Art, Crafts and Inspiration in the Art Chick Studio

Archive for » March, 2011 «

Mr Right Now Digital Collage

Mar
2011

Just created my digital collage for this week’s Digital Collage Challenge, Lazy Days, over at Collage Obsession. They provided an image we needed to use, which is the imaged dubbed “Ursula.” How we used her is up to us. But my creation is called Mr Right Now.

Click to View Full Size

My Ursula is spending her lazy days waiting…for Mr. Right Now. I used a black and white photograph of my own of some wet leaves to be my background for the image. Then I added a flower to Ursula’s hand, because she looks like she loves flowers. And then I just did a creative frame effect around the entire digital collage.

Category: Digital Art, Digital Collages Tags: Collage Obsession, Digital Collage, Mr Right Now 2 Comments

Grungy Bunny Bag

By ArtChick

Mar
2011

Here’s a project that I did specifically with Easter in mind. It’s my Grungy Bunny Bag.

I made this out of 2 pre-made 5×7″ drawstring muslin bags, one for the face bag, and one to cut up for the ears. I started by using my Coffee Shop-colored Glimmer Mist to grungy up the bag. What can I say? I didn’t like the plain look of the bag. I drew on the facial features lightly with pencil, then painted them in with craft acrylics.

Next, to make the ears, I cut two ear shapes out of the other muslin bag and grungy’d those up with the Glimmer Mist too. Then I created folds at the bottom of each ear to give them more of a dimensional ear shape, and cut a hole through those folds with a regular hole punch. This hole gets used to join the ear to the bag itself with a brad. Then I cut a small slit into each side of the bag face, just below the drawstring casing area, near the top of the bag. Next I took a brad, poked it through the holes in the ear folds, and then poked it through the slit in the side of the bag face to connect the ears. Closing the prongs of the brad inside the bag face secures the ear to the bag. And I just repeated that for the other ear, and tied the bag closed.

This Bunny Bag is really meant to be a gift bag. I stuffed it with regular fiberfill just so I could take a picture of the full bunny face. But you could fill it with any Easter candy, like chocolate eggs, or Jelly Beans, or M-n-M’s or something. The muslin bags are very affordable and there’s no sewing involved in this project. It’s a really quick, easy, and fun Easter craft!

Category: Seasonal Crafts Tags: Easter Crafts, grungy, No Sew, Seasonal Crafts, Spring Crafts One Comment

Robin Eggs Jar

By ArtChick

Mar
2011

I’ve really been trying to focus on spring crafts in my studio lately. I don’t usually do a lot of spring crafts, nor do I tend decorate my home too much this time of year. But I decided that if I created some spring crafts that I love, then I could use them in the house. And at some point I’d have a lot of lovely little crafty goodies to use this time of year.

So my latest spring craft is my Robin Eggs Jar, which looks a lot like a little nest in a vintage jar.

This was really so easy to make. The jar isn’t vintage, but it does sort of look like it is, and I had it in my studio just begging to be used. I added some Spanish Moss to the bottom of the jar to give it that nest effect.

Next it was time to paint some eggs. I used wooden eggs that are about 1-3/4″ long. I painted them with craft acrylics in a robin’s egg blue, and then I took some watered-down brown and spattered on the spots using an old toothbrush. Love the speckled-egg-look! Then I just added the eggs to jar.

I think this will find its new home in my kitchen. I love the look of it, and I have lots of bird and birdhouse stuff in my kitchen, so it will be perfect.

Category: Glass Bottles and Jars, Seasonal Crafts Tags: Robin Eggs Jar, Seasonal Crafts, Spring Crafts 4 Comments

MJ Blood on the Dance Floor Sketch

By ArtChick

Mar
2011

I spent some time on the computer tonight doing some more creative things for My Digital Sketchbook. The short film (music video), Blood on the Dance Floor, is the subject of this piece of Michael Jackson Art. It is one of my all time favorite MJ videos.

