Fish Picture 3 is DONE!

The fish picture 3 is indeed done!!!! And it's about time! I've only been working on this piece for about six weeks now. Started it at the beginning of May and here it is the 11th of June already!

I am quite pleased with the outcome of my efforts!

The pictures that follow are close ups of some of the elements of the canvas. There is a lot to see on this one and I'm afraid the pictures do not do it justice. The colors are off and you can't possibly comprehend the depth and the textures on this canvas!

Enjoy the pictures. I'll keep commentary to a minimum.

In among the fish picture 3 pictures is a picture of the three little books I made in the afternoon on the 10th. You all know I don't know how to add these pictures in the order I'd like them to be! Get used to it, I doubt it's going to change anytime soon! :)

3 Little Books

The pages inside are 6x6 inches, the covers slightly larger. I bought a whole box full of upholstery material samples yesterday at the thrift store. These samples must have come from the 1960s or 1970s. The colors are bright and garish like these three, tweed material, most of it. There are ten pages, 20 sides of paper sewn to the covers with crochet thread in a coordinating color.

I'll be making more of these. There was also a bit of brocade material in floral patterns in that box of samples. The brocades are a bit smaller than the tweeds and not quite so garish with the coloring. I'll be making some little books from the brocade eventually as well.

A list of things used on this canvas:

canvas with a seagull painting (I gave $3 for it at Goodwill.)

dictionary pages to cover the painting that was on the canvas when I bought it (I paid 50 cents for the entire dictionary. I might have used a dozen pages on this canvas. We'll call this 10 cents. Even though it's probably not anywhere near that!)

black glitter paint ($2.97 for the whole bottle. I used very little of it for the background. We'll call this 50 cents) 

red nylon scraf material (Boatbird sent me the red nylon scarf in a trade so this one is $0)

green glitter paint (2.97 for the whole bottle. I used quite a bit of this, half the bottle at least so we'll call this $1.50)

gold glitter glue (This was a freebie from my brother. Didn't cost me anything at all, so another $0.)

pink crochet cotton (Freebie from my sister, Kathy, so another $0.)

 gold seed beads (Traded other beads for these beads so another $0)

joint compound tinted blue with acrylic paints (The bucket of joint compound was $4 and the acrylic paints, I used purple, blue and gold , not much of any of the acrylics. We'll call this one $3 cause I did use over half of the bucket of joint compound.)

joint compound tinted grey with acrylic paints (We'll just add this in with the previous.)

earth toned varigated eyelash yarn (The skein of yarn cost about $3. Not sure just how much, I've had it awhile and have used most of it on other projects. We'll call this one .25 cents)

red tissue paper (Freebie. Came with one of my Christmas present packaging. So this one's a $0)

fabric stiffener (I bought the fabric stiffener at the thrift store for a quarter. I only used a very small amount of it on the tissue paper. Course I promptly lost the rest of it cause I'll be damned if I know what I did with that bottle! I went looking for it shortly after making the tissue paper sticks for the fan coral and couldn't find it anywhere. Still don't know where it is! Not a big loss....We'll call this one .25 cents.)

copperwire (Freebie. It was salvaged from a piece of electronics. There are three different kinds of copperwire on this canvas. So we have another $0)

crocheted copperwire (Freebie. Salvaged from a  dead VCR and crocheted into fan corals. Another $0)

crocheted copperwire and milliflorie beads (Freebies. The copperwire was salvaged from a broken something or other and the milliflorie beads were given to me by my sister Jeanny. So another $0)

purple easter grass, ironed flat and some of it painted with olive green metallic acrylic paint (I paid 10 cents for that bag of purple easter grass on clearance at Dollar General. I hardly put a dent in the bag with what I used for this piece! The paint costs $2.97 for the bottle and I used very little of it on this piece. We'll say this one is .10 cents only because we have to give it something.)

