Mixed Media Memories Page 2

I've completed another page for my Mums memory album. Unfortunately I have very few photos of my Dad's family. The ones I did have I copied and made a page with a large central pocket for the images to go in. At the top of each photo I have added a metal word disk to use as a grip so the photos can be pulled out to be looked at. I again used cheap ink sprays in a blue yellow brown theme plus glass bead gel applied in patches for added texture and to make your eyes roam over the page.

At the bottom I added a torn piece of corrugated card board, the centre and background are scrap book pages plus a large white paper Dollie . The pocket has randomly glued bits of paper, text, washi tape, lace etc and an ink coloured chip board sign. A smaller Dollie was sprayed with inks to give it a rust effect and sits under the sign

Meet my Dad's (Lloyd Charles Kable) family..

Hugs

Annette In Oz

Mixed Media Memories

My plan was to start packing art items I'm not using much of. One of the first draws I went to was full of old family photos. My Mum (who is 87) and some other relatives had given me copies and originals of old family photos many years ago. My intention back then had been to make a album for my Mum for her 70th birthday!!! OMG where had the time gone? I had started a few times but I am NOT a scrap booker and there were so many images I always gave up feeling that it was too daunting to continue.

This time something changed and I decided to decorate a few pages in my mixed media style and leave others as just the clear plastic pockets full of the daunting photos LOL Before I knew it my art desk and the kitchen table were buried in happy arty healing goodness....and still are LOL. I often create with no end result in mind. I find that way it can evolve and be changed as I desire much easier then when I have a set process and end result image in my head.

This is my first page. It has a wonderful photo of my Dad-Born 1926 and died 1977 (in the jumper) as a boy playing with his twin brother Ronny who was born in 1926 and died in 1949. The photo already had a lovely soft sepia tone to it so I went with a blue brown rusty looking mixed media background.

The background was made by randomly sticking down torn old book pages, bits of old lace and strips of scrap book papers onto a 30x30cm scrap book page. I then dry brushed on white gesso and used a palette knife to add glass bead gel here and there . Once it was dry I sprayed cheap shop colour sprays over the page, spritzed it with water while still wet and tipped it side ways and upside down. While I waited for this to dry I selected and sprayed chip board bits with the same colours and started to play round with placement by adding and taking away other embellishments.

 

The photo is in a plastic sleeve and the arrow can move so the photo can be removed by Mum if she wants. The paper flowers and the 3D decoupage car are all from the cheap shop. Once I was happy I stuck it all down with gel medium I then roughly tore the edges and stippled on white paint along the edge. Lastly I adhered the page to black card stock! I really like the textures and colours of this page!!

Well so much for packing this art stuff up hey? More pages to come I suspect 

hugs

Annette Oz

How To Train Your Dragon painted rocks Light Fury and Night Fury plus friends

 My gorgeous grand kids Ivy and Chase are totally in love with the dragons from How To Train Your Dragon. They both love Night Fury (Toothless) and his girlfriend Light Fury. As a result I have managed to watch most of the series and some of the movies with them. I figured they loved them so much other people would too so I made 4 glow in the dark HTTYD painted rocks, a hatching glow in the dark dinosaur rock and 2 eye rocks!. I have mixed some of the acrylic paints with glow in the dark paint so they cam "bio luminescence" briefly at night when the light is turned off.

These were all placed in public parks for people to find. Painted Rocks NT (the group I am a member of)  has its own Facebook page and I posted on there which parks the painted rocks had been dropped in. It's always a bit of a struggle for me to release my art not knowing if they will ever be found or appreciated but still I enjoy the thought they will be found and hopefully treasured. The ones directly below were the first park drop. All were def found but the hatching dinosaur and Toothless finds were never posted to the rock group.

 

This dragon below protecting a Little Girl From Another World was one of my favourites. Her World can be and is any colour and she has fallen asleep after putting glow stars out for the night. The dragon will watch over her till she wakes in the morning 

The second drop was a few weeks later and thankfully all were found and posted as such to the rock group

On the back of the Toothless rocks I used an iridescent film. When you apply heat to it it will fuse onto itself and the colour I used gave the rocks a shimmery Opal like look

 We are moving back to far north Queensland in June so I may not get too much art done but I shall post if I do!

hugs

Annette In Oz

Eyes....the window to MY soul

Ive been VERY busy with work and helping my daughter out with my gorgeous two grand kids. Still art is never far from my heart....its part of my soul. I'm finding I have developed a fascination with eyes. I draw them at work on the register rolls and at home, I collect images of others eye art in Pinterest and Google

Lately I've painted some eyes on rocks after seeing some another artist painted where he paints a reflection of what the eye is seeing as part of the pupil. The artist goes by the name of "My Dog Sighs"...his website is here and I am unashamedly influenced and in love with his art.

