#ARTifacts -'River Lady'

Complex Simplicity

Attempting to portray how the creative part of me works with photos.
 Things + ideas + artwork + creative spaces (inside/outside) + feline friend + light.
(raylee).

Suitcase Art

 1. Gesso

 2. Naples Yellow Acrylic

 3. Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna

4. Trial & error with the composition

5. Add the Blues - Ultramarine & Cobalt with White

(raylee). www.facebook.com/RayleeSyrchArt

Faux Rust Butterflies....Mixed Media

 Faux rust butterfly 40 x 40 cm.

Faux rust butterflies on fridge, 10 x 10 cm.
(raylee).

Rusty Butterflies

 The butterfly shapes were cut from old watercolours, the canvas boards had collage & ribbon on them, then repainted with a fairly dry brush, & rusty nail & old wire to make the butterfly bodies.

Rusty  butterflies on canvas boards, 4" x 4", 10cm x 10cm.

Mixing Faux Rust technique ( find this technique at thicketworks ) with real rusty nail & wire to make the butterflies, then attached to repainted canvas boards.
(raylee).

Found a blue feather on the ground......

 As I was walking through the gate of a cemetery after attending a funeral a few years ago I noticed this feather in the grass under the pine trees. The blue caught my eye, I picked it up & put it in my bag. I have a collection of feathers in a turquoise glass jug in my art room, the blue feather joined the collection.

 This is the first layer of colour on the canvas, at this stage I had no image in mind, just playing with pastel colours.

 Just continued changing colours, turning the canvas to make the paint run in different directions.

 Adding more layers....

 What would a dark border look like?

 Made scratchy lines with thin wire dipped in dark paint.....

 It needs blue.......

 more blue......more drips...

 more blue, lighter now......starting to like the patches of  warm colours showing through from the previous layers....is something happening now?

 change again, add aqua.....

 remove the dark border.......still no image in mind,  creating texture using just paint.....looking better now......but not finished .....now I know it needs a dark against the light background!

 Then I saw my blue feather.....

 To finish I lightly sanded back some of the blues to reveal more of the warm under layers of paint.

Blue feather.

Sometimes painting without pressure, with no real or imaginary image to try to reproduce or create is a much more pleasurable experience. I enjoy letting go & trying something just for the fun of it, sometimes I end up with a painting I am  pleased with, sometimes not......but sometimes one thing leads to another & creates a feeling, atmosphere, texture, colour, a memory......an image: imaginary or real.
Yes I am happy with this painting!
(raylee).

Reveal

Just a little peek at a corner of my room.
(raylee).

Makeover, Almost New Again......

hello all , nice to see you here.

 spring has sprung , birds are singing, flowers blooming, sun shining & the sky is blue, i do love a blue sky. thought i would share this kerbside find with you. the after photo.

the chair was a bit sad looking but was only missing the back rest.

gave it a scrub with soapy water, some pretty tropical fabric ( a great find from the op shop, brand new fabric)

 & a lick of paint did the trick!

  i painted the canvas  seat  & made a tie on cushion. 

 the before photo.

 finished it with a new back rest.

now a nice cuppa tea!
(raylee).

Family & The Ties That Bind

 there are paintings around my place in different stages that no-one notices.......i thought it interesting that both my children commented on this piece on  separate visits.

it is made from an old vent from a house my family  lived in when i was a child.

 the dark frame surrounding the vent is a found one & the outside one i bought at an auction shop. the photo is of my two younger sisters taken in front of the house early 1960's.(they are both wearing aprons).

 each piece fitted inside the other, i tied some old crochet cotton through the holes in the vent & around the frame just to hold it in place. i didn't put anything on the back as i wanted the light to create shadows when i hung it on the wall, which you can see in the first photo (click on photo ).

 the pen marks the spot on the map of the location of "bobundara" near cooma nsw, where we lived.

 my school photo which was taken around the same time as the one of my sisters.
& the same photo i altered for the "365 creative challenge 2013" journal.

(raylee).