Friday, May 18, 2012

proverbial: adjective

well-known: widely known and recognized, and often viewed as stereotypical

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Well, I got a little behind so I combined a few Elements of Design from Lesson 7 into the first lay out for Lesson 8. In Lesson 7, I was to show line, form, shape, space and texture

Lesson 7
Form and shape to show 3 dimension: I did this several ways, by letting her hair overlap the scroll, and by having her hands disappear under the scroll and over the clam shell. This gives an otherwise flat form, dimension.

space, to show distance or area between, around, above, below, or within shapes and forms: I did this by placing the mermaid up front sitting on the clam shell and the flying pelican is smaller and in the distance. To quote Elizabeth "As a rule of thumb, larger objects tend to appear closer to the viewer and smaller ones tend to recede into the background. Also objects placed lower on the page appear closer in distance than those which are placed higher up."

Texture to give your surface quality which can be either tactile or visual: I actually have a lot of textures going on here, the texture of the sky, since it is pieces of magazine paper glued on and then white washed with a pale blue. There is texture on her tail fin from stickles, and added texture in her hair with Pearls as lines...( also shows movement, like her hair is blowing in the  ocean breeze ), and texture in the ocean.

Lesson 8

To create a background with one of the color groupings: I chose an analogous color selection starting at yellow and ending with blue. That meant I had yellow, green and blues to play with. The only things that don't fall within this are the pelican and the clam shell.

I combined the lines portion from Lesson 7 with Lesson 8's sgraffito technique. I painted green paint over the gesso, then my layer of blue paint and used my embossing tool to scratch the lines to represent the ocean's water flow. ( again, implies movement ) I really enjoyed this, felt like I was back in kindergarten where we use to do this with crayon!

Design a color wheel using paint chips, junk mail, or magazine images

Yikes, really? A color wheel with a mermaid themed book? Now this was a stumper...thank you BJ for helping me to think outside the box! But don't blame her if you think I went too far outside the box!
Now, my color wheel, really is outside the proverbial box, and I hope you will be able to follow the pattern, ready?
here we go:

bubbles represent the color wheel, beginning with violet red, and ending with red. They are in order but to get them all together on the 2 pages, your eye has to travel up and down, so next would be the violet bubbles....
then
each fish assigned to the bubbles shows the complimentary colors. So the violet red bubbles have a yellow green fish, the violet bubbles have a yellow fish, and so on...
and finally
the 3 fish along the bottom of the page that are facing opposite to all the other fish are the primary colors, yellow fish, red fish, green fish


It goes without saying that Dr. Seuss's book was running through my head so I incorporated it into my page, lol Just couldn't help myself! I love the google eyes on the fishies combined with the words to this book, they all seem to be looking around, kinda goofy!

and speaking of goofy...!
 I made a mistake and thank you BJ for pointing it out for me, as soon as I read what she wrote, I was like "duh me"!! I had gotten so excited thinking I had all primary colors lined up on the bottom row but I didn't, I had a secondary color in there, so a quick run back to the crafting room to remove 2 little fishes and invert them ( I am not going to redo the entire pages to make all 3 primary colors fit on the bottom of the pages like I originally planned )......course now, there are 2 little fishes farting bubbles.....lmao..I think I love it! Thanks BJ!

the 3 fish that are facing opposite to all the other fish are the primary colors,
 yellow fish, red fish and blue fish


This was my chart in the making, I have to say that so far, this assignment really made me think.
My brain hurts now.....

what I learned from using magazines
  • When you paint over pieces of magazines, I learned to keep in the mind that paint will follow the waft of the magazine paper, so unintentionally I have lines going vertically and horizontally in my sky, but it's OK, I actually like it this way! 
  • I also learned that not all magazines are a like, some have very thin paper and they are hard to cut, while other magazine pages have more substance. It's easier to get a crisp punch from the pages that are thicker, ( on my color wheel lay out, I had to double the pages to punch out the circles! )
  • I also learned that if you find one color of red in the magazine, then it will be used again. I guess it's easier for them while printing to use one dye: whereas there would be many more shades of blue and green in one issue. I discovered this with several magazines, and became obsessed with looking at their color choices. The one primary color that was the hardest to locate was yellow which kinda surprised me. makes me wonder if yellow cost more to produce or they don't consider it a good color visually? 
  • I also was very surprised to find images for my particular theme, the pelican and the clam shell were definitely a bonus discovery!

I am not doing the other color lay out, I have completed a monochromatic one with :Mermaid Humor:, but I want to save my pages to make sure I can do all the remaining classes. If I have space at the end I figure I can always go back and add.

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In the hills of North Carolina

18 comments:

Bleubeard and Elizabeth said...

