all that glitters...

This week, thanks to enjoying some discounted bottles of iced latte, I thought I'd do something different with the empty bottles. Following the excellent tutorial from Gabrielle Pollacco, I altered the bottles. It was an easy, fun project. I thought I would share my step by step photos to show what I did with the bottles. First, I took the labels off, washed and dried the bottles, then added 2 coats of gesso to each. When the gesso was completely dry, I gave each bottle 2 coats of a pale yellow acrylic paint. When the paint was dry, I went over the necks, base and edges with brown ink, smudging it and blending to give the paint an aged look. Next, I mixed a watery blend of brown and black acrylic paint and splattered the bottles, using a dry brush dipped in the paint. I stamped randomly around the bottles with black ink before adding my decoupage from the first edition Rose Garden pad, plus some of my own had made flowers and tied ribbon around the neck. Et Voilà!

Just a short, sweet update this week as I have had to work (day job) for 6 days in a row, so this is my one day off before I'm back to work tomorrow :( Still, I have made time to finish a couple of wip's so I feel that I have accomplished something! These are 2 more in the All That Glitters series. These are such fun to do. Twinkling water colour backgrounds, bordered with texture paste. The horses are painted in gouache. I love the contrast of the shimmery background and flat mat subject. It shouldn't work, but it does!

Mid summer! My favorite time of year. All the blooms are in full swing. The meadows are full of poppies, dog roses are flowering and raspberries are ripe for picking. I guess that's why my palette has been influenced by pinks, reds and greens this week. The week's medium of choice are the Derwent Inktense Blocks. A wonderful birthday gift :D, along with some other inks and texture paste. Meanwhile, I am not so delighted with the gouache experiment, things didn't really go the way I'd hoped, so I changed direction with it. The oils have now come out to see if they will give me the look I'm after....

Well, Blue-Silver is finished and framed. Next project is a little different and hopefully taking me closer to the vision in my head of what I am trying to portray in my work. The aim has always been to capture movement and grace. Meanwhile, I find myself doodling in my journal whilst I wait for a layer of paint to dry and rekindling my relationship with firefox as my browser since chrome is driving me crazy and won't recognize my scanner grrrrrr!

Butterflies! Well, it is summer and sometimes a diversion from a tricky piece of work is needed. I'm using my h2o's again. These paints are so easy to use and so pretty, I am a bit hooked. May try an equestrian picture with them next if I ever finish my current portrait....

Playing with twinkling h2o watercolours is great fun whilst waiting for the layers of my current work in progress to dry

Not sure where it will take me, but I will post my meanderings. You are very welcome to join me. This week, i have been introduced to Gouche and re kindled my affair with glimmer mists...