LOST THE PLOT

Okay so we are invisible, blown away with the leaves.  Dale is packing to visit England and I am being an Ostrich.  I have done this

Using a Pitt pen, Zentangled leaves, out of my head, yep they look really childish but are a great resource for this...

I have extracted sections by placing a cut out mask over the previous sketch, these thumbnails could be the start of a new piece - could I said....

I messed around - if you look closely (click the image) I have printed a leaf in white onto the Khadi paper, the cut out leaf is an experiment with acrylic inks in blobs left overnight, it has remained raised which would make a fab rubbing surface - I might .....

Now this is wonderful & of course it took much longer than 5 minutes, but if you add up the 5 minutes owing, I figure half an hour is due.  These are actual leaves and there are multiple layers & colours

Okay so I got carried away, this is printing & using the leaf as a mask I seem to have developed a love of using masks whilst doing these brain challenges.  See what happens when you make yourself do something.
I still have to go into the garden and sketch, My lime green Acer is just begging to be sketched, I hope that its sunny tomorrow and huge chunks of my day wont be taken up with washing!!!

A good idea would be to print off one of the above images and use it as a created paper to cut out the shapes in the little thumbnails.  If it wasnt half past ten at night I might just do it (hmmm - sleep or not to sleep) x

SORRY

Be back soon x
Me too - just showing we are both human......

Dale's Mask

Here is my mask almost on time... I sprayed the background with some of my luscious sprays over a stencil and then laid my leaf on top. No repostional glue for me - it was fingers down. It very much looks like it is in the bush and I couldn't resist popping the leaf on top - it now is a very nice colour. There is a lot of grey-green in Australia so I feel the grey is highly suitable. There are more greens in the colour palette than any other colour and whenever I see a landscape I am aware of this.

MASK

I decided today that the leaf would be used as a mask.

The background has been sprayed with Dales sprays first, then the leaf sprayed with repositional spray mount and then splattered over with acrylic paint

I love the broken edge of the leaf

dale's rubbings plus

definitely Friday and Sunday rolled into one - no excuse except that the rugby world cup started

 First I did a rubbing using Tissutex which had been sprayed with Moonshadow Mist - it sort of worked.

Then because I am playing with bleach for a different activity, I printed with the leaf onto a black paper napkin - an interesting result from what I thought it would do.

RUBBING

Friday & Sunday rolled into one.  Rubbings with Inktense blocks, Graphitint & Sennelier Oil pastel. In black & white.  I added some sparkly bits

Here is a close up

wash on leaf

I have been playing qwith various inks today but this is rather interesting. My leaf drawing was originally done with neocolours but dry - I didn't add water to them. over the top I have painted black Quink ink and wiped it with a Qantas Club paper towel (people who have done workshops with me or been to my talks at shows will know what these are) and it has ended up rather like a leaf in the undergrowth. I am pleased with it really.

WASH

Being a bit pushed for time - due to the impending start back to work & the lesson planning.  I decided that the crayon drawing from Sunday should be washed over.  That was our only criteria.  Don't know what Dale has done, but here is my tale.
I was going to wash with Indian ink, which I have done many times before.  If you have been following my main blog you will know that I have had a massive studio tidy.  Whilst doing this I found 2 bottles of ink. Quink ink, blue & black in their boxes. I chucked the boxes and tidied with the Indian ink.  So on opening the drawer there they were.  Ah Ha I shall use this instead
Of course it has different properties to Indian ink, I know how long to leave that one before washing off.

Good job my crayoning was on Khadi paper as I had to rip the drawing out of the book & stick it under the tap and scrub it
To photograph it I needed to outline the leaf in white gel pen.  Deep dark & moody.  Is this a triumph or disaster?? what do you think?

As it is no longer attached to the book I could stitch it, but I have some other ideas

Back on Friday

DANDELION LEAF

We have some lovely dandelion leaves, my daughter used to keep Guinea pigs and they love these leaves so we encouraged them around the edges of the garden & in the wild area.  I love them as leaves and flowers.  I wonder whoever decided that they were weeds?  I also love Daisys in the lawn and beautiful Buttercups,.
So here is my childrens crayon offering.  I used my medium Khadi book, which has always fallen apart

I slipped a grid under the right hand piece & the circular marks on the left are from work on the other side of the page.

5 minutes manic crayoning was huge fun

Leaves from Dale

I have many eucalytpus leaves in my garden so my choice is made for me. These ones are just hanging about on one of the trees.

I chose one - it has a few holes and of course leaves are never perfect even though everyone thinks they are. They get eaten, they get attacked, they just fall apart.

Another of the very quick 5 minutes using crayons I do believe was the brief. Trying hard to show the holes - at least I got the shape okay.

I hope we are allowed to stitch this month - leaves are great for layering and working on Romeo - especially when you get to the disintegration side of things. I especially like it when leaves break down - these ones take some time though and hang around in our back garden for ages until we sweep them up so might need some encouragement.

LEAVES

If you have been following this blog since the beginning you will remember this picture

By William Morris & the story of the flower / leaf.  This month is all about leaves so I thought I would start with a re-visit to this fabulous textile

The famous Acanthus leaf, that is actually around 25 inches, huge.  Unfortunately I dont have a real one of these leaves.  But I do have large dandelion leaves which actually look a bit like these

Please return tomorrow to see what I have done with this leaf, I shall pretend its an acanthus!

LEAF BE HAVING YOU

Grand announcement - this months theme is:  LEAVES

We will commence when Dale returns from her holiday, please check back for the new set of ideas from the troublesome two x