Creepy Portrait Phase 3

At this point, I took a table runner that I had laying around and I put it over top of the portrait and then rattle can sprayed white through it in an attempt to make a 'wallpaper' pattern on the back wall of the portrait. Again, forgot to mask the face, so it's over his face as well.

The amount of paint at this point has hidden the X pattern underneath the paper. We're talking about 8-9 layers of paint including the lace pattern here.

Work in layers.....that way you can keep hiding mistakes.

I suppose for the next piece where I use lace, I'll either really cut the pattern on the repeating edge better or just use one whole piece all at once. I really like the effect, but would like to do more with it.

Creepy Portrait Phase 2

The green was just a lay down for colour. After I saw it, I immediately got tired of it and decided to go with a plain white skull. The aura of the white was bugging me so I took a paint brush to it and cartooned the edges a bit, but alas, paint was too wet and it dripped all over....lesson learned again.

In this picture you can still see the tape used to hold the two pieces together in an X pattern. Also, the little tears and rips that happened were something I couldn't fix, and decided to keep. Though those X lines had to go.

A few layers of paint and the next step would clean that all up as you see in later pics.

Creepy Portrait Phase 1

Inspired from Dave Lowe's Design Blog, I decided to try my hand making one of these. Part airbrushing, part sculpture and memory of aging items, this is a practice in a few skills.
Besides, it's Halloween, the time you get to be a kid again.
I started off with a large format of printer paper (18.5" by 24") that I rescued from work. It comes as part of the packaging for one of the supplies I use weekly and I just can't stand throwing out a piece that large. I also had some old political campaign signs that I had laying around (Part of this project is the PURGING of supplies from my room/studio).

I adhered 2 of the signs (coroplast) together to make a piece large enough for the paper. I then took the crumpled up paper, and simply soaked it in a bowl of water, wrung it out and after applying glue stick to the whole of the coroplast, and applying the paper on it. The wet activated the glue stick and kept the wrinkles. The goal here was to keep it looking aged. After rolling a bottle around on it, I got most of the wrinkles to lay flat and hide the seams and rows from the coroplast.

I then put down a layer of black and sketched out the figure ROUGHLY with conte.

Honestly, at this point, I was 6 beers into my night and now remember why I don't start the line work at this STATE of my night....lol.

I remember liking his goofy grin, but starting to dislike the green.

I got the general idea on the board, and that was the goal.

Creative Little Day

Well, let's see what a Holly Homemaker I was today:

Bought some Popsicle moulds and made some refreshing Cranberry-Blueberry-Cherry Flavoured Energy Drink Ice Pops....a modern twist on an old favourite. Plus, I kinda missed them from being a kid. Paid like $0.50 for it, so no real loss.

Started to make some paper mache Pumpkins ( inspired by STOLLOWEEN ). I'll post pics later when they're a bit more done. At this point they have a single layer of paper mache on them and I have them in the oven. Yes, I'm baking my paper mache. I almost sewed myself an apron today the way I was spinning around in the kitchen.

Picked up some Jello Moulds of Halloween forms and made them in eerie Red Raspberry. Then learned the wonderful lesson of 'materials expand when heated, thus sometimes losing the seal on a mould' lesson. Perhaps this was a contributing factor of them being sold for $0.25.

Either way, my other half is off for training for a week, so I've tried to get myself into the 'home-mode' right off the get go. It'll be a good week for me to get all the little things done around the house. Looking to clean out the house a little bit, pump out a few Halloween decorations/props in the week so I can get a start on a scary house.

Speaking of which , I gotta go get some work done on a skeletal/zombie/who knows what it'll be when I'm done Halloween portrait.

Post those pics later tonight/early morning.

Martha

I really just can't describe how happy this picture makes me.......no idea why.......

My expectations ofcommon sense died a little today

>>RANT ALERT<<
After working on a sprained ankle with a strained Achilles Tendon for 3 days, I was finally granted a day off from work to rest it so that I may come back with the strength to perform my duties. My day was an incessant string of calls from people who chose not to think.
What good is a day of rest if it is spent doing what you do, just from somewhere else? Then again, God had a day off, but he spent it around his work too.
But I'll bet you a bucket of chicken he turned his ringer off.

one month, no post.....life is pretty crazy.

Grandfather died. Witnessed a suicide on the way to the funeral. Spent much needed time with my family. Lost a fellow employee. Covered those shifts in a 20 day consecutive working extravaganza. Continue working two positions on my own. Sprained Achilles tendon and ankle. Not during work hours, but rather on my way home from said working hours. Someone bought me a free coffee today. Got a little smile. My boyfriend is one step down from a god for putting up with me during this whole time of change. Bigger smile.