Renewing the Blog

I am coming back to my blog. I will be posting most of my stuff here. I know it will take time for my friends to come back and that's ok. Facebook is fine but the blog was always a good thing. I will be back tomorrow with new stuff....food, knitting, quilts etc...

AFRICAN FLOWER CROCHET BULLDOG

Hello Bloggers, it’s been a while since I posted on here, so I thought I would return now and then for those of you who don’t do Facebook lol.

This is Max, a beautiful, colorful, African Flower Bulldog. He is crochet using the African Flower Motif, not a granny square. He is made with, hexagons, pentagons, triangles, octagons, squares, and the seven petal one…..

I know he looks complicated but he is very doable. The instructions and illustrations are excellent. Anyone who crochets can do this. The designer for this pattern is, Heidi’s Bears.

http://heidibearscreative.blogspot.com/

I will show you several areas of his body so you can see how he comes together. He is bigger than the pattern because I don’t listen very well lol.

He is supposed to be made with fingering yarn and a 1.75 crochet hook but I had all this needle point yarn and had to use a larger needle, so there you have it.

I love him! I love his large size, he make a statement and sure shows of all my lovely colors.

The Angel of Death

Painting the Angle of Death

Ok, I see I haven't blogged forever since last year November. Well, you all don't comment so I think you don't care, hahahhaha

Anyhow here is something new. I told my neighbor, who was moving, to just throw this grey angel in my yard if she decided to not take her. She promptly did so after her children told her they were scared of it lol.   

I sealed the Angel and base coated her with any color, doesn't matter as it will change. I just wanted to get some paint in her and cover the grey.

 

I will be painting the Angel using,

 http://decoart.com/cgi-bin/Products.cgi?Americana_Acrylics

 DecoAmericana bottled paints, in many colors and I will tell you how I am doing her.  I have a big tub of water out, a tub of Extender, and a tub of varnish, a 2 inch brush for extender and water and a 1 inch for painting, so far go good.

 I have pulled out many colors of reds, purple, blues, yellows greens, whites.

I will show pics as I go along with it for your enjoyment. I will also tell you how I am doing it, so you can grab a yard piece and do your thing too. I love lots of colors as all my painting friends know and lots of color is going to go on this piece

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I am going to give the front of the Angel a coat of Extender and make sure it doesn’t puddle, I just wipe my hand over it and adjust here and there, I will include the front of the wings too. Any paint that falls on her foot, wings, face, will stay right there. I will just blend it in with the brush. This is going to be Artistic License and so fun for me. I love to paint this way.  

I have her on my cutting table (as I am not sewing for a while). I actually have three painting stations. One in front, one in the back and one on the side. Excessive? That’s the America way, I love it lol. 

This is the scene. It’s great to have everything I need at hand. I have one of those huge wet palettes and I will squeeze copious amounts of paint out, the darks first and apply those and then start with colors

First I dip my brush into the varnish and apply the color. I do this for every brush load. Here you see the bottom half of her after the dark has been added and then some color.

Here is the front at stage one and here is the back.

Next I will glaze on some tints with Decoart American glazing medium and the Traditions Paint with is a pure pigment. http://www.traditionsartistacrylic.com/

To be continued....

Large Chalk Owl

Some time ago, I made an exchange. A cloth doll for an old beat up Owl from the 50ties. It is made out of chalk or some substance like it. 
Even tho he was so pitiful, I loved him at first sight. He is huge! I decided he had potential. He had traveled all over the USA, New York was his last stay. He had been knocked around quite a bit. I fixed the very large hole under his wing, rebuilt his feathers on that same wing. Patched all his bruises and cracks and formed him some new ears

I then sealed him up with that Decoart Americana, Multi- Purpose Sealer and started to give him a new set of clothes and bright eyes. 
And then there was this pitiful little yard dog with his bone that I got from the neighbor’s garage sale, had to have him too. I rebuilt his tail and patched his cracks. He will get the same treatment as the Owl but his bone will be polka dots

I did a coat of Multi-Surface Sealer (Decoart) on the Owl, he looks so shinny now and his eyes got all clear. I then mixed the Sealer and some dark Primer and did the dog. Doesn't he look so sad? He is a dirty grey and black now lol.

 I put all sorts of tints and glazes on him and then painted the front of him Yellow. I just played with lots of color. Yellows, oranges, Burnt Sienna, purple, reds, on his back and wings and lots of White for high lights on his breast feathers.

 

I covered his breast with a coat of Extender, wiped it down and ladled the Burnt Umber that I had mixed with extender on him. Wiped him down and wiped out the high lights. I decided to then add some black under the feathers, which I also did to the eyes to make them recede.
Wiped that down and then added white to high light.

 

 

Here he is all varnished and the little yard dog with his red bone with polka dots

For those who have some statuary lying around and need fixing and painting. I used plummers putty for the fixing up and then I used the Decoart Traditions paint and Mediums. I couldn’t have gotten the effect I got with any other paint as these went on like oils and blended together without any lines etc. I had fun doing this

Pumpkin Floor Mats

Taking a break from Gourds but not for long lol.
 

I just finished painting six green pumpkin floor mats and they have been delivered already. The mats are vinyl samples and just perfect for this. I did all my base coats using the Decoart Americana line of bottled acrylics. The pumpkins got a couple coats of any yellow. Then I switched to the Decoart Traditions line to finish the pumpkins. I was aiming for simple and bright. I love that paint, it just does what you want it to do.

 

You can get the paint here.    http://tiny.cc/ci4g5w

 

You  can visit the Decoart website and watch videos and get information about all their products. If you can't find the paint or products in the store you can order directly from them.

 

 

For the leaves, I cut out some shapes in that compressed foam, called miracle sponges and flung it in water to plump up and then did the touch and press leaves. I just put some greens and yellow in a veggie tray and pressed the form all over it and then pressed on the mat. I got several pressings out of one dip as you don’t want them all to be the same.

 

These sponges are great, I have used them for years, you can get them here.

http://tinyurl.com/nbpxme5

 

I did some line work, let them cure overnight and applied three coat of varnish

 

Painting Gourds, The Red Gourd

The Red Gourd is finished.

It's the same procedure as the previous Gourd. The only difference is the back leaves underneath and the black pull out out leaves.