Charm Bracelet

Putting together my first charm bracelet.

New supplies

For the last few months I have been trying to order a 12 pack of Derwent Inktense blocks, but every time I checked at  dickblick.com, it showed that the set was out of stock and the expected date kept moving forward.  I finally gave up and put together a 12-pack of my own by ordering the singles.  I also took the opportunity to purchase Golden Absorbent Ground (which I learned about while viewing Mixed Media Art Project shows on UStream) and a pack of Sharpie Essentials.

I was pleasantly surprised today when I collected my package, at how well my Inktense blocks were packaged.  Each one was placed in a super long plastic bag, rolled and placed into a three compartment box.  Excellent protective packaging.

These are the colours that I ordered:

New art supplies

I made a trip to "Art Perspective" in Trincity Mall and was happy to pick up a Sharpie Liquid Pencil with some refills, a Strathmore Mixed Media Visual Journal and a piece of linoleum to carve into (I've done erasers, but never tried the linoleum).

The pencil felt scratchy, as though it skipped a lot.  It seems to be better for writing than sketching.

Stamps

This week has started off in a bouncy, rubbery way.

On Monday I got some Stampendous stamps that I can really identify with.  They are beach and boat scenes!  I've been wanting to get the Scene range of cling stamps ever since I saw a demo using embossing powders to 'paint' the landscape.  Check this YouTube video.  I just couldn't decide which designs were most appropriate, living in the tropics and on an island and all.

From Amazon.com:

Umbrella Beach, Beachfront Boat, Sailboat Bay

'Sailboat Bay' reminds me of 'down the islands'.

I was also happy to find this:

Tiny Alphabet

I took a chance and ordered from two UK sites.  One was The Glitter Pot - who previously didn't ship to Trinidad, but added it to its list of countries, 4 months after my original request.  Of course, by this time they were sold out of the stamp that I originally wanted.   The second company was TandaStamps.

The Glitter Pot envelope was mailed out on the 27th June and the TandaStamps was mailed on the 5th August.  Both were delivered to me today - hmmmmm.

From Glitter Pot:

Flower Patterns

African Holiday

Oriental Treasure - Lanterns

Unmounted Rubber Stamps on sheets fron TandaStamps:

Town Set, Village Set, Garden Elements (5 1/4" x 3 1/2")

Art Nouveau Set 1 & 2, Art Deco Set 1, Art Nouveau Borders (5 1/4" x 7 3/4")

More Self-Portrait Experiments

I recently viewed the live stream of an artist who said that she makes copies of her drawings, especially of faces, and practices on them.

I decided to apply that to my self-portrait idea, by scanning a few images and printing them out on 8.5" x 11 "  white card stock.

This image was left without hair, so that I could play with different types of hear/headwear.  My coloured pencil skill is matched the quality of my pencils. Her purple and gold hair and pink lips were done in a metallic crayon called Colorix.  Her eyeshadow was done in a metallic gel pen.  Her earrings were done with a gold metallic marker.

These had torsos added and were reproduced in two sizes:

After starting with Derwent Inktense pencils on this one, I'm considering finishing it off with acrylic paint.

Self Portrait

I've been working on some self-portrait ideas.

Finally decided on carving a stamp of this image: