Spring Blossoms 12"x16"

I have just completed this latest piece. Have been wanting to do a tree sort of like a Cherry Blossom for awhile as my favorite time of year is Spring when they are in full bloom. Growing up near Vancouver (BC) was a treat and I am sure this is not the last time I will do one! I realize that in most cases Cherry Blossom tree leaves are usually deep purple but I am not one to necessarily follow the realms of reality (and I know there are some varieties with green leaves too). Besides, these days with the economic situation pressing in our wallets too I try to use what paper I have on hand before ordering any new stuff. I had been itching to try out the gilded batik I purchased a couple of months ago and had it in mind already.

I love this piece. Well, the tree anyway, not so pleased with the ground cover flowers this time but too late to go back now. I drew and cut this tree from kraft paper cardstock. Used a crackle patterned stamp for the bark and then went back with acrylic paints and a tiny brush for the rest of the details. The leaves are made from gilded silver deep lime green 100gsm batik and hunter green 100gsm batik. The blossoms are made from 100 gsm victorian rose batik.

I am still perplexed by the varying feel of the batik papers. I can order a dozen sheets in varying colours but the same gsm and some just feel different and lighter. I can't always use the lighter ones as they won't punch easily and that drives me crazy. This was the case with the Hunter Green and I spent too much frustrating time while trying to punch what I needed (deep sighs and small pieces of paper don't mix!). I would rather use a different paper since most batiks bleed when I gloss coat them but I have yet to find another paper that is in the same price range, punches as well and has the lovely subtle textural (looking) pattern that they have. If you have any suggestions let me know.

The sky was painted with 3 pieces of tissue overlayment. I like the tissue for its addition of texture (creases and such) and the fact that it tones down the colour a bit but if you make a mistake - FORGET IT! Pulling it off once its soaked with modge podge is an icky mess of soggy paper and glue everywhere! I would like to find another paper for this as well but so far nothing else gives quite the same effect. I will keep searching to see if something else I deem worthy is out there but in the meantime I'll stick with the tissue.

The ground is once again 3 colours of 15o gsm green textured mulberry with yellow batik torn into tiny, tiny pieces for the ground cover. As I mentioned before I was not so happy with the result of that on this one. I need to find a better paper to work with and play around with my technique some more.

Cards

I always have a hard time translating my work onto something a little more commercial. I have a friend who makes beautiful cards, always simple but, man, does she know her colours, patterns, etc. and what will go with what! Sense the tiny bit of envy. Alas, I am not much of a card maker but I do find that they work best when I put what I do into them. Here are a couple of examples of the cards I have made using my trees (branches). They are 5 1/2"x 5 1/2" and I use brown, recycled kraft paper envelopes to go with them.

Autumn - 11" x 14"

This is my first piece after the big 18" x 24" so I was able to incorporate some of the lessons learned. This is my first attempt at doing a stormy sky and I have to say I was quite pleased. I painted the canvas board with a medium to light gray acrylic and then slowly began to add torn pieces of tissue, mulberry and other fibrous paper mostly in white but also some gray-blue as well. Some papers had a bit of a yellowish tinge to them (which wasn't really noticeable until they were applied to the piece) but I was able to cover the bad spots with other papers as I built the sky. I really love how the glue and gloss affected most of the papers, giving the clouds a much more real and textural effect. I was saddened to find out my supplier for the best of this paper cannot get it anymore and can't find out who their suppliers source was. Hope I don't have to buy it online too but after checking 2 of the 3 other store options with no luck it looks like I might.

I have posted pictures of this piece before and after I added leaves since it could be done either way. This is the first tree I have drawn completely freehand, which is great! Cuts my prep time way down from my previous process.

Photo quality :o(

I have to say I am not thrilled about the photo quality of any of my pieces (the two night sky ones aren't too bad). Doesn't seem to matter what I try, they never seem to come out that great. Someone commented today that the photos do not do the original justice and I completely agree. I had sent them a picture but they came by today and saw it for the first time. I am not sure if I will ever be able to convey the textural quality of my pieces through photographs but I am sure I can do a heck of a lot better. Might be time to invest in a better camera.

Spring Tree Trio - 18"x24"

This is my first big baby. Unlike all the others tree/branch pieces, that were much more simple, this one I worked on off and on for over 2 months. There are a few visible problems and I may never try to sell this piece but overall I was pretty thrilled with the results.

