Art Resin Challenge!

Last month I was approached by one of the wonderful employees at Art Resin with an offer & a challenge. They would supply me with free resin if I would create something new to share with my (and their) audience. SO…(drumroll please!) here it is!

Well, okay…here is ONE of the pieces! 🙂 There are three in total. I’ve done several pieces using the quilling techniques to make the designs – some inspired by nature, others very abstract. These three take their cue from the great outdoors. This piece, in particular, has a specific representation. The flowing terrain below that rising sun was inspired by watching the sun rising over a desert landscape. It’s created in an 8×8″ wood panel, turned upside down. Title? Desert Sunrise, of course!

Since this was a challenge I tried to think of what I could do to make this pour different. I settled on LIGHTS…each piece has a round portion of the background cut out and a clear Petri dish glued down over it. The paper design is attached to the front side of the dish. Small, remote control twinkle lights fit into the Petri dish behind the art and glow & sparkle through that section of the design! I also painted the background of these pieces, which I had not done before. I’m still deciding if I like them that way or not!

Now I’m going to blitz you with a bunch of “progress” images captured during the creation of these pieces:

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Modifying the wood panels, various quilling tools and paper pieces, stages of creation, and all the pieces taped off, ready for the resin pour!

I did make a few videos of the process too, you can see them by following the links shown here:

Prep and Intro

Pre-Pour

Pouring the First Piece

In addition to the finished image of Desert Sunrise above, here are the other two pieces that were created:

Moonlight over the River, 8×10″

Summer Tree, 8×10″

Although the final images turned out just fine the pour had a moment of panic in it! When pouring the piece “Moonlight over the River” it took me several times pouring the resin before I figured out there was a leak around the Petri dish I had glued to the panel. I lifted it up to see a HUGE puddle of resin growing on the table. Ack! Ductape to the rescue! I can assure you before I started to pour the next piece it was inspected for leaks AND had tape added, just in case. 😉

I want to thank the great people at Art Resin, this was a fun challenge! You can find these pieces on my website if you’re interested in purchasing.

Your randomly creative artist friend,

Lynne

Digital Art Lessons

Last week I had the pleasure of introducing a fellow artist to digital art. We had a wonderful time and since then I’ve enjoyed seeing her continue to get creative with the medium. I thought I’d share with you a few of the images from our afternoon. I did introduce some techniques for creating digital art on a blank page (canvas, if you will) as well as introduced her to fractal artwork but the bulk of our time was spent with photo manipulations. This first one and we basically just played with the various filters in Photoshop on a single image to make it into something more artistic. This is what we came up with:

First digital project, Nov. 2012, instruction

The next creation we used three different images and layered, altered and blended them into something new:

Second creation, Nov. 2012, digital art instruction

Pretty cool! We were both pleased with how this one turned out!

At her request I had been “running” the computer and doing the work while she watched, took notes, asked questions and gave input on the creations. For the final photo manipulation of the day I put her in the “drivers seat” and watched/guided her through the process. She did an amazing job!

Student work, digital art lessons, Nov. 2012

How awesome is THAT!?!

I really enjoy sharing through teaching! You are always welcome to email or call me with a request for a class. There is also a calendar on my website that shows dates that I am available for instruction, as well as a page with the various topics that I am happy to share. Don’t see a date or topic you’re looking for on there? Just ask!

Happy creating,

Lynne

Smart Phone Art!

I’ve been playing more & more with both photo programs and art apps on my smart phone lately. Seems like I’m having to squeeze in time for art right now so a few minutes on the phone is better than none! Here is some kaleidoscope art I’ve created over the past days.

phone Kaleidoscope #1, digital art © lynne medsker

I will admit to sprucing it up a bit in Photoshop before I was totally happy with the results but I like to layer and add textures before I ever seem to be happy with digital artwork anymore. 🙂

phone Kaleidoscope #2, digital art © lynne medsker

phone Kaleidoscope #3, digital art © lynne medsker

I’ve got lots of posts to write about recent classes and other topics, I just haven’t had the time to sit down and get them ready to publish. Soon I hope!!

My Blue Heaven

"My Blue Heaven" mixed media artwork on 33 1/3 album, $95 © Lynne Medsker

Earlier this week I posted about the last “Open Studio” class I held where we created artwork on old 33 1/3 albums. Since one of my students wasn’t able to attend I couldn’t resist joining in and playing a bit too. I’ve been playing with some other collage piece using old sheet music recently, so I decided to incorporate it into this artwork as well. It sure makes naming the piece easy when the music has a title! And it gave me some color inspiration as well. 🙂

work in progress © lynne medsker

This ended up having lots of cuts & layers of paper, followed by charcoal, more layers, acrylic ink and some embellishments. One of my students mentioned how it looked almost three-dimensional, that was all it took for me to make it that way! I’m not sure how well it showed up in the straight-on photo at the top of the page so I took a second one of the finished piece from the side to show the pieces that rise off of the background.

"My Blue Heaven" finished artwork, side view © Lynne Medsker

I enjoyed just making some art for the fun of it! I have a lot of fun projects I’d like to play with – along with some new commissions and artwork for upcoming shows. Trying to keep it balanced, along with the rest of life!

Kaleidoscopes!

kaliedoscope #4, photo/digital art © lynne medsker

I’ve been having fun playing with a couple of new computer programs lately! One of them has a kaleidoscope feature that’s I’ve enjoyed exploring. If you’ve read my blog over the last year you know my fondness for mandala-type images, no wonder I am enjoying these! Kaleidoscope #4 (above) was created using an image of stained glass windows.  This image had an extra layer added to the top with a curly effect in it:

kaleidoscope #1, photo/digital artwork © lynne medsker

Here’s a sample of before and after images that shows the original photo used:

kaleidoscope #2, original photo © lynne medsker

kaleidoscope #2, photo/digital artwork © lynne medsker

This last image was created by using two images (both created from the same photo) that were then layered together:

kaleidoscope #3, photo/digital artwork © lynne medsker

Do you have a favorite?

Photo Art: Part 3 of 3

The previous posts in this demo showed ways to adjust a photo using filters to make it more artistic, and how to blend layers together to create new images. Starting with the original image (shown below), I’ve shown you nine new versions so far:

original photo/background image (c) 2010, Lynne Medsker

When all four new versions were blended with this image as a background, this was the result:

"not dealing with reality" photo art (c) 2010, Lynne Medsker

Today we’re going to look at a few other variations of the same image made by selecting certain layers of the composition and leaving others out.  The following image shows each of the layers that will be used followed by the resulting image:

Layers 1,2,4 + background (c) 2010, Lynne Medsker

By removing the mostly white third layer the final image is much bolder than when all layers are used.  This next image uses even fewer layers!

Layers 1,4 and background only (c) 2010, Lynne Medsker

The final image uses even less layers by removing the background layer and blending two of the filtered layers by themselves:

layers 1 & 4 only (c) 2010, Lynne Medsker

As you’ve probably guessed by now, the possibilities are endless. Add or remove a layer, change the way the layers are blended, adjust the opacity of a layer, apply more filters…the sky is the limit.  I usually run out of steam way before the possibilities run out!  If you weren’t familiar with photo art, layers or filters I hope this both inspires you to play with them and helps you understand how they work. I’m available by email if you have a quick question and I also do one-on-one or small group instruction on photo and/or digital art. I encourage you to take some time and just play with your photo images to see what happens, that’s how I’ve learned and how I continue to learn!

Exploring the endless,

Lynne