Category: mixed media

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Shop update, December 2017

Hi ho art friends.

As I mentioned before, I love on-line art classes.  I tend to choose classes with lifetime access, which allows me to take the class as time permits.  One of the classes I signed up for a while ago is Jenniebellie’s Rock Your Online Shop ecourse. I downloaded all the workbooks, but never got around to working through it.

Until this month.  There are several reasons I like Jenniebellie’s teaching style: she is honest yet kind; she gives you information and prompts but you have to do the work; and she is successful as an artist.

I have worked through the first lesson, which is about taking stock, on-line shop options, and the like. The piece of advice I’m implementing now, and the reason for today’s post, has to do with having multiple online shops.

I have this blog and a Society6 shop. Society6 has frequent sales and I have been a bit frustrated trying to promote both shops because I was offering the same prints in both shops.

The result of Lesson 1 of Rock Your Online Shop:  original mixed media art and mixed media art prints are for sale on this website; my photographic art prints will be for sale only on my Society6 shop.

The shop on this site is still a work in progress.  It is a Premium account on WordPress.com and we are not allowed to have a shopping cart style shop.  I’ve had to do quite a lot of paypal work and create some one-of blog posts to set up shop here. I’m not completely happy with it, but I’m tweaking here and there. I suspect at some point, I will need to convert to a self-hosted WordPress.org website, but that will involve more work than I am able to put in right now.

What I’m hoping to do, if it’s possible is to have a page on this site with a photo of each art work that you click and are taken to the related blog post to buy the piece of art. Might not be possible or it could be really complicated – I haven’t investigated.

I’ve also created a Pinterest board to show all my current art for sale.

So stayed tune and have a bit of patience with me as I learn my way through this, one step at a time.

Jenniebellie’s class is good so far. I’ll post future updates as I work through it.

Happy arting!

 

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Minimalist page

Hi ho artsy friends.

I’ve had some trepidation working on some of the pages in my large Dylusions journal because I really love the way the backgrounds turned out.

I was flipping through one my old Somerset Studio magazines recently and was inspired by an article featuring Jodi Ohl’s works.  I love her imagery and wanted to try another minimalist style page.

minimalistpage-tenukihandcrafts

This page features Dylusions and Distress spray inks, Dyan’s ghosting technique with one of my stencils, black Stabilo All pencil (activated with water) and the fine point Posca white pen. I really like the textures on this page.

You can probably expect to see more minimalist pages…when I manage over surpress the urge to fill every square inch with collage, stamps, doodles, etc.

Happy arting!

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Dragonfly art doll

Hi artsy friends.

I don’t know about you, but I get restless with just making the same kind of art.  I’ve enjoyed making art dolls and picked up a few new patterns recently and started with this doll, Cecily.  I purchased the pdf pattern from the NLH Designs Etsy shop.

Cecily is a steampunk dragonfly art doll, about 16 inches tall.  She is a fairly simple doll, with minimal joints. The instructions are easy to follow and she is pretty quick to sew up.  The stuffing takes a long time and I have to admit that I over-stuffed her a bit and popped a couple of seams in the process, including her filtrum.  Poor thing.  The nose is needlesculpted.

dragonflyartdoll-tenukihandcrafts.jpg

I followed my own face style for painting the face, using Prisma pencils, gel pens, Pitt pens. I didn’t seal her face because, well, I popped the seam. Didn’t seem to be much point, really.

I used faux fur for her hair, that was cut in sections and sewn directly on her head. I made the dragonfly wings, following the instructions but haven’t assembled and attached them yet.

Even with her flaws, I think she’s pretty cute.

I am enjoying this process, but I need to plan ahead when I make the next one.  The sewing and stuffing is rather tough on my hands. I’m going to have to spread the work out over several weekends: cut and sew several heads and bodies; stuff on another weekend; paint faces; assemble dolls; make outfits; make accessories.

I see a box full of soft, art doll body parts in my future.

Once my hands recover and I finish Cecily, I’ll post the final photos.

Happy arting!

 

 

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White text obsession

Hi ho art friends.

A while ago, I picked up Danielle Donaldson’s “Creative Girl” book, which started my enchantment with drawing tiny, wonky houses and using a white acrylic pen on dark backgrounds.

It occurred to me that I should try using a white pen on my dark backgrounds.  I queued up several arty youtube videos and my large Dylusions journal, white Posca pens, Intense pencil, and Jane Davenport’s Mermaid pens and created this page.

whitetext-tenukihandcrafts

The page started with doodling along with Molly Hollyberry’s youtube video on Crazy Huggins, a tangle variation of Huggins.

Next. I watched one of Jane Davenport’s youtube videos and I love to art along with Jane and wondered what the Mermaid pens would look like over the white acrylic pen work.

I like the look and contrast achieved with this technique. I’ve been exploring it in my art journal, so you can expect to see more of this.  I also want to incorporate this more in my future works.

Stay tuned and happy arting!

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2017 Pair Go photo shoot

Hi ho friends.

It’s nearly time for the Seattle Go Center Annual Pair Go Tournament, and for the 5th year, my resin crew have been featured in a pair go-themed photo.

This is a fun photo shoot. I get to play with my dolls, professional lighting set-up, and scale.

The location is the Tatami Room at the Seattle Go Center.  The scroll at the back is human sized.  The dolls, board and laptop are roughly 3 feet in front of the wall with the screen.