: Click to View this Full Size

I almost want to put this on canvas, I just like it so much! I lose all track of time when I’m doing this digital stuff…not much different than when I’m painting or doing anything else creative. But my how the time does fly!

Category: Digital Art, Michael Jackson Art, Michael Jackson Sketches Tags: Blood on the Dance Floor, Michael Jackson Art, MJ, My Digital Sketchbook Leave a Comment

Blue Forest at Sunset

By ArtChick

Mar
2011

This is another of my Nature oil paintings that is also mixed media. I’ve called it Blue Forest at Sunset. It utilizes the same techniques I used in both my Fall Leaves Mixed Media, as well as my Trees in Orange paintings.

I love being able to combine texture into my painting, which this technique with tissue paper allows me to do. I have some ideas rolling around in my head for future projects using this technique. Hopefully I can do some experimenting later this summer. That’s always the challenge though…too many ideas, too little time!

Category: Nature Tags: mixed media, Nature, oil painting Leave a Comment

MJ Digital Photo Editing

By ArtChick

Mar
2011

I just wanted to add a note about another blog I have on Tumblr. It’s where I post all of my favorite photos of Michael Jackson, after digitally editing them to put my creative touch on them. I love playing with photos, and I love working with photos of Michael (he is really my favorite face to play with, digitally speaking). I thought I’d post my blog links here, for anyone interested in either MJ, or digital editing. I don’t do anything profound. In fact, sometimes my editing is very subtle. And sometimes, it’s very obvious. But I tweak almost everything I post myself just because I love doing it.

Here are couple of samples from my MJ photo blog at Tumblr, to give you a sneak peak. I’ll show you the “before” and the “after” of each, so you can see what I mean (click to enlarge each to see the full versions).

Remember the Time MJ ~ BEFORE

AFTER ~ Remember the Time MJ

Come Together ~ BEFORE

AFTER ~ Come Together MJ

: MJ in the Spotlight ~ BEFORE

: AFTER ~ MJ in the Spotlight

I love black and white photography. Back in the day, I learned how to develop black and white film and black and white prints. I taught black and white film photography when I was teaching Art at the local high school as well. I just loved it. So most of my edits are in black and white. To me, black and white is more creative, and more of a challenge. I mean, think about it: if you take a picture of a person, or a sunset, or a flower, and it’s in color, it’s going to look beautiful because of the colors. But if you take (or edit) that same photo in black and white, you don’t have the colors doing the work for you. So it really challenges you to capture the beauty of something (or someone) when it’s in black and white.

Digital photography is an amazing new world for me, and I’ve been having lots of fun with it. And I love that I can combine my love for MJ with my love of photography and digital editing.

If you’d like to see more of my digitally edited photos of Michael, please click the link below to visit my photo blog.

Art Chick for MJ

I look at it as my homage to Michael…a way of keeping his legacy alive, one photo at a time. Any photos that I have edited on my blog have a watermark of my blog’s URL somewhere on the photo creation. Since Tumblr has a “reblog” feature, allowing us to reblog posts of the other Tumblr blogs we follow, I do sometimes reblog other people’s MJ photos. But when that is the case I don’t watermark the photo. So that’s how you’ll know if it’s my creation or not. And that link will take you only to the most current blog posts. If you’d like to see an archive page, which shows thumbnail images of all of my posts/photos, follow the link below.

Art Chick for MJ Archive

That link just makes it easier to view all of the images, and then you can just click on each one to view the full size images of any photos that catch your eye. I hope you’ll stop by and visit. Be sure to leave a comment if you do!

Category: Digital Art, Digital Collages, Michael Jackson Art Tags: Come Together, Digital Image Creations, Digital Images, Michael Jackson, Remember the Time Leave a Comment

MJ Smile Digital Collage

By ArtChick

Mar
2011

This week’s Collage Obsession Challenge is Tramp. The creation has to feature either an image of Charlie Chaplin as The Tramp, or it has to express the word “Tramp” in some other way. As soon as I saw this theme, I knew exactly what I’d be doing. But before I share it with you, I need to share with you a little bit of trivia about Michael Jackson and Charlie Chaplin.

Michael Jackson was a huge Charlie Chaplin fan.
MJ loved the song, Smile, which was composed by Charlie Chaplin.
Michael recorded Smile in 1995, but he never performed it live. However, near the end of his History tour, the song was played at the beginning of the concert, in memory of Princess Diana.
Smile was sung at MJ’s Memorial on July 7, 2009, by his brother, Jermaine. Michael’s version of the song then hit the Billboard Hot 100 Digital Songs, along with the UK and Swiss singles charts.
In addition to being a musical artist, Michael was also a visual artist.
Michael drew Charlie Chaplin many times.

Chaplin, by Michael Jackson

Childhood, by Michael Jackson

MJ Drawing Peter Pan

So for my Tramp-themed project, I used a photo of Michael Jackson, who is dressed as The Tramp. I did some filtering to enhance the image, then I added a sunflower-like flower to his lapel (because Michael liked sunflowers) for a little pop of color. I also added a line from the song, Smile. And I added an antique photo effect to give the collage an aged appearance.

: Click to Enlarge MJ Smile Collage

I hope you like this addition to my growing collection of Michael Jackson Art. I loved creating it!

“The meaning of life is contained in every single expression of life. It is present in the infinity of forms and phenomena that exist in all of creation.”
~Michael Jackson

Category: Digital Art, Digital Collages, Michael Jackson Art, Portraits Tags: Charlie Chaplin, Digital Collage, Digital Image Creations, Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson Art, MJ, Smile 2 Comments

Wooden Crate and Milk Bottles

By ArtChick

Mar
2011

Time for another entry on the Trash 2 Treasure challenge on the Sassy Sites blog. This time I’m showing off an old wooden crate and some vintage milk bottles that were destined for the city dump when my husband got a hold of them. One of his customers was going to throw them out! So he gladly brought them home for me. I put my creative touches on them and now they sit in my kitchen.

I didn’t want to do too much to these treasures, because I love the vintage look of them already. But I did want to do something to jazz them up a bit. So I took some fabric I had with sunflowers on it and cut out various sunflowers. Then I decoupaged them onto the wooden crate, and also added one to each milk bottle. And then I just added a bit of stippling using acrylic paints to add some yellow and green around the flowers on the crate, just for a little pop of color.

I love how these turned out. They are a fun conversation piece, and they fit right in with the country prim and vintage feel of my kitchen.

Category: Trash 2 Treasure Tags: Trash 2 Treasure, Vintage Milk Bottles 4 Comments

MJ Remember the Time Digital Sketch

By ArtChick

Mar
2011

Time to add another page to my digital sketchbook. Michael Jackson has become a favorite subject for my digital playground. It’s rather difficult for me to exclude him from my creative efforts when it’s so much fun! So this is my latest digital sketch, Remember the Time.

: Click to View Full Size

Remember the Time was one of my favorite of Michael Jackson’s short films. Such a classic. And I really love how this digital sketch turned out!

Category: Digital Art, Digital Collages, Michael Jackson Art, Michael Jackson Sketches Tags: Digital Image Creations, Digital Sketches, Michael Jackson, MJ, My Digital Sketchbook, Remember the Time Leave a Comment

Flower Fairy Digital Sketch

By ArtChick

Mar
2011

This is one of two digital sketches I’m adding to my digital sketchbook today. I’m calling it the Flower Fairy.

Click to View Full Size

This began as a digital photo I took last summer. I have a window box outside one of my studio windows and I had planted some Vinca there that was in full bloom. I also always have a little resin fairy perched on the ledge of the box. Not sure if she’s sulking or daydreaming, but she’s cute either way.

I played around with several filters in PhotoScape before finally giving it the sketch-like effect. I really love how the purplish hue in the background contrasts against the white tones of the fairy. And I also like the many flower petals and leaves help to create texture in the background.

I’m also linking this to the Collage Obsession “Many” Challenge this week.

Collage Obsession