yellow premade styrofoam flower centers (I paid .25 cents for 2 packages of these things at the thrift store. I only used one package.. there were 11 of them in it but for some reason only 10 of them made it on the canvas. I think one of them is hiding on the floor under the easel cause I dropped them when I went to clip off the wire stems that were on them. These were also painted with gold dimensional paint. A bottle of it costs $1.17. I used over half the bottle on the entire canvas so we'll call this one .65 cents)

crocheted fishing line (Freebie. Might as well be a freebie anyway. I've had that spool of fishing line for years! I didn't use much of it! So another $0)

rose glitter paint (A bottle of this costs $2.97. I used about 1/4 of the bottle on this canvas so we'll call this one .75 cents)

blue glitter paint (A bottle of this costs $2.97. I used about 1/4 of the bottle on this canvas so we'll call this one .75 cents as well.)

polymer clay beads and copperwire (I don't recall how much that package of sculpey was when I bought it last year. I only used about 20 beads made with it on this canvas. The copperwire was a freebie salvaged from some dead electronic thing. We'll call this .25 cents. I probably didn't use a quarter's worth of polymer clay but the acrylic paint cost a small bit as well.)

styrofoam and red acrylic paint (The styrofoam came from packaging for an electric winch so it was a freebie. The red acrylic costs about $1 a bottle...or it did when that paint was bought. We are going to call this one another $0 simply because I threw that bottle of paint away after I painted the rocks because it was full of boogers and wasn't worth keeping for anything else.)

purple glass beads and florist wire (The beads were freebies from my sister Jeanny and the florist wire cost $3 for a hank of it. I used about 6 yards of it for all the things fashioned out of it on this canvas. I think there are like 25 yards of it on the hank. That makes it .08 cents a yard... 8x6 is 48 so we'll call this one .50 cents)

fake pearls (Freebies from my sister Jeanny so again we have $0)

copperwire rolled into little balls (All copperwire was free so another $0)

red acrylic leaf beads and florist wire (I paid .50 cents for the red acrylic leaf beads and we already added in the florist wire so this one is .50 cents)

plastic leaf beads painted with acrylics (Freebies for the beads. My sister Jeanny again. The acrylic paint was that same red stuff I threw away when I was done with it. So $0)

tacky glue (Tacky glue costs $3.57 for a big bottle and that's what I usually buy. I didn't use too awful much tacky glue on this canvas. We'll call this one .50)

clear sealant glue (I ran out of E6000 and had to use this crap. This tube of glue is very similar to E6000 but it's much thinner and things don't like to stay where you put them unless you weigh them down with something.  I used almost half of this tube of glue. It cost $1. 97 so we'll call this one $1)

E6000 (A tube of E6000 costs $2.97. I went through a tube and a half od E6000 on this canvas so that's $4.50)

Elmer's glue (I buy school glue which is what Elmer's glue is when it is on sale after school starts. I paid .20 cents a bottle for it back in September of 09. We will call this one .10 cents even though I didn't use anywhere near half a bottle of it.)

fishes are made from:

copy paper (A ream of paper has 500 sheets, costs $4 and I used a total of 2 sheets of paper for the fishes. We are going to call this one $0 only cause I don't know how to justify saying it's worth anything when one sheet of paper out a ream of 500 costs way less than a penny!)

black slick fabric paint (This bottle of paint cost $3.97 and I used about !/4 of the bottle on the fishes so well call this one $1)

red glitter glue (A bottle of this costs $2.97. I used less than 1/4 of the bottle so we'll call this one .75 cents.)

gold glitter paint (A bottle of this costs $2.97. I used less than 1/4 of the bottle so we'll call this one .75 cents))

blue glitter paint (A bottle of this costs $2.97. I used less than 1/4 of the bottle so we'll call this one .75 cents)

red glass seed beads (Freebie from my sister Jeanny. So another $0)

gold glass tube beads (I paid .25 cents for these at a yard sale. I used a total of 34 beads. There were hundreds of them in the package I had. We will call this one $0)

white paint pen (This pen costs $4. I've used it on numerous ATCs since I got it. We will call this one .25 cents.)

I really don't have a lot of money invested in this picture. Much more time invested than money for sure! Along side the ingredients in the list above are the cost to me of those materials. I made this list more for myself than anyone else. I didn't count the actual hours worked on this canvas but the next one I do I will keep a log of the ingredients, the cost to me and the time spent working on the picture.

