more recent challenges - so I have decided to try and finish one of my unfinished paintings that I started a while back. My chillies are from a painting lesson I did where you put together a series of pictures from magazines, move them around and create a new painting from it. I loved these chillies against the blue door. I keep fiddling around with it changing the leaves, etc - trying to decide if it needs more work - still not sure it it does.

Challenge 13 - Before Time

After playing around with building up a few different colours/layers to my abstract landscape this is what I have ended up with. I like the texture of the painting but not fussed on the scene. Have called it "Before Time" as it looks like a time when earth began with weird trees and big birds - didn't end up with my cavemen anywhere. Will put it up and look at it for a while and see what I can change to improve it or maybe just paint over!

Thought I should start and add some paint to my scene, whatever it will be, and see where it leads me. Definitely had birds in a sky, so I painted that. Then I picked out a few images that looked like trees and painted those. The rest of it was going to the ground/scenery - so I painted it green. I am hoping the texture from the plastic printing will create some interest once I add some more layers of paint. Not sure about it yet??

Challenge 13 - An Actual Painting

Have decided to change my headings to which challenge number we are up to. Li-Sa and I thought we should take one or more of the art challenges we have already done and create an actual painting - take a month to work on it. Without any idea I stared at a blank canvas for ages not wanting to create a failure or mess - afraid to start. Decided I liked the white gesso over black with the plastic printed into the gesso to create some texture. Thought I will do plastic men/bird figures and create a scene with cave men and big birds in the sky!! Totally lost my cave men as I got carried away with the plastic creating texture. The brown on my white gesso is from some old plastic I used previously. So now I am staring at a black/white painting wondering what it will become. Maybe a abstract scene with big birds in the sky, trees coming out of the ground???

Week 11 & 12 - Painting A Forest Floor

This is another exercise from the book by Mary Todd Beam. We did this one over a two week period as it had a few steps. I used watercolour paper, watercolours and some acrylic paint. Some leaves were added first using adhesive shelf liner, then washes of watercolour paint to build up the layers of leaves, lifting off techniques to create sticks, laying down of plastic over the wet paint to create more leaves in the layers. After everything dried I pulled off the adhesive shelf liner leaves - unlike Li-Sa I had trouble making my leaves stick where Li-Sa's stuck too well. These leaves are suppose to be the top layer of the forest floor and have more detail in them although it doesn't show too well in the photo. I liked using the shelf liner to create the white which can be painted in after and can see myself exploring this technique further in other paintings.