Acrylic pouring

Ever heard of acrylic pours? I hadn’t until a couple months ago. I watched endless streams of YouTube videos on the process. It looked like something I could totally get into given time, space and willingness to get messy. Two out of three aren’t bad.

I did manage to eek out some space to at the very least make due so I could try this out.

My very first attempt I used red, orange, yellow and white with Golden polymer gloss medium. Some videos use silcone or WD-40 in the mix as well but I am not a fan of using any sort of aerosol in the house especially in my minimally ventilated basement. acrylic pour

I’m pouring onto a previously used canvas board that I coated with gesso. I put a bit of white paint around the edges to hopefully assist with the paint moving all the way out to the edges.

acrylic pour

I did what is called a dirty pour. You dump each of the premixed paints into the pour cup in alternating fashion. I really had no idea what I was doing so I just poured them as I felt like at the moment. I then turned the canvas board upside down over the cup and flipped the whole works over. Flip cup technique OR dirty flip cup technique as some have coined.

acrylic pour

I was amazed at what happened. The colors mixed and migrated. Color bubbled up from underneath.

acrylic pour

It was mesmerizing. Even the paint that flowed off the edge was beautiful.

acrylic pour

These colors made me think of agates…especially Lake Superior agates.

acrylic pour

When I moved the canvas to allow it to dry I ended up losing some of the magic. I fear the secondary location wasn’t completely level so more paint rolled over the edge than I had wanted.

acrylic pour

Here is the end result. A little more pink than I’d hoped but interesting none the less.

I’ve created several more and even took a video of part of the process on one attempt. I’m pretty sure its my favorite end result. It’s so darn fun. I’m experimenting with cheaper pouring medium. I’ve only had one big failure and guess what!?  I just did another pour straight over the top of it.

More to come…I promise.

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Remember the summer

I’m back from vacation! It was wonderful…mini-me and I had a great time. Now that I’m caught up on laundry and all the other not so fun stuff once you get back home, I wanted to get creative again.remember the summer

I dug into my scrap bucket for inspiration. The background paper started out lavender…some distress paints did the trick on toning that right down.

I’ve been very drawn to blue/orange combo lately. It’s bold and exciting. remember the summer

The tickets attached to the page are from a family road trip in the early 1980’s with my parents. Amazing that mom still had those little bits squirreled away in a box of memories for so many years. The colors fit perfectly and cemented the direction I was headed with this page.remember the summer

The tangible bits of ephemera brought the memories alive within my head. I knew I had to use them and remind myself to remember that summer.

Linking up with Art Journal Journey for Summertime Love

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T Tuesday: landscaping edition

Last week we had a beautifully cool, breezy, low humidity day. Outside projects were definitely on the docket. The biggest of these was replacing landscaping. This has needed to be done for quite some time.

Here’s a photo from 2 years ago…T Tuesday: harvest edition| Halle's Hobbies

The log border was already starting to get a little wonky. Fast forward two years and it was rotting away.

Now it looks like this! Mini-me and I did this one ourselves. The edging is recycled rubber. Nice and flexible to bend  and form to what your little heart desires. We had a couple of surface tree roots to contend with so we just made sure to line things up so that I wouldn’t have to pound a stake through the root. 

I did end up going through what I can only assume was root a couple inches underground on the back side of this flower bed.

We were so happy with how nice this one looked and how easy it was to install that I went back for more material to fix up another eyesore area in need of upgrade.

I’m not sure if you can tell but along the right side of the photo is some black edging that was basically laying down…definitely not how we installed it so many years ago. Frost heave has done a number on it.

Now it looks like this….

Complete with a couple new perennials.

I love how this looks so much!

Since at least half of the black edging pieces were still salvageable, I put them around my water barrels.

That is kind of our haphazard area. Mismatched pieces of this and that have all found their way over here. It all works though. Now if we’d only get some rain to refill my barrels.

So after a hard days work a little refreshment is always in order.

Just a couple more days of taxi driving for volleyball this week…then two weeks off before it starts up again…everyday. Mini-me and I are also getting ready for a little trip north. The boys are too busy working to come with us. I’ll be sure to share that adventure in a couple weeks.

What are you doing today?

