Two-day project

Hi everyone, I promise I haven't forgotten about you! This weekend was tiresome as I walked the 5K Susan G. Komen Race for a Cure, but it was AWESOME! And now I'm back with more energy than ever to come up with this week's creation! I'm also in a much better mood than last week due to the fact that I caught up on some rest.

So, I'd like to think of something different and unique for this new project. It won't be a mosaic this time, as I'm taking a break from those for now. Mosaics are something I will continue at a later date. We'll see what I can think up in two days... :)

Anyway, I hate to post without adding a picture, so here is one that I drew about a year ago. Enjoy!

Untitled

This piece is as of yet untitled. I was planning on drawing a specific Halloween scene, but instead came up with this portrait of a young girl. There is a dark cloud above her head, and her eyes are somewhat forlorn, though they look directly at you. Her face is wan and pale, her neck thin and taut.

The project was created using oil pastels on a gessoed art board measuring 9x12 inches (22.9x30.5cm). The board I used this time is smooth rather than textured like the canvasboard was that I used before for my collage. I started with her having bright orange hair, but then after her face was mostly done I colored over it black, leaving some orange behind it, to match the overall feeling of the piece.

A friend suggested I add a mood monitor type of thing to each project, so I will. At the moment, I feel relatively calm yet somewhat pensive. It's also late at night and I'm having trouble sleeping, as sometimes happens when I have PMS. Heh. More information than you wanted to know, I'm sure...

Another last-minute project

I want to thank all my amazing followers once again for being so patient with me. My aunt got married this past Saturday and I have a big walk coming up this next Saturday, so things have been quite crazy! I've been mainly trying to prepare to walk the Susan G. Komen Race for a Cure. It's a 3.1 mile walk/run that benefits breast cancer research, and I am looking pretty damn forward to it! It's a great cause, and I was able to reach my set goal of raising $250 towards it. Yay me! I'm just not in as good of shape as I used to be so I'm trying to work on that a bit!

Anyway, as promised, I will have a new project done by tomorrow! Since it will probably have a Halloween-ish theme, here is a fun picture of me dressed up for Halloween during my senior year of high school in 1997.

New collage

As I previously stated, this week's collage is dedicated to and inspired directly by the life of my mother. What I did not mention before is that she fought a long battle with breast cancer. October is breast cancer awareness month. Since it is coming up I thought it even more fitting to pay this tribute to a beautiful and loving woman, my mom!

No original photos were used, I simply printed out the images from my computer onto glossy photo paper thanks to one of my closest friends. She was kind enough to give me a package of paper to use!

The poem on the bottom left I found online. It reads:

A Mother's Love

Your arms were always open when I needed a hug. Your heart understood when I needed a friend. Your gentle eyes were stern when I needed a lesson. Your strength and love has guided me and gave me wings to fly.

And as a sidenote, I changed the size of the canvas board to 8x10 inches. I simply found a smaller size and decided to use it instead of the 9x12 one.

This week's project

I apologize for my late start on this project. Despite a combination of being busy and procrastinating this past week, I am going to update my blog AND create a weekly art project by tomorrow. It will be a collage. Let's get things started!

Here's a picture of the unfinished and as of yet unSTARTED masterpiece, which is a 9x12" (22.9x30.5 cm) canvas board/panel primed with gesso for use with all mediums. I bought it as is at a Michael's art supply store. I plan on dedicating this week's piece to my beautiful mother, who passed away in November of 1997. She is dearly missed and loved!

Disaster...

The grout got too messy and I think I allowed it to "set" too long so it wouldn't wash off the tiles at all. Oh well. At least I didn't spend much money on this piece, and I can save the clock mechanism and hands for another project.

In hindsight, I would have done the mosaic part first THEN the painting, since the black grout got all over the face of the clock.

Brief hiatus

Sorry about the lack of posts lately but over the long weekend I was busy then today I was feeling a little bit ill. Therefore no new progress has been made on the clock. I will try to finish by tomorrow though. Thanks for your patience!

No work today...

Okay so I haven't done much actual work on the clock/mosaic today, but here is a cute picture of my dog in my studio from yesterday. Enjoy the weekend everyone!

Pre-grouted clock...

As for today, I went and changed the clock hands since the old ones weren't working. I had an old clock that worked fine that I didn't use, so I just took off the hands from it and put them on the new project.

Then I did the mosaic around the edges, which was pretty simple. I didn't cut any of the tiles down but I think it is coming along nicely. I will probably use the black unsanded grout that I bought pre-mixed.

Painted clock

Here it is all painted. As you can see I changed it quite a bit, mainly by painting the background one solid color. I will mosaic starting tomorrow. I started by sanding it down, wiping it with cheesecloth to get rid of dust, and painting it with Kilz primer. Then I painted over it.

Since I also sanded down the outer edge to roughen up the surface for the tiles to stick to, I just need to prime the surface with a 50/50 water/Weldbond glue mixture before starting the mosaic. This helps prevent the wooden base from warping under the glass tiles.

Almost fully painted clock

The clock has been painted for the most part. I chose pink because I love the color combo of pink and green, and I've decided to mosaic the outer edge in green. I will probably start the mosaic by Saturday at the latest, as I still have to paint the drink in the middle.

New project

Here is a picture of the clock I would like to revamp for this week's project. I plan to sand it down a bit, paint it with primer, repaint the clock part, then mosaic the outer rim. Should come out pretty funky!