A Work in Progress

I have been spending the last few weeks on a canvas for a special someone, I hope it turns out as I plan, because if it doesn't- I won't be giving it to her. I know- I shouldn't be so critical of my art, but I am, and that is just part of the perfectionist in me. Not that my art is perfect, by any means, but if I can't find peace with a piece of my art, then I don't feel it is finished.
Anywho- enough rambling- I will post some photos, and would love to have a little feedback on where to take this next. My ideas may not be materializing as I hoped, so could use some honest critique, on what is pleasing and what might look out of place. I "tampered" with the face some, and have come to a "happy place" with it, no- it is not intended to look like a real person, it is a character painting of an angel, so yes, it does take on some whimsical features. I tried to make her look like a more mature being, instead of a younger girl, which is where most of my girl faces end up, which was rather challenging to me, but I hope I have achieved that more mature look with her. Your thoughts?

These are the first two photos I took of her. Her chin/cheeks were a bit lopsided, so I rounded that out, her hair was a bit flat, so I added some shadowing for dimension. Her eyes were way too dark- so I lightened them up a bit, her nose- well, it looks like it was broken at some point- I think I have that fixed. LOL 

Here are the new photos:

Full view of the canvas, I think I fixed all the wonky features, and her orange neck- LOL 

Close-up of the face and neck- I know her neck looks long and lanky, but I kind of like that look.

Just a necklace? I will pierce the canvas, and run the chain in to the back, and secure it there. Just not sure if it is too much, or not?

Just earrings? Not sure if they look right or not. I don't want them to look like two pearls just stuck to the side of her head. 

Extreme closeup of the dimension of the earrings. This is where I worry they may be too much, but I do love texture, so maybe they are ok?

Necklace and earrings? Overkill, or OK? Again, I love the added texture to go with the texture of the wings, but I don't want to over do it. Would love to hear your thought! 

Thanks for checking out my blog :)

A Bit of Art (being swapped)

I have been dabbling in a bit of art lately, and just finished a project for a swap I am participating in for the group Paper Traders that I am a member of.
It was a one for one swap, and we were to contact our partner and get a general idea of style/type of the kind of journal they would like to receive. My partner is Shelly, and she was drawn to the Nick Bantock style. I have not ever made anything with his art as inspiration, but did a little research, and found most of his art is rather quirky, with few specific topic based projects, and found many of the elements he uses in his art are vintage travel elements, so I ran with that as I created this journal for Shelly.
I actually tried doing a process video for my YouTube channel, but it was not meant to be, as I started the video, my memory was full, so I stopped and tried adding another memory card, but discovered it was not compatible with my video cam, so brought out the other one, and got another 1/2 hour in, and the battery died- tried recording while charging, and that was not going to work. It had to charge by itself, so thought I would just switch to taking still shots as I went along, but learned as I was finishing up on the project, that I forgot to stop in between stages to snap photos, so it was a dismal failure.
The journal was to be made using a manilla envelope for the covers- folded in half, and using the closure flap as a front cover flap to close the journal with. I did play with the technique a bit before hand, so that I could be comfortable with sending out a quality product to my recipient, but wanted to add my own design to it a bit, so i made an inside pocket for both the covers.
I had used white envelopes for my trial journals, and so when I went to use the manilla colored one, I coated it with Gesso. It was not the look I was going for, so was kind of a waist of time, and ended up covering almost all of it with decorative papers, which made the covers way more sturdy anyway. I trimmed a 1/16 of an inch off the bottom of the envelope, and then lined the envelope with some scrapbook cardstock in a vintage map pattern, and then adhered it to the inside of the envelope to sturdy it up a bit. then folded in half, and added paper to both sides of the closure flap, and then cut two pieces of card to insert into the front and back covers once the journal was completely decorated.  Here are a few photos of how it turned out.

This is a photo showing the inside covers, you can see here on the right side, one of the pockets I created.

Here is a photo after the book was completed showing both the front cover pocket and the back cover pocket, where I made a 1/2 circle opening so that the card insert would be easily pulled out or put back in.

This is a photo of the finished journal all tied up and ready to go, I attached several glass beads to the binding to spice things up a bit.

This is the finished journal flattened out, so the back cover is on the left and the front cover on the right, with the beads hanging on the binding. I used Gafer tape, to reinforce the folded edges, so the binding wouldn't tear out, or so the front flat would not tear off with use. I am thinking it is pretty strong and secure. :)

I hope Shelly likes it!