Mixed Media Portraits with Pam Carriker video book review

Hello dear ones! Mixed Media Portraits with Pam Carriker book just arriver yesterday and I thought it would be nice to make a short video flip though so you can see what's inside. In the video below I'll show you some of the art materials I use to create my portraits and art journal pages! Enjoy it! And don't forget to tell me what you think about it in the comments below.

  

VLOG May 30, 2015 - Canvas |Meditation|

Hey there creative souls! This is what's new around here lately and I found that it's way better to record video blogs rather than to write them down. This is my first vlog (or at least the first first I get to publish), so be patient with it! ;) 

So what's new? Well, I know I haven't posted here in a month, but you know where I post at least twice a week, on creativemag.ro! 

This month flew by and I feel so happy with summer approaching so fast! I wouldn't mind this weather all year long, but I know that's not possible, at least not where I live. 

So this is it...jump in and enjoy!

Soft Pastel Portrait

Yesterday I went back to graphite pencils and drew this girly-face in my Derwent Art Journal. It was pretty ugly with that neglectful look when I finished the pencil sketch, so I thought adding soft pastels will make her look much better...

Alternative art journal paper + soft pastel portrait

Alternative art journal paper soft pastel portrait - Creativemag.ro



What to do with the packaging left overs? If you are like me, first thing that comes thru your mind is ‘how can I use that?’ Maybe an art journal out of packaging paper? Yeah, why not? I have this paper from an online order that came last week. What to do with it? I thought a journal will work very well, as I’ve seen this kind of journal sometime when I first started with art journaling, only that I never had the chance to create one.

Click on the post title to read more on how I made this handmade journal!

Watercolor portrait art journal project

I'm only getting started with these watercolor portra A6 art journal. I love the fluidity of the water running to the paper. It makes the think of a light summer breeze on a sunny beach. I'm not at home, but unfortunately not on a beach, and not being in my studio is the reason why I'm using watercolor: you need very little to start painting with watercolor, just the watercolor palette, a medium brush and a journal is all you need. Oh, and of course, a glass with water! 

Start by ading color to the sketch. This time I did the sketch before hand, and to be honest, I wasn't going to add color to it. But yesterday I thought it would be nice to try again my Car an d'ache watersoluble crayons. I only have 10 colors with me, but among them you can find the skin colors. 

Continue adding color until you cover the whole face, now it's time to add water....

Because this is a sketching journal, the paper is going to bend when adding water, but if you use just enough to activate the color, then you'll have no problem with it.

Below you can watch a video with {almost} all the process - but bve careful, I filmed using my smart phone, and having a camera in one hand while painting with the other aint easy at all! 

Here is the YouTube video:

Whimsical girl with hazelnut eyes art journal page

I have to tell you I've been waiting for some time to return to soft pastels. But something wasn't quite right or I wasn't in the mood to try them again...until today when I grabbed my soft pastel Koh-i-Noor brown set of 12 soft pastels and some other nice bought in open stock and started to draw a face.

At first she was meant to be an watercolor sketch I started a week ago and didn't quite finished it. But since I wanted to play with soft pastels, I thought why not do transform this page into a gorgeous soft pastels whimsical page?

And I think the result came out pretty surprising, considering the fact that I started with a bare sketch and ended with this page!

And this time I wanted a hazelnut brown eyes girl in my journal, a different face from what I usually draw - fantastic girls with blue, green or greeny-blue eyes. I thought that if my eyes are hazel brown, why not pick this color, too?

And to make things even more interesting, I have captured her on camera! Here you can see the video on YouTube:

        Hope you like it, and if you do, please LIKE IT and SUBSCRIBE! Thank you!

See you soon,

Cristina

Art journaling redheaded girl

Hello dear creative soul!

Earlier today I've managed to upload and publish a video on YouTube with my latest art journal creation! This time it's a semi-profile gorgeous redheaded girl that turned out so precious.

I have worked a lot on the video for this page, I guess I had 6 or 7 videos to merge and create one final file. But the result is stunning! I am very proud of it, although I haven't managed to add sound until now, the image and annotations help you follow the whole process from the start to the end of it.

I am working in my handmade art journal, just the same as I did here, made out of an old calendar paper, the one that you usually throw away at the end of the year. I had my eyes on this one, as it has thicker paper and as I thought, it proved to make a great art journal. I just have to add gesso and there we go! 

However, because one side of the paper is glossy and the other one is not that much, when you paint on the glossy side you should be careful to add an extra layer of gesso, as the colors tend to peel off the page. unlike the page linked above, this time I'e worked on the glossy side of the paper and at some point I have peeled out some color when I pressed too hard on her eyes and hair. But as you probably know, that is not a problem and the situation can be fixed with some acrylic paint. 

Now let's see the video! It speaks more than I can write about it in here. And I'm sure you're going to love it! Please LIKE IT and subscribe to my channel to follow my artful adventure!

Till next time,
Cristina xx

Tonal painting

Hey guys! How are you? I been trying to post more often here, like maybe every day, but yesterday I had a super-crazy day and all my time went in so many directions. You cannot control when your sister enters labor and you cannot control rain and not even a flood in the basement. But you can control your nerves while trying to do them all perfectly! :)

I have posted a photo with this project on Instagram, and then never said a thing about it. I know you're curious to see how that page turned out, so here is how I started.

This time, my page was blank. I was inspired by some angelical drawing and paintings I saw on YouTube and wanted to try myself and see if I can do this. In the end, the result is not as I expected, but I still love her!

This time I don't have that many photos with the process. I guess I was too absorbed into it to stop and take photos. Maybe next time, and believe me, it will be a next time! 

In no time, from those watercolor and ink splashes I ended up with this little creature on my journal page. Imagine I left my brushes and colors on the table and did my daily chore and then returned to her and started to paint again. 

But painting becomes even more beautiful when you do it between the lines, when you barely have time and there are lots of other things going on around you. Or maybe this is just me, this time I could just concentrate on this page and not thinking too much about the rest. But most of the time I love working in silence, without interruptions and all that. But who doesn't, ha? :)

Open your heart for this creature! I don't know how to call her. It has some wing, but it doesn't really looks like an angel wing, so I don't know what to say. I call it a creature, a fantastic, unreal creature of my imagination. Isn't it what we are artists do when painting? When it comes to mixed media and art journals, we create something that only exists in our imagination. 

I think this is called tonal painting, but I'm not quite sure. I just find this style very appealing. 

I did some journaling on the right side of the drawing, I felt that the page needed some explanations when I come to her later on.

Please take a moment and tell me what you think of this creature :) I would Love to hear from you!