Some new bookmarks and a painting in progress

Hi again, wow two posts in one day - i had better calm down a bit LOL.

Here is a painting that I started in a workshop on our True Blue conference a couple of weeks ago. Today I fiddled with it a bit but there is still a lot to go.
It was with an Aussie artist Kathy Van Ee. 

She is a fabulous artist and it is the second workshop I have done with her in the past couple of months. This workshop was a portrait study of a photo that Kathy supplied. It is done using Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine Blue and White using the wipe out technique. I still have a lot of fine details and touching up to to but I was quite pleased with my first portrait painting. it really took me out of my comfort zone as I always say that I am not very good at faces but Kathy really made me see a face differently and she showed us how to pay attention to the little details that in the end make such a difference.

The first photo is the reference photo and step by step photos that Kathy supplied. the second photo is my painting.

 At the moment she has a rather large nose but Kathy said I have the shape correct so I have to adjust that. It also needs more highlights and just more detail. I also liked the way Kathy did her background. We just added odorless solvent to our oils on the brush and let it run. That was a bit scary and I had to stop myself from touching it till it had done its work but I really like the effect.

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 I also made some bookmarks today while I was playing with background papers. They were adaptations of pages I made in my art journal a while ago. Here are the step by step photos

The paper was first painted in stips of Napthol Crimson, Brilliant Magenta and Orange. Sprayed with water and swiped with a credit card. I also pressed over the page with  a daisy patterned paper towel.

1.This is using the end of a cardboard roll dipped in white to stamp.

2.Then I glazed over the stamping with Clear Glaze and Brilliant Magenta and Napthol Crimson

3. Next I used a favourite daisy stamp

4. Here is the stamp. I also used a heart shape brush scrubber as a stamp too with Yellow Deep. They are the yellow dots.

5. Here it is finished with some liner work in Yellow Deep and Pale Gold.

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My next one was with the same background colours but with a different stamp and detailing.

1. a paper stencil for the background pattern

2. This is the background sponged with pale gold

An oriental writing stamp

The stamp was random all over using up the ink each time before restamping.

Added a Peace stamp

The finished page.

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The next one was with Pthalo Blue, Prussian Blue and Diox Purple

Background three colours blended together

Stamped Iridescent Violet with bubble wrap

Used a swirly flourish stamp randomly all over

after the bubble wrap and stamping

then used a birdie stamp set with Pale Gold paint

Finished page.

I have cut them up into bookmark size and tomorrow will write some quotes on the back and laminate them.

Time for a nice long meditation, dinner and then on to painting some Christmas decorations that I will be teaching with a friend at our True Blue Christmas Breakup.

Have a great weekend everyone
Namaste
Lee