Oil pastels with collage

Not a lot of new work has come out of my studio this week  - I missed Illustration Friday :( - but rather than not show anything at all,  I've decided to share a few colourful experimental pieces I've played about with over the last few weeks.  The above little pieces are clips created from a larger work created from small shapes torn from magazine pages with added oil pastel work.  No particular design in mind - just going with the flow....very liberating!  Thanks to Carolyn Saxby for a reminder of this process - I worked from this tutorial by Sue Dove.

Here you can see I have pasted shapes torn from magazines onto a sheet a plain paper.  I did start with  colours in mind... but then I just worked the oil pastels fairly randomly around the shapes.

this is the colourful finished page which I then flipped over and divided up by cutting into the page from the back - that way you don't know exactly where you'll be snipping!



I hope these little rectangles and squares might be inspiration for something in the future..!

I enjoyed the process so much that I had to make more!

 Sliced up sections from the original page make for interesting mini abstracts.

I pasted them into a sketchbook as reference - perhaps for future paintings or textiles.  I've used a few for little additions to handmade cards and collages.  And if they don't get used I think they make a lovely display!

If you've got a set of oil pastels I recommend you have a go!  By the way, the same exercise can be done with paint too - just layer watercolours or acrylics for similar effects!   Have a go!!



Stay tuned for more experiments with inks, watercolour and underwear next!!!!

Cards

 These are a couple of the pieces I've been working on recently.  Two collages of cats sitting on paper quilts.  I printed the design onto cards.

 

These are some of the other cards I made to sell at a Xmas Bazaar.  I've been too busy to upload these to Etsy and it's a bit late for Xmas now, but I'll put the non Christmassy ones in the shop soon.

 

I've been updating my children's name pictures too - more about these in another post!

 

Illustration Friday - Stripes

©Caroline Soer

A piece from the archives for this week's Illustration Friday. Sleeping stripey cat on patchwork quilt collage.

Illustration Friday and GIVEAWAY

Fuel ©Caroline Soer

This week's Illustration Friday word is 'fuel'.  I decided on a bird and berries theme and actually painted two similar versions of the same illustration this week.  The one above started life as a watercolour on which I'd used quite a lot of masking fluid.  I was aiming to get a sort of outlined, batik/silkpainting look.  Well, needless to say it wasn't a successful experiment so I tweaked it back to life with with a good helping of acrylic, some gouache and watercolour pencils!

 After I finished that yesterday,  I started on a second painting.  I've taken photos of the work in progress.  This first shows the mountboard ground with torn paper and hole punched collage covered with gesso and the first brushstrokes.

A little more detail added.

 Some final details added with coloured pencils and a craft knife to (carefully) scratch out some highlights.

Fuel II ©Caroline Soer

The final piece - it has lots of texture.  I'm not sure which one I prefer, how about you?
Well, if you're better at making up your mind than I am, you could stand a chance of winning a print of your preferred illustration by taking part in my  GIVEAWAY!

How do you take part?   Anyone is welcome to join in - regular followers or visitors alike - I really do appreciate all those of you who follow my blog and take the time to leave me comments - but it's ok to be a quiet occasional visitor too!  All you have to do is first quickly hop over to Facebook - I've recently set up an art page there and would love it if you would  'LIKE' my  page  - the link is here in the sidebar on the right.   Yes, you're right - a little shameless self promotion !!!   To be included in the draw next TUESDAY NOVEMBER 1ST you'll also need to come back here to leave a comment on this post to say which of my two 'Fuels' you prefer.  Easy! Oh, and you could DOUBLE your chances by promoting my giveaway on your own blog or FB page,  and becoming a follower here (if you aren't already) if you like.  Just don't forget to mention that in the comments section here!  Thank you and good luck to everyone - I'll be back next week with the winner!

Illustration Friday - Reverse

©Caroline Soer 2010

I drew this little rabbit and pasted him into a collage of bluebells - a scene I remember from many springtime walks I've made in Cornwall. I just love bluebells and that part of the English countryside so much! I can almost smell the sea air and those sweetly perfumed flowers now!

I reckon this little illustration (made for a postcard swap last year) can just about double for this week's Illustration Friday word 'Reverse'!

'Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads'.

New owl prints and a Giveaway!

I decided to have another play with my owl lino print (the one in my header) and had fun printing onto different grounds such as watercolour, handmade papers, and brown paper bags. I then took a few a bit further with collage.

'Viewpoints' linoprint with collage © Caroline Soer

Here's one I made by printing onto a flimsy paper with a holey pattern. It's difficult to see here, but you can probably spot it in the centre of the 2nd photo above. This allowed the background map to show through a little - clicking the photo to enlarge will help! I added more torn papers for trees and finally some printed words.

