Shiny Blue Baby Mandala's!

My latest in resin coated pieces!

These two baby mandalas were completed a couple of months ago but kept secret until now! They were created using acrylic paint and ink on canvas with rhinestone embellishments. I thought they would look even more lovely with a beautiful shiny resin coating :) I hope you love them as much as I do!  Great, affordable, original artwork to add colour to any book shelf or desk top! ;)
(Yes, that's right, they are for sale and you can buy them right here!)

Blue Baby Mandala (1)

Acrylic and Acrylic Ink w/Rhinestones on Canvas

4"x 4"

 ©White Violet Art 2010

  Blue Baby Mandala (2)

Acrylic and Acrylic Ink w/Rhinestones on Canvas

4"x 4"

 ©White Violet Art 2010

Price Options

Blue Baby Mandala 1 $25.00 Blue Baby Mandala 2 $25.00 Both Together $45.00

These two cute baby mandalas were created with the intention of being displayed together as a pair however they are available for individual purchase :)  (I would love it if they both went to the same home though ;))

On a side note, this is also the first time listing items and using PayPal buttons on my own blog, if you have any feedback or experience you think would be valuable, please share!  As always, your comments are much appreciated!

Have a great week everyone! :)

Paper Chalk and Cheap Oil Pastels! :D

Mixed Media on Watercolour Paper

8 1/2"x 12"

I'm feeling the urge to experiment with new media lately even though I still love my acrylic inks, it's time to change it up a little! I came across some conte, charcoal and paper chalk I had buried in a drawer in my studio and decided to explore them by making a little mandala and I absolutely love how bright the colours turned out, I can't wait to use them again! (despite how filthy my hands got :D)

I also dug out some "oil pastels" that I had never used. They came with a lovely wooden box of art supplies that I got for Christmas the year before last. The box itself turns into an easel - a pretty handy lil' portable studio! Anyway... as I had expressed in my earlier post, I wanted to explore pastels again, just to see what I thought from an adult standpoint. I couldn't resist the urge to try these never before used pastels, even though I had a hunch they were not of the best quality, couldn't hurt right?

Well, lets just say I have even MORE admiration for quality pastels and the people who use them successfully. I haven't written them off just yet as I'm pretty sure it was the quality of the pastels and the paper I used (they were pretty hard and a "no name" brand on water colour paper and did not blend well whatsoever). I did like how vibrant the colours were and it was fun to experiment and to feel like a kid again. ;)

Below is my very simple (nuclear zombie eyeball) mandala that I'm not proud of by any means, but am posting for the sake of sharing my experimentation with you :) ... it's terrible! LOL :D

I hope to show you some more "higher grade" pastel work in near future ;) I'm treating this as a lesson in art supply quality for sure...

Oil Pastel on Watercolour Paper

8 1/2"x 12"

Time to go shopping for the recommended "Rembrant" pastels! ;) I hope you all are enjoying your weekend! I'm off to do some blog hopping and see what you've all been up to this week! :)

Epoxy Resin Results

So yesterday I decided to try a new method of sealing my artwork.  I have seen a few artists use a thick, high gloss resin to coat their work and wondered how to achieve the same results.  I found a 2 part kit at my art supply store and gave it a shot.  It was pretty straight forward, just mix the two solutions together in equal amounts and mix thoroughly for 2 minutes.  It was a little messy but the results were worth it and I learned a lot! The original piece I used as my guinea pig is here if you would like to have a look at the before shot.

Here's some process pics:

 Right after pouring on the mixture and smoothing it out and along the sides with a plastic spoon

Yep, a little drippy and messy... had to keep smoothing the drips away with my "spoon" every 5 minutes or so till it was thick enough to stop running.

Here's the finished product: SHINY! :) (not to mention heat and alcohol resistant and waterproof! :))

Just thought I'd mention, the original piece was done in acrylic ink and sealed with a fixative in case the ink ran... wasn't sure how it would react to the liquid resin... thought it was best to be on the safe side.  Also worth a mention, the resin took a little over 12 hrs to dry completely (not sticky). Well worth the time and effort in my opinion!

So that's that! This experiment was a success and I love the results! I will most definitely be using it in the future for other projects! :)

If anyone has any other recommendations or experience with similar resin products, I would love to hear! :)

Happy creating guys!

