Thursday, November 5, 2015

Experimenting With White

Here's a quick page I managed to make this week. Its been a low volume art week between my head cold wiping me out early in the week and right now we have exams going on at school. But I knew exactly what I wanted to do and so this page went fast.  I must say, the results came out different from what I had in my head. (Doesn't that always happen?) Yet I am really pleased. Can't say a page comes together  like that for me  all that often. Usually I make the background, and then I have to think what to do with that...so it takes me a few days to finish up a layout.
But this page only took me like an hour, and that included drying time.
So I am linking this post to Art Journal Journey. This month the hostess is Susi and the theme is the colors of fall.
So why experimenting with white you might ask? I used a white oil pastel and a small circle stencil and before I did anything to the page I made little whites dots here and there over the paper. Then I did a bit of painting and ink spraying to see how both reacted with the white oil pastel. I was expecting a bit more of a white crayon effect but I am not unhappy with the effect at all. The oil pastel I used was Sennelier and they are softer than a white crayon, so that they "mush" a bit when I used my paint brush. 
I love these Sennelier oil pastels though. These are what "adult" crayons are all about. I made the leaves on some white paper and painted them with some mica embedded acrylic paint.  I used SILKS paints. 
The little leaf painting fairy images are stamped.
So I'll finish off this post with some more "magic" of autumn. I took these just before I got sick when we were walking the dogs. You can see pretty soon we won't have any leaves at all.



Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

8 comments:

blogoratti said...

Great piece, hang in there and all the best with exams!

Valerie-Jael said...

Love your autumn piece, what wonderful colours. Thanks for joining us at Art Journal Journey again. Love the photos, too. Hugs, Valerie

Bleubeard and Elizabeth said...

Well, this is certainly lovely! I've never heard of those oil pastels. I have some, but they are not water soluble as I'm sure yours are. And I've also never seen or own those Silks, but I've read a lot about them. This is a very strong and vibrant painting. You did GOOD.

Speaking as a former GTA (in grad school), at least you don't have to worry about lesson plans during exams week. OK, that was a bit of a joke, but still . . . .

Your trees are starting to look more like ours now. Still lovely, though.

froebelsternchen said...

Your page is just AWESOME Erika and the autumnal photos are super as well! I know what you mean with the Sennelier brand..they are simply the best artist grade / high level.. I buy them one by one in our local art store... awesome.. their soft pastels are also amazing in my mind!
Thank you very much for another fantastic page to Art Journal Journey Erika ! Hope all goes well at school!
oxo
Susi

Linda Kunsman said...

oh what lovely autumn magic Erika! I love the little fairies and like to think they are dancing all around the falling leaves everywhere:)

Paper rainbow said...

Love your autumn page and those wonderful colours.

Anonymous said...

Another Autumn beauty page. Like this alot. That last photo with that mahogany red, sigh. xox

SCarol said...

Oh wow, really bold and bright and gorgeous!