T stands for Tuesday

Oh and just for you Chris…

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Fun this summer

After a long day of landscaping…more on that in another post….something fun was in order.

fun this summer

I started with a sheet of page protector paper…random colors and stamps included. Note the date and circle stamping in the upper left. I was thinking fun so sunny, bright colors came to mind. I used my favorite tools to add this much needed color…my fingers! If I’m creating, I’m seldom without paint on my hands.

fun this summer

I used watered down paints on scrapbook paper to give life to this ice cream cone, using foam tape to give the scoop some dimension. I wasn’t sure I even liked this page last night I figured I’d be changing things up this morning.

Nope…after a good nights sleep, I like it! All that was left was to add the sentiment this morning.

Linking up with Art Journal Journey for Summertime Love

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T Tuesday: gardens and more edition

This week I thought I’d give you a look at how my gardens are doing followed up with some art.

FYI-photo heavy post

The deck box garden holds my yellow pear tomato plants each year to keep them from cross pollinating with the red regular sized varieties, This year I think I got a few seeds mixed up. I have some non-pear shaped tomatoes on a couple vines. Hmmm. Time will tell. I also have my Egyptian walking onions, radishes and jalapenos in there. Resting on the edge is a new to me shepherds hook. Mr. G is going to move one hook about 10 inches down for me when he digs out the welder.

The shed garden is going gangbusters after what seemed like a very slow start. I have tons of tomatoes on the vines. Even the bedraggled plants that came home from Biology class with J are doing fantastic.

The pumpkin and this tomato included. I really had no hope for either of these plants so I didn’t work very hard making a good home for them. Obviously they don’t care a bit.

The yellow summer squash and zucchini are getting large although the zucchini hasn’t produced anything yet.

The yellow ones are tasty though.

The first bit of bounty from the garden has arrived.

I am dealing with this pest though. Anyone know what it is and how to get rid of it without chemicals? I’ve been knocking them off and squishing them but the little munchers keep coming back for more.

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We changed things up a little this year and didn’t attend the local parade for the 4th of July. Instead we went to a party close to our old neighborhood. We figured out that we hadn’t been to their annual bash in 10yrs. I forgot my phone at home so no pictures from there.

We came back for the standard evening shenanigans on our block. J had 6-7 friends hanging out by the end of the evening. You wouldn’t believe how quickly 3 large pizzas can disappear.

We joined a neighbor in their front yard for the awesome view of the fireworks, What a fun night.

Of course, there was lots of overindulging of all sorts so my drink of choice the next morning was….

alka-seltzer.

I did take a bit of time for creating. I’m not sure how I feel about this page now that its dry.  The colors of the stains were so fun and vibrant before they dried. Now the page is a little dull.

I went back and added these paper beads I made years ago to try and dress things up a bit. I love that they’ll hang outside the book begging someone to open it up to take a peek.

I’m planning to work on the landscape edging around a flower bed before it gets too hot. The humidity is what is so bad right now. UGH! I get very cranky in the heat.  And don’t even talk to me about my hair.

What are you doing today?

T stands for Tuesday

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Ode to yellow

I’m only a little over a week late in sharing this journal page. The Independence Day holiday week kind of got away from me.

I started with a printed scrapbook paper which helped add depth to the page without too much effort. The base page was cool blues, purples and pinks…I decided to go another direction.

I loved how gorgeously aged this sheet of shorthand text was. It inspired the change of color scheme.

My scrapbook album journal is almost full. It’s beginning to get too thick to close tightly.

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Life as we know it

Art journal. It’s been so long. I’ve missed you.

I sat down to create the other day. I had nothing in mind. No colors, technique or even medium planned. A piece of paper caught my eye. It was one that had been used to protect my works pace, journals and the like.

It was covered with random bits of color, stamping, scribbles and even a couple of holes. Not much to look at really but better than the blank page staring me in the face.

I adhered it with a glue stick and began to add more color to balance things out using gelatos. Have I mentioned how much I love gelatos?!?

After adding the cool blues around the edges I was really beginning to like where this was going. I then added the orange as a bit of a transition to the center pinks.

MY love affair with circles came shining through as I began using my finger to create white islands in the sea of wild color.

A piece of painted watercolor paper from my scrap bucket seemed to jump out at me to give a bit of dimension to the page while still keeping the over arching theme of circles going.

The last piece was a bit of found text. It fit so well.  Back to creativity. Back to circles. Back to blogging. Back to life as I knew it.

Linking up with Art Journal Journey.

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