Revisiting Some Old Work

"Four Elements"

Pastel on Paper

10"x 12"

©White Violet Art

Recently I have been inspired to start working with pastels again by this post from fellow blogger "Gumnut" of Facets and Fractals. I love how crisp and clean her pastel work is and thought I should give it a shot again. The piece above was the last time I had used pastels (over 20 years ago!) I can't believe I still have this, it's crazy! I had to share. I remember not liking the pastels because I didn't feel like I could be very "precise" with them.  I think it turned out ok though especially for an 11 year old! :) Even more hilarious, I also found the original pastels that I used! :D I think I will have to purchase some new ones! If anyone has any recommendations or favourite brands, I'm all ears!

While rummaging through some of my other older stuff, I also came across this piece I did in 2007. It was actually inspired by this kids instructional book on how to draw dragons that I got at my local book store on sale for $5, lol. I thought I'd draw one for fun! This is still one of my favourite drawings so I thought I'd post it too! The tail is my favourite part! :)

Enjoy the rest of the week everyone!

11"x 17"

Graphite on Illustration Board
©White Violet Art

Butterfly Mandala Update! :)

Well, here it is as promised! The picture quality isn't the best but I will have to wait till tomorrow to take a better picture in daylight.  I can't wait to show you a few of the details! :)

The butterfly I used as reference was a Black Swallowtail so I used some of the butterfly's favourite flowers in the mandala as well.  The flowers she is perched on are "Queen Ann's Lace" and the ring of flowers encircling her are "Phlox" flowers.  I used purple to indicate spirituality as she is in a meditative state.  I loved how the gold and silver I used went with this shade of purple so it ended up looking a little more "royal" than I intended.  I still love the results though.  (The purple looks more blue in this photo)

The part of this piece I was most anxious about was the figure.  I don't usually include them in any of my work as they are not my strong suite by any means! But instead of shying away from it this time, I set myself up for the challenge and I'm glad I did, she is actually my favourite part about this mandala. :)

One of the things I would like to fix is the background colour.  As I had mentioned in my last post, my colour scheme changed quite a bit during the last 2 months, I think that the background colour looks a little more aqua than anything and I don't think it really suites this subject matter.  For example, if it were a sky blue, it would make a lot more sense. 

So, there it is, save for a few details that I would like to fix... I hope you like it! Let me know what you think! Your feedback and comments are always appreciated :)

Enjoy the rest of your week!

-Cindy

Sketches and Projects...

 

Water colour/India ink on paper

2.5"x 5.5"

Lately I've been inspired to pull out my sketchbook and just doodle for the sake of doodling... This week, I found inspiration from Blue Chair Diary's "Sunday Sketches", a new blog I found through Kristin Dudish.  Some great artists and ideas if you have time to take a peek. I really wanted to take part in this but I promised myself that I wouldn't start anymore "challenges" or projects until I have completed a few of the ones I have already started!

So, among one of these projects of mine is my Butterfly Mandala that some of you may remember.  It is finally getting some love again this weekend after much time and neglect.  The colour scheme has turned out to be a bit different than I had originally planned, some mistakes have been made and painted over and it's been put away and brought back out again more times than I can count! (I can't believe I started it in June! Wow!)

Tomorrow I will be posting updated pics, it is almost finished finally and I would love to hear your feedback!

Here's a little refresher in case some of you aren't familiar with this project:

I am sleepy and my eyes are burning so off to bed I go! Until tomorrow!

Good Night Everyone! ;)

The Last "Creative Colour Challenge"!

I can't believe that it has been 5 weeks already! I am going to miss this challenge for sure! It was a joy to see everyone's work every week and to meet so many amazing artists!

This weeks challenge was "Lavender" purple with the option to use any of the colours from the past challenges... so I used them all... lol! Why not?

This is what I came up with:

Silver Lotus

Acrylic on Wood

10"x 10"x 0.8"

I consider this painting a funky study in wood grain... as I was staining the wood purple, I noticed the grain showing through, I liked it so I decided to work with it.  However, as I started to add colour to it following the pattern of the grain, I started to feel "confined" for lack of a better word.  I didn't feel as able to express myself visually as with past pieces.  The use of colour loosened me up a bit but it still felt constrained. I felt like I couldn't break outside the pattern of the grain.  Weird feeling.  It was a good experience though as I am not completely dissatisfied with this piece and i actually really like the slightly psychedelic pond effect that I ended up with :)

If any of you would like to see some progress pics of this piece, I have posted more photos in my Facebook album :)

I will truly miss this challenge and I hope Louise puts on another one some time soon - I would love to take part! It was a great experience! Here's a little review of my pieces:

Wk.1 Sunflower Yellow, Wk.2 Raspberry Red, Wk.3 Turquoise, Wk.4 Sea Green, Wk.5 Lavender

Hope everyone is enjoying their long weekend (hopefully you are having better weather than we are here in Calgary! :D)

Happy Creating!