I couldn't even begin to say just how many actual hours were involved but the total cost as I've outlined it above is $21.70. I spent more on glue than on any of the components of the piece.
I'm unsure just what will happen with this canvas. I intend to see if the Art Center wants to put it in the gift shop but they already have two of my canvases and they don't have a great deal of room for large pieces of artwork. The other option I have is to go talk to Robyn's friend at the Gallery downtown and see if they will sell it on commission for me. I'll be asking $150.00 for simply because of all the time and handwork that went into it. Guess we'll see if it sells wherever it ends up!

Go get your hugs, people! You need them!

Be good to one another!

I shall return soon with more artwork to show. I have a boatload of ATCs that you all haven't seen. I need to go to bed right now though. I've been awake for 22 hours and sleep is calling! Couldn't go to bed though till that fish picture was done.

Peace

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Fish Picture 3 Progress as of 8 June 2010

If these pictures will go into this post like I want them to, you'll get to see the progress in chronological order but if these pictures take on a mind of their own and just go in nilly willy...who knows what kind of order they'll be in!

My messy workstation.

Here is the canvas laying on top of my light table (aka the catchall) after I added a few things to the rocks and another gray colored seaweed plant. Those gray seaweeds are crocheted cotton string. The stuff added to the rocks is ironed purple easter grass that was first put on the lower third of this canvas and painted with red glitter paint. I didn't like it on the canvas so I cut off as much of it as I could and put it aside, thinking it might be handy for some other element on this picture. I painted the ironed easter grass (that was riddled with flecks of glue and red glitter) a metallic olive green color with acrylic paint. Leaving it purple, it just disappeared on the canvas!

Here is a close up of the right hand side of the canvas while it was laying flat on the light table. You can see the purple easter grass..that piece has no glue, glitter or paint on it. There are a couple of pieces of easter grass that aren't painted at all. The stuff with the glitter and glue in it was almost the same color as the blue section along the lower part of the canvas and it did disappear!  I've added a couple of the fan corals to the edge and put more fish on the canvas as well.

This is how it looks now as it's drying. When it is done, I'll take it outside and take a picture of it in daylight. I think that will give you a better idea of the colors. The flash messes them up something fierce!

In this shot all of the fishes have been placed, all of the fan corals are in place and tomorrow when I hit it again, there will be more corals and little sea creatures in and among the corals and sea plants.

Close up of lower right hand side of canvas.

The white stuff in the center of this picture is wet tacky glue. It will dry clear. I always get in a big hurry and don't wait till the glue dries clear to take pictures.

Close up of lower left hand side of canvas.

These are a few more elements for the fish picture 3 that will be added tomorrow along with things you all have already seen. Those beads I crocheted onto copper wire might or might not be added to the canvas. They kinda go along with everything else and then they kinda don't. Will have to play around with placing them on the canvas and seeing where it leads.

I will be crocheting more copper wire this evening still to make some more fan corals. The copperwire fan corals I already made are on the canvas but they're hard to see as the seaweeds and a fish or two are on top of them.

Tune in tomorrow for another update.

Perhaps tomorrow the canvas will be completed? Anything is possible!

Go get your hugs! You know you want some! You know you need some and you know you'd love as many as you can possibly get!

Be good to one another! It matters!

Peace

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fish picture 3 progress

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong with these pictures but they aren't coming out in the order in which I'd like them to come out. Nothing to do about it today though. My pea brain ain't up to that task this evening!

Progress has been made on the Fish Picture 3. Still a long ways to go before it is completed though. My plan is to have this done by the middle of August so I can enter it in the County Fair. We shall see just how that works out though!

Green Sea Urchins made with fishing line (aka monofilament), green glitter paint and gold dimensional paint. These guys are smaller than the rose colored ones I showed you all a few posts back. I don't remember just how the first ones were made but these guys have a tighter weave to them than the first did. Except for the biggest one in this picture. I used a larger hook to make it. I still need a few more of these guys and they probably won't look a heck of a lot like these guys. Bout the same as these guys don't look a heck of a lot like the first ones. I don't have a pattern for the sea urchins, I just take up the hook and the line and start crocheting! These aren't really all that fun to crochet if truth be known. It's rather fun to paint them though!

