Another friends' show and tell!

I have so many talented friends, and with their permission, I have an opportunity to share some of their work on m blog!  I have mentioned Peggy and her hubby, Sammy, more than once in a  post.  Yes, Sammy is as talented as Peggy!  Sam carves wooden birds that are beautiful. 

This is a current bird he is carving....and the rest are some bird carvings I took pictures of over the past few years.

And Peggy is no slouch either!  She does some beautiful watercolor paintings and makes all her own cards using her paintings for the front of her cards.  She also plays with Mixed Media and here she is holding a recent collage piece she made.

Pretty cool!!!

This is a painting Peggy made a few years ago.  So much talent! 




Peg and I played with alcohol inks two years ago...you can read that post here or here  and see some of her pieces that were beautiful.  Mine...not so much!  HA.   This next picture is one Peggy framed.  I love it!  She even gave me one of her pieces!  Woohoo!

  This past week Peggy played with alcohol inks with some ladies outside the community.  Here are some pieces Peggy created while playing.

This is upside down!  Oops!!!!

another upside down pic!   Double oops!

So, I hope you enjoyed another show and tell from another one of my talented friends!!!  I am such a lucky gal!

Alcohol Ink Play day #1

On Thursday, Peggy, who is  a wonderful watercolor/acrylic artist, and I played with alcohol inks on paper.     Interesting, last year we did a similar activity!  You can see those results here.  What a fun few hours both years but this year we used some of the techniques from the book 'Pigments of Your Imagination'!
The book is really quite good and gives  you so many techniques for you to start playing with inks!

I'm going to post  Peggy's results today then show mine in another post this week.  I haven't taken pictures of all my results yet.

First off, we covered an entire piece of Yupo paper with hand sanitizer!   Then we applied drops of alcohol inks on top.  The rest just happened!

Another technique was placing several drops of ink in a row on (plain) Yupo paper.  Next we used the side of a straw to move the inks creating a round shape.  Peggy's turned out great!!!  She makes cards as well as mounting her paintings to sell.  I think Peggy will be able to use her pieces in cards or mounting.   I love this piece!

We also did some mono printing....sprayed paper with alcohol then drops of ink on top; covered this piece with another piece of paper and gently rubbed.   Two prints!

This was Peggy's paper she placed on top.

Back to covering a sheet of paper with inks.  The book said to use a craft foam square but we used a paint brush and our fingers to spread the inks!  Next you squirt several lines of ink onto the paint then take wax paper that you have fan-folded and press the paper/folds into the ink; tilt the paper and squirt another color of ink under the waxed paper folds allowing the ink to drop down under the wax paper.

Peggy's wax paper is on the left and on the right she played with a brush to make a  flower design.

Her wax paper piece dry!  Cool isn't it!

Again, wax paper in the drying stage!  I love the colors Peggy used in this piece!

And look at this piece!  WOW!  It is my favorite and I know Peggy will have this in a frame and mounted!  She has a craft sale coming in the fall so these last two pieces won't last long!



Next post I'll show some of my pieces.  What a fun afternoon with Peggy!  Our next outing is a walking one!  We're going to the Sholom Park in Ocala!  This is a natural botanical garden and only a few miles from our community.  We have talked about going to this park for awhile now so I hope within the next few weeks we make it!  We may even talk our friend Sally into going with us!

Such Talented Friends!

Before I left Florida, Peggy (my alcohol ink bud  OK, wine bud as well!), was working on creating a textured canvas piece for a friend.  I was curious as to the process, so of course, I did play for about 10 min. with gel medium and some paint!  OK, so here are my results!  Nothing spectacular but fun to do and I will pursue more.  After my 'secret' project and spring cleaning are finished that is!!

This was gel medium (about an 8" square) on foam board.  Good texture...that's a piece of string on the top left.

Then I mixed some acrylic paint with water and painted the other side of the foam board (after I used gel medium for marking, which I let dry first!).

So that was fun!  So next was Peggy 'playing'!!!





But Peggy really got into it!  And she didn't start out small...nope, her piece is 16" x 20" (at least).  She started off playing with gesso and gel medium.  I haven't worked with gesso much so I didn't think you would get the same texture or results needed but it worked!

Left side is gesso - right is gel medium

Peggy decided to use the gesso on canvas and this was her start using cheesecloth, circles, etc.  Pretty interesting, right!

Next up she laid string down to add more texture.

And then came the paint!

  Peggy decided the edges were too sharp so she did more blending and this is the final piece!  I think she did a great job!!!!

 Look at this detail and texture!  Isn't it great!!!!  I'm sure her friend will be really excited to get this piece.  She picked out the colors she wanted in the piece and I think Peggy did a wonderful job!

She certainly has inspired me to try something like this!  I think we could get in a lot of trouble if we lived closer!  I love Peggy's watercolor and acrylic pieces and in fact, she gave me one of her alcohol ink pieces!!!  So much talent and such a nice person to boot!

Today I worked on my 'secret project' ALL day!  Bob was off golfing so the house was quiet.  Tomorrow there is a flower sale where proceeds go to Outreach East.  We like to donate clothes, household items to this organization as they don't sell to folks who need..they give them away.  So I will pick up flowers tomorrow and feel like part of the $$'s will go to a good organization! Then to weed the front yard...then back to cleaning the inside and continue to do some purging.  Makes a gal feel good!

Play day with Peggy and alcohol!

Last year I showed Peggy how to arm knit (you can see that post here)...well, Peggy thought it only fair to show me a new technique this year!  And believe it or not, no wine or alcohol was involved...other than rubbing alcohol, which we didn't drink!  Instead, we painted papers using alcohol inks as well as a spray or two or three or four! of regular alcohol!   The fumes finally got to us after about two hours!
Peggy paints with acrylics and watercolor and took a class this year learning lots of new techniques to paint and play with (the instructors name escapes me but I'll remember or I'll ask Peggy!).
Here are some of the pieces Peggy completed and framed!  Aren't they beautiful!

Peggy uses a paper called "yupo"??  I think that's how it is spelled..I was using photo and palette papers to play with.  Peggy frames her work or uses pieces of her artwork in cards she makes and sells.








 So here are some of  Peggy's work from today!

Doesn't this remind you of a field of flowers!

This is a landscape Peggy did!










The video (below this pic) is Peggy creating this piece!  It turned out great!!  As did all of hers...

Of course most of mine are darker and more of a southwest palette!  OK, the truth is I'm bad at blending colors and usually get mud but I'm quite happy with the results!  I will use these somewhere in my art work!!  They really look better in person!  Yea, you've heard that before haven't you!

 It was just a fun afternoon!!!  I love playing with new techniques...you just never know when you might use it again.  I can see cutting these up and using fiber cards or maybe even fabric!  You just never know...'stuff' isn't safe in my house!  Thank you, Peggy!!!!   And I didn't even miss the wine!

Also, check out what comes to visit at Peggy's quite often!  Peggy said the hawk grabs her/his food and heads to their roof to eat dinner!  They hear him quite often pecking away!  Gotta love Florida!