Well blow me AWAY!! That's how I felt when I began reading this post. How impressive.

I'm glad you used the sgraffito technique. It was something fun and it went perfectly with your theme. I was also surprised you found the pelican and clam shell in magazines. Way to go.

When I read your ruminations, I realized I probably should have said something about magazine images. The thinner the magazine page, the cheaper the magazine. The high end magazines have much thicker pages. So pages are "slick," and that is why the entire industry is often called "slicks."

National Geographics are clay based, and are a totally different paper altogether. That is why you can manipulate them using Turpentine, Nevr-dull, and/or Citra-Solve to change and manipulate the color on the pages.

I appreciated your obsession with colors. At least you were able to discern the difference. Some of the better magazines have lots of yellow and there is always the freebie Pottery Barn and Anthropologie magazines.

Have an awesome day, dear.

...the yorkshire fox... said...

...super work Sandee you've put so much into those pages, loVely bright colours and textures...Mel :)

Redanne said...

A great post today Sandee, love the mermaid and how you have done her but loving the little fish and the journal pages - so cute and so colourful. Great job. Anne x

Redanne said...

Hi Sandee, me again. Donna Downey has posted something on her blog that she found on Pinterest, I thought you might like to look too. Her blog is
http://donnadowney.typepad.com/simply_me/2012/05/give-it-away.html
It is a wonderful quote. Anne x

BJ said...

WOW - completely different to what I'd imagine you'd come up with. More a colour ric-rac than a wheel - LOL. Have to point out that green isn't a primary colour it is secondary. Yellow, Red and Blue are the primary colours.
As for the sky and magazine papers painting up differently, well I thought your sky was an iceberg!! Your sgraffito is great,not sure I'm into this sort of stuff, but I may have a go sometime.Well done for thinking outside of the box - BJ

Ann B said...

Hi Sandee
I loved your mermaid page when I saw it on your desk on Wednesday but it is even better in close-up, the mermaid is so pretty and you have got the lesson spot on.
I'm a bit behind myself but aim to catch up this weekend - looking forward to doing the colour wheel and inspired by your very different take on it - superb pages.

Ann B
xx

Mary Pat Siehl said...

oh very cool!

Craftymoose Crafts said...

Well, I was certainly awed by your post--what a unique color wheel! I discovered some of the very same things you did about magazine papers and the fact that publication, be they magazines or ads reuse the same colors.

Fantastic job on the mermaid, too!

Bleubeard and Elizabeth said...

I read your comment about not mentioning the color wheel and I was SHOCKED. I came here thinking I said something about it, including the fact that I have NEVER read Dr. Seuss. But there was nothing! And for that I apologize. My brain must have been thinking faster than my fingers could type, because I thought FOR SuRE I said I loved the outside the box way of thinking and you WERE able to create your own color wheel without compromising your theme.

Apparently, I was racing ahead and thinking how I should have mentioned the paper, etc. and forgot to tell you how inventive you were. I suspect you probably don't believe this, but it was truly just an oversight on my part and my hurried-ness this week.

Karen said...

Stunning work Sandee, such gorgeous pages :)

Hugs, Karen xx

Terrie said...

Good grief! This is amazing. And between you and BJ you've come up with such a creative color wheel - all that work! I have been away from my AB for a few weeks doing other things so this is the week to return to it - I'm intrigued by the color challenges and now you've set the bar impossibly high! :) Thanks for sharing. - by the way - did you see that Inspiration Avenue's theme this week is mermaids - you're a shoe-in!

Kalea Wavedancer said...

I literally started purring like a cat when I saw this. Who knew mermaids purred?

Sherry said...

Wow Sandee you've been very busy with your book! Looks like you covered all the design elements wonderfully. Your colour wheel page with the fish is amazing. I don't follow it all yet as I haven't done lesson 8 yet, but it looks as though there is a lot to learn. Thanks for the wonderful inspiration x

Dawn said...

Sandee, these pages are amazing, what imagination and inventiveness you have, absolutely love them. Mermaids and all things fishy have always been a love of mine, wonderful to see them used so well. Thanx for sharing my lovely. Hugs x x x x

Katie said...

Love your work! Thanks for sharing!

elle said...

Extremely informative. That hair is definitely blowing in the wind. Amazing. Luv the bubble wheel! Very inventive. Beautiful work!

paulaexuk said...

Wonderful interpretations of the lesson, or should I say lessons. I love you mermaid spread, the different techniques all put together. And your fish swimming colour wheel is fantastic. A very clever an interesting way of leading you round the different colours. LOVE IT

Susan said...

Oh I love the fishes!! What a great idea and what a happy page!!