A Lovely Dream

You Suck Monday - Transfers

So you didn't have time to suck and missed the show? No worries, our suckiness is recorded each week for you to play back and join the fun.

YSM 6/6 2011

Not sure what YSM is? It's a chance to try an art technique you've never done before and fail miserably at it along with 100's of other artists in a live video chat room YAY! This week we tried transfers which I always thought I was doing wrong no matter how easy other artists made it look.  I had this stuff on my shelf and tried it on fabric and it didn't work at all. I sucked in front of everyone and it was great. Every monday at 6pm PST (thats 8 central and 9 EST) we meet in THIS ROOM. You don't need a web cam to view us.

     Then googie and Kelley and AJ tried transfers and risked being sucky.  Here is googs photos from what she did on offical the YOU SUCK BLOG. And although she sucked a little at first she did more and more and then started to understand the process more and made great results. Even the bad results she likes because transfers are not about perfect photographs. If you want that then just print out a photo and glue it on. The distressedness of the photos make the subjects look more vulnerable, I think. You know me and distressed stuff, I want everything to look old and worn.

  So back to me.
I used this stuff.
Its spray transfer ink from Superior. It sucked on cloth and didn't work and wasn't even faint enough to be a jesus shroud.  But, look what it did on paper. (Arches hot press watercolor 90 lb).

 This Transfer Ink liquid spray works amazing on paper. I was very pleased with the results.  Now I can use my faces over and over again GREAT for journals.  Here is where you can get the product online. Its cheapie too!

 

I fooled around with colored pencils just a little and now this is it man, this is so much fun. You can take the original image and flip it and it looks different, then change the colors. I barely did anything to it but my mind is spinning with all I want to do!

 

 

If you have a face you like you can use it as a starting point over and over again and build upon that. This doesn't take away from improving your drawing skills, it's inhibiting to use the same face all the time or to use someone elses faces, at some point you will want to grow, but for beginners, or for journal pages, or when you just really don't have time or the energy to line the eyes up and spend time on concentrating, which drawing from scratch takes, and all we can layer now and do on top of it. I'm REELING. My heart is literally skipping in my chest saying LA LA LA OMG.

So, what's going on with me? Deadline for my book is July 1 so I'm finishing it like mad. Here is my organized studio that I love love. The only thing I need to add is pretty things for the bed.  I want it to be restful on that side of the room. But for now I can't leave the house.  I see the end in site but there is still a lot of work and writing to do.  I want this book to be important. Not just eye candy but a real book you go to when your eyes start to look googly and you can't remember why.  I want us all to be on the same page with drawing and shading portraits and making a complicated background so we all can move on from here. I don't want to keep doing the same things and neither do you.  Let's get the basics down and then grow together.

Notes for my book. 4 years in the making.

I am filming new classes too so as soon as this manuscript is done I'm going to blow your mind with classes all summer. Are you ready to do some fabulous stuff?

xo
Suzi

P.S. I am officially off decaff mocha latte's.  They have caffeine and it makes me feel yuck after awhile. and all that sugar. Want to see what Im doing. ITS TEECCINO.
Holy crap Im not kidding, it tastes just like a mocha latte. Its not coffee though, its a coffee substitute what? It is carob and chickory and two teaspoons of this when brewed Im telling you, I poo pood this sort of thing years ago because fake coffees were weak, well they have it right now. I can drink Mocha all day and have barely any calories, no caffeine or sugar. I add Agave to it which is a low glycemic natural sweetener.

 p.s.s Finney is doing GREAT! I just haven't had time to make a little video for him I will do soon.

Fabric Painting - You Suck Monday

kinda sleepy. Kinda over the henna red hair too.
Inspired by Donna Downey and Jacquard Paints I spent the day on Live Cam  playing with their new paints. This was just an experiment, I had never worked intentionally with fabric paints on fabric before. (Stewart gill is a fabric paint but I layer it over acrylic and papers).  Just fooling around I made a girls face.

The Neopaque's are wonderful.  They cover thick with one coating. Also the paints come with a medium so you can blend them that is very nice. I didn't do a lot of detail, I was just playing around, layering, getting a feel for the paint.

Using templates from The Crafters Workshop I stenciled on color over color.

It's interesting how art comes together when you are not trying. This was just practice, remember, fooling around. I didn't care if her eyes were a bit googly I wanted to see how the paint covered and layered.  I wanted to put a word on her, of course, and chose a stamp I had that said FATE.  As soon as I put it down I looked at the numbers and thought, yeah, this makes sense. Fate. Numbers.  Like a fated event. And then someone said, "Don't tempt fate!" and I didn't know what that meant exactly so we looked it up and it said something like - pushing your luck when the odds are against you. and I thought YEA! Tempt Fate!

So this is where I ended it.  The coolest is that it is on fabric.  30 seconds of heat setting with an iron and its permanent. you can wear it. and you could really wear it.  Unlike using regular acrylic paints Jacquard remain Flexible.  It's not going to look stiff and cheesy on a shirt, which is what a lot of art clothing looks like to me. (Remember puffy paints?) Tempt fate. Always.  Pay no attention to the odds, odds mean absolutely nothing.  What were the odds anyone would give a crap about a little Italian girl making puppet shows about her life in her crappy apartment kitchen in south Jersey?  Same as the odds of my first horse at the Meadowlands Racetrack TeddyBear Hanover.  10-1.  A long shot. And guess what. Teddy came in first.
(and I never got another one right since.)

Pay no attention to the odds.
Play with things you know nothing about.
Experiment.  The universe loves a beginner.

*Join us for LIVE CAM every monday for
YOU SUCK MONDAY.

(next monday we are going to suck at transfers. Join us!)

xoxo
Suzi