Creative Color - A Canvas

In the Creative Color class, Christy took us through a variety of sources for color inspiration.  I used the "Where Women Create" book for my first piece.

For my second piece, I went back to Christy's Day One Color Inspiration piece... a page from Somerset Life magazine.  I was honestly so taken by smitten with this color inspiration that I HAD to own it! So I went out shopping and found a copy at Joanne's Fabrics.  $15 later I was home with this gorgeous magazine and I just loved the ideas and inspiration there!  This is the color inspiration page:

I love the aqua, teal, kiwi color scheme with the splashes of lavender and coral.  This color scheme is not one I decorate with and other than the aqua/teal portion, not colors I dress in either.  In fact, for the most part I don't care for lavender at all!  But somehow this inspiration was just calling my name.

I was also drawn to the crazy quilting effect of the way the author of this page placed all her pieces and knew I wanted to incorporate that look/feel into my piece.

Here is my color scheme chart with the paint colors I chose (I actually had to purchase the first three because I didn't have any of those colors in my stash) and the bits of paper and a snippet of ribbon I pulled from my scrap stash. Not only did I not have any lavender in my paint stash, I didn't have a single bit of it in my paper or ribbons either!

And you can see from the tiny little sketch at the bottom my rough plan for mimicking the crazy quilt layout of elements in the inspiration page.

This planner page was one of the things Christy introduced us to in class. And I LOVE it! I could do an entire Art Journal of nothing but the Inspiration and Planning pages ... because finding the inspiration and then pulling from what you have to match it really is addicting!

My finished piece - a 6x12" canvas.  I still consider myself a novice when it comes to mixed media, but I was SO HAPPY with the way this came out.  Not my colors at all.  I swear it doesn't match any room in my home decor wise. And yet I love it enough that I really want to figure out a place to hang it! I surprised myself with this one.

 detail shots - top center.  The purple paper on the left with the printed butterfly is actually a bit of gift wrap. I traced over the larger one with Pitt Artist Pen (brown) and paint (coral) - the butterfly was orange on the wrapping paper.

Center right - the quote. Love it.

Bottom right - Prima flowers with paint highlights and button centers.  Prima flowers have long been one of my "go to" embellishments and they definitely worked on this piece.

Sorry I have droned on forever about this little work of art. I just really enjoyed the process and wanted to share!

Creative Color - Art Journal Page

The Creative Color class over at Scarlet Lime has had us looking everywhere for color and design inspiration. On Day 1, we were looking at books and magazines and as soon as the concept was introduced, I knew what I just HAD to use as creative inspiration!

Because I had already decided to use this page:

This is from the book "Where Women Create."  As the last recipient of this first round offering from Sian's Pass the Book, I felt a need to make good use of the inspiration - and several of the contributors in this book had spaces that were basically "white". Although this room is a bit cluttered for my taste, I found the white, cream, beige space with splashes of copper and peach (I also picked up some of the tan from the baskets) to be very calming and wanted to try it on an Art Journal page. I also loved the vintage feel with all the lace and sewing notions.

This is the page I created using the color inspiration.  And  to be totally honest, I found creating with the total lack of color to be quite difficult frustrating challenging! Definitely out of my comfort zone.

I'm not 100% in love with the finished product, but there are bits and pieces of it that I really do like:

The background here is actually very old paper from my stash, not real lace. And copper Stickles.

Prima Flowers and a ribbon rose.