My attempts are messy looking up close but OK as rocks to hide in the parks for others to find. The original artist mainly uses spray paint for his. So here are the four I have done so far! The first one I ever did I didn't think to add colour at the bottom to indicate the iris

This one is homage to my location as its the sign they use to advertise the Northern Territory. It reads "Do The NT" and has a Jabiru stork silhouetted against the sunset

I have painted Boab trees at sunset on a canvas before and used that idea for the eye below

The last one I have done has a tropical sunset with a couple kissing

THEN I got side tracked as many of my artist quality paint tubes have been affected by the extreme heat here. The binder has separated in  them and when I go to squeeze out the paint its just clearish yellow slime that comes out followed by hard globs of paint. I tried massaging the tubes to remix it but it wouldn't work. Eventually I sourced air tight preserve jars and slowly squeezed out every tube, stirred and stirred till it remixed. Some I had to mix with some gel medium as well.

As I went I made little sticker swatches to indicate what paint colour was what. It took me nearly 3 weeks to get it all done!! Every now and then I had a slight excess of paint that wouldn't fit in the jars plus I liked the background left by the painted stickers so I painted an eye on there too. Might try to replicate this one on a canvas one day BUT I'll have to correct the big mistake I realized after I was finished!!! Wonder if anyone can spot it?

hugs

Annette In Oz

Mermaid Dreaming

I grew up near the Pacific Ocean on the Central Coast area of New South Wales. We were a poor family and had very few actual holidays but even so my childhood Was filled with love, laughter, art and sunny days at the local beach. All Spring, Summer and even into Autumn the beach was my play ground. I lived and breathed the ocean life...when I swam and surfed I often imagined dolphins and mermaids swimming with me darting in and out of the waves. Every night I dreamed about the Mermaids on the rocks and dancing Dolphins leaping for fun. Even as an adult I can find great happiness being near an ocean and just hearing the wind and the waves (I would get eaten here in the Northern Territory by a crocodile if I went swimming so just walking on the sand, listening and seeing here is enough LOL).

I've taken to hunting the local beaches for smooth large sea rocks to soak the salt out of and then seal and paint on. My childhood resurfaces when I touch and smell these rocks and Mermaids and Dolphins appear. My background in mixed media has me lean toward adding tactile and visual things like texture paste rocks, pearlescent skies and even moons that glow in the dark. I use many layers of acrylic paint and glazes till I have the look I want. I am not fast and productive like many of the rock artists out there but then my rocks end up unique in different ways to theirs. So please enjoy the Mermaids below whom have all been abandoned in local parks and are now found and loved by new owners :)

This is "JOY"

"SEEKING" 

And "HOPE"

Love and Mermaid Dreams to you all

hugs

Annette In Oz x

Rocks On The Move

Wow April just disappeared like that. Had a few family dramas going on and things are only settling again now. I did get to do something awesome during Early May though and that was to do a rock swap and drop from interstate!!

 Zowie Breese used to live up here in the Northern Territory and relocated to Western Australia. She is part of the painted rocks movement as well. I got to meet Zowie and her Mum (who was visiting at the time) when Zowie lived here. Zowies Mum Vicki Ann David came for a visit to the Northern Territory again earlier this month to meet her newest grand child and bought over with her some gorgeous rocks for me to hide around Darwin. These decorated rocks included green tree frog, an emu, a giraffe and a unicorn (for my granddaughter) by Zowie...

Colourful owl rocks by Vicki Ann David....

Funny whacky emus by Anne De Waal and various fun rocks painted with Turbo the snail, Snoopy, Bart Simpson, Batman and Superman symbols by Chris Murphy....

When I met Vicki to get the WA rocks I gave her some from the NT to take back to WA to hide there. Some were from me, Jilly Lee, Steve Li and Rese Undo. 

These were mine...

These were made by Jilly Lee...

These were made by Steve Li....

These were made by Rese Undo

I hid the WA rocks over a two week period all over Darwin. It was great fun and the local rockers posted if they found any to the NT Rocks and SOR rocks WA Facebook pages. All the WA rocks were found (I checked on them) but a few never got posted to the rock groups as found. Even so who ever has them loves them I am sure. Zowie is now merrily hiding the NT rocks around in WA. Its funny how the simple act of decorating rocks can bring you new friends, creativity and joy.....and I love it :)

hugs

Annette In Oz x