The go board is doll-sized.  The laptop is a printable that I found somewhere (of course, I can’t find it now – I’ll post a revision when I find it).  I used the actual Alphago logo and merged the logo and laptop in The Gimp.  I also had to create the laptop screen.  I’m very pleased with the way the laptop turned out.  The soft lights bounces nicely off it and enhances the illusion that it is an actual screen.

I used my trusty Canon Rebel and all my lenses. To get this shot, I used a Canon 24 mm Macro lens. The final poster shot is still being finalized, but here is one of my favorite shots of the day:

2017PairGo_5814_v1-tenukihandcrafts

The dolls are (from left to right): Elfdoll Smiling Soah, Dollshe Grown Saint, and Dollshe SA Saint.

Happy creating!

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My contribution to Inktober

Happy Halloween, friends.

I had lofty aspirations to participate in Inktober this year, but, well, it just didn’t work out. I have made two pages with Jane Davenport’s Inktober themes: Midnight Unicorn and Goth Glam.

These are both from my Dylusions large journal. Both started with a variety of Dylusions sprays, stencils, and Dyan’s ghosting technique.  The drawings were make with a Stabilo All pencil and activated.

Goth Glam also has quite a bit of acrylic paint, more stencils, and Lumiere paint in silver.

I enjoyed making these pages and saved Jane’s Inktober themes, which are inspiring but I needed to get a start on some of the art classes I’ve signed up for, so expect more regular posts…on who knows?

Stop by later and find out.

Happy creating!

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Art journal, my old friend

Hello friends.  After months of studying, I took the IAAP Certified Administrative Professional exam today. I’ve managed to squeeze a bit of art, including several hours creating background pages in my large Dylusions journal.

The test was 3.5 hours maximum and I nearly used it all.  Afterwards, my brain was mashed potatoes. I got home, rehydrated, ate lunch and went up to my studio to make a mess.

It felt sooooooooooooo good.  I put most of today’s effort into the large Dylusions journal. Here is one of the pages I am working on.

Dylargejournal-pinkgirl-tenukihandcrafts2017

I love the background, both the colors and the texture, which includes one of Dyan’s stamps, some Tim Holtz Ideology rub-ons and washi.

The girl was drawn on another piece of paper then glued into the journal.  Today, I started painting her.  I used Deco Art’s Santa’s Flesh for the base skin layer; purple Neocolor II for her hair and turquoise blue for her eyes and dress.  I water-activated her hair with water.  For her dress, I took some Golden Payne’s Grey heavy body, watered down quite a bit and blotted. I really like the start of this gal.

More importantly, I’m excited that I can spend hours working in my art journal.

I’ve had some interesting experiences dealing with the paper in this journal, but that will have to be a post for another day.

What’s on your art table?  Leave a comment. I’d love to hear what you are working on.

Happy creating!

 

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Graffiti advice

Hi ho friends. As mentioned in the last post, my camera is calling me but I’ve got a couple more days of study before my CAP exam. I dug into my photo files and found this photo from 2013, which I’d completely forgotten about.  I don’t know who the graffiti artist is, but I like the sage coffee cup’s advice.

I added three layers in the Gimp of color enhance, blur, and deinterlace.

DreamDaily_20130914_125731

Happy creating and don’t forget to dream daily!

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Visual Update

Hi ho friends.

It was time to change up the look of my site to feature my art images over the words so I’ve changed themes.  I hope you like the new look.

cropped-reflection_20131111_013331.jpg

This is one of my favorite photos. It is a selfie.  I took the photo back in 2013 when I was taking Vivienne McMaster’s “Be Your Own Beloved” on-line photo course. For the most part, I don’t like images of me, but this class helped me with creative exercises for selfies.  I highly recommend the class. Vivienne offers her classes live. If you’re interested in BYOB, please check her website for the current schedule

I took it with my cell phone at the time. It was a rainy Seattle day, and the reflection includes the giant sculpture on campus at my at-the-time employer.  I called the piece The Beer Glass.

I’m feeling the call of my camera lately.  It’s time to carry it around and visually explore the area around my current job.

I’d love to know what you’re working on.  Leave a comment and link and I’ll stop by.

Happy creating!

 

 

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My latest obsession…bujo

Hi ho friends.  I’m sorry for being off-line for so long. When not doing my knee PT exercises, I’ve been studying for the IAAP Certified Administrative Professional (CAP) exam, which I take late next week.  I thought I’d take a study break and share a few pages of my latest obsession: bullet journaling.  I haven’t been terribly happy, so to speak, with my Happy Planner.

In truth, I don’t use my planner to plan my life (I use my phone for my schedule). I use it more for memory keeping. But I’ve also wanted to integrate my art journaling and on-line class lessons into the mix.  I’d been avoiding the Bullet Journal but after seeing a coworker’s beautiful bujo (that’s what the cool kids call it), I decided to dive in.

I’m using a Leuchturm 1917 in the 5.5 x8 size that I’d had for a while.  I am using it to track my steps, CAP study schedule, on-line classes I’m taking, the usual lists and recording whatever random daily stuff.  After the CAP, I will get back to work on my art classes and work on the lessons in this journal.

With all the studying, I haven’t had a lot of time to sit down for hours and make art, so these smallish drawings have helped me through the seemingly endless readings. Today, I want to share some of the art I’ve been adding to my bujo.

 

I’m using a mechanical pencil, Tombow markers, Pitt and Sakura pens, and Mild Liners.

What are you working on today?  I’d love to hear about your works-in-progress. Please leave a link to your latest and I’ll pop over and see what’s going on in your world.

Happy creating!