Soon there was quite a flock - this is my owl portfolio!

And then the family grew a little larger when I decided to scan the smaller lino prints into my computer and print them out on watercolour paper.

'Ice owl' print © Caroline Soer

'Storm Owl' print © Caroline Soer

'Woodland Owl' print © Caroline Soer

I think they look quite smart in a simple black frame ( the prints measure 20 x 25 cms or 8" x 10" so easily fit into a standard frame). The first 5 will be flying into my Etsy shop this week but before that I'm going to GIVE AWAY one here on my blog!!

So, if you'd like a chance of winning one of these prints please leave me a comment to say which one of the 3 prints,' Ice Owl', 'Woodland Owl' or 'Storm Owl' you prefer. Everyone is welcome to join in - regular commenters, occasional followers and new visitors alike! I'll draw the winning name on Sunday and then I'll print your favourite owl on Fabriano watercolour paper. Your owl print will be signed and then packaged carefully, ready to make its journey to you where you can pop it into a frame!

Good luck!

Sketchbook Project

I signed up for the Sketchbook Project months ago and realised this week that I need to get going with it as the deadline for handing it in is January! So, without further ado here are my first few pages.

The front cover - my theme is 'In Flight'

Front and back covers



First double spread. I glued a map over the thin pages and drew this bird on top.

The pages are so thin that paint and glue will cockle the paper . Almost everthing but light pencil shows through on the other side, so this is going to be a challenge! On the left, I've collaged items to sturdier paper and glued to the other side of the map page. I then drew with coloured pencils. On the right I tried a carved rubber stamp - it shows through on the other side a little, but not too badly.

Feathers in pencil.




And here's who was watching me whilst I was drawing - a grumpy ol' black and white cat sitting on a black and white mat!

Illustration Friday

watercolour and ink with collage © Caroline Soer 2010


"If I keep a green bough in my heart, the singing bird will come". Chinese proverb

This week the Illustration Friday prompt is 'Proverb'. Been a bit busy lately so rooted through the archives and found something I made for a postcard exchange a few months back. I created this with watercolour, ink and collaged papers. If you're interested, you can view the postcards I made here.

Illustration Friday

Dessert

watercolour pencil and collage - © Caroline Soer 2010

This week's word at Illustration Friday is Dessert. This is an image from my sketchbook created with watercolour pencils and collage.

Watercolour Trees and a Sunshine Award!

Click to enlarge

Last week I tried my hand at an interesting painting technique using watercolour on collaged mountboard. I'm aware that my compostion isn't great with that tree being a bit too central on the page, but the exercise was essentially about creating texture here! I applied tissue paper to the board with acrylic medium and this delicate paper crinkled up to give a wonderfully textured surface. When it was dry, I covered the whole with gesso, using a bristle brush for even more texture. The resulting surface was pretty slippery to work on - the watercolour paint slid and dribbled into the ridges and furrows and generally flowed where it pleased! Despite that it was fairly easy to manipulate and even simpler to lift off unwanted areas of colour. Very exciting effects can be created with this method which is great when you want to loosen up a little! You'll need to enlarge the photo to see the textures properly!



I'm also posting this lovely award I received from Cathy of One Pink Goose. This is awarded to bloggers whose positivity and creativity inspire others in the blog world. I'm very honoured to recieve it - thanks Cathy. Be sure to visit Cathy's blog - every week she showcases a handful of wonderful artists as well as her own beautifully stylised illustrations. You'll be so inspired! As I'm a little late in posting this and have noticed the award has been doing the rounds of a few friends' blogs this week, I thinka number of you will already have received it too, so I will pass this on to all of you instead of singling out just a few! Have a good weekend!

Reverse of my page for Lisa's book

Having posted Lisa's picture yesterday and put it together with the others in her book I felt the back of the page needed a little something to complete it - especially as it is the last in the book. So, I got cracking today with this postcard. I decided to use a watercolour painting of two cherries I had done some time back and cut these out to place over collaged papers (you may recognise my current favourite - a swirly white paper which seems to be popping up in lots of my pieces recently!). Thus 'Tumbling Cherries' was born! Although the colours are true, the scan does seem to have made the image look a bit flat - it just isn't doing the textures justice - pity :( !

Illustration Friday - Renewal

Happy New Year to you all! Here's my offering for this week's Illustration Friday. The theme is Renewal. It's probably quite appropriate as I'm sure many of us will be thinking about getting into shape again after the holiday season's indulgences! I thought a little spa and yoga therapy to renew the body and mind would be a good place to start! This year I WILL lose weight - there, I've made it public, so it has to be done!