The sky was painted with the same colour of acrylic blue but I slowly added white as I got closer to the ground, once finished I overlaid with a layer of tissue. I used 3 different colours of green textured mulberry (150 gsm) for the ground and tore it to the right shapes for a softer, grassier looking edge. The trees were cut, once again from a standard brown cardstock,if all the leaves fell off, there would still be trees with ALL the branches underneath, I do this to get a more real, organic feel with the leaves and then accents were added with acrylic paints. The leaves are two different colours of Indian Batik (100 gsm) punched with a craft paper punch. Flowers on the trees were punched from a pearlescent white paper and accented with paint in the middle. The clouds were a white fibery paper torn by hand. The ground cover was tiny torn pieces of yellow batik.

Major lessons learned on this piece

1) If you are overlapping mulberry be sure that the pieces underneath cover the entire area of ground all the way to the bottom of the piece. I used lighter greens over darker greens and you could see the lines from the paper underneath (easily remedied next time).
2) Mulberry is very absorbent, ended up with weird discolourations from the glue all around where the ground cover flowers (yellow) are. Coat the ground with acrylic gloss first to get a more even look of the mulberry, that way, when you go to add the flowers the glue won't soak into the paper thus avoiding the weird glue discolourations.
3) TEST your paper. Some papers' colours will bleed. I almost ruined the whole thing by applying the gloss on the trees finding the green of the leaves bleeding into the blue of the sky. Quickly switched tactics to just applying the gloss on the tree, letting it dry and then applying coats of gloss to the entire picture once it had dried and sealed. Next time will either gloss the whole background first so I can wipe off any colour bleeding without any trouble or gloss the entire tree before applying it to the piece - whichever works better for on the next occasion.

Night Skies and Black Silhouettes 9"x12", 11"x14"

Two pieces - I painted the night sky with acrylic navy blue paint and then used a very fine tip embossing tool to dip in paint and added stars using a pearlescent white acrylic. Then overlaid with white tissue. I cut the trees from standard black cardstock, and cut the moons from a natural white, fibery paper (same as white flower). The ground on the second piece was done with a gray blue fiber paper and a white fiber paper. Both were finished with 2 coats of UV gloss.

Spring Blossom Branch Pair - 2, 6" x 8"

I have now switched to canvas boards. This is my first attempt at a pair, branches, etc.

The background is two layers of tissue - first turqoise, then white to tone it down. Tissue goes fairly clear once put on glue, and I like the textural look I get from the paper creasing in areas. The branches are cut from standard brown cardstock and painted with acrylic paint accents. The leaves are punched from an 100 gsm indian batik. The blossoms are also an indian batik with 3 small white beads as the center of each. UV acrylic gloss to coat.

Second Flower - 11 1/2" x 11 1/2"

Loved the paper for the petals on this one much more than the last one. Used a natural, uneven, fibery paper. I only had to put 4 coats of modge-podge total on this one to get the desired texture and mallability and I really liked the way the glue affected the paper. The yellow center has a lot more dimension. I also like using the brown craft paper for the branch more than the previous flower, it gave it a more natural branch look. I was not overly thrilled with the way I painted the branch but will try something different next time. I did however make the mistake of using a wet glue to adhere the background paper to the cardboard I used as the backer and that caused the backer to bubble. Note to self - use spray adhesive to adhere full sheets of paper to anything that will absorb glue.

First Project - first lessons

My first paper art piece is was inspired by my mom and was the first paper art piece I made. I am not generally a flower kind of person but thought this would be an interesting first test of the ideas in my head.

It is 5 deep red, 24 petal flowers on a teal background with green vines and leaves. The petals were coated with matte modge-podge and the final piece was given 2 coats of UV acrylic gloss.

The flowers were by far the hardest part of the project and were meant to be the showcase. I made all the templates from scratch, cut each petal out by hand, coated each one (all 120 of them) with 8 layers of modge-podge 4 on front, 4 on the back, folded and shaped each petal, and glued them on. Including drying time I could even guess how many hours this took (first time remember!). I do not know the gsm of the petal paper but I would guess 35 to 50 (pretty thin).

The centers of the flowers were made with just standard black cardstock cut into 1/4 inch strips. The smallest one was made from 2 1/2 feet of paper, the largest about 4 feet. I used the quilling technique to wind the paper up into the centers but cut the paper every 1/8" (approximate - I didn't measure) beforehand.

Things I would do differently:

1) Use thicker paper for the petals to cut down layers of modge-podge and thus less waiting for glue to dry.

2) Was not overly happy about the vines, think I will try a different colour next time, perhaps more brown.

3) I would put the acrylic gloss on the background teal colour before applying any of the other components to prevent bleeding of colour onto other parts of the project.

Overall I didn't love the end result of this piece but learned a lot about building a flower. I have no idea how well the shape of the flowers will hold up over time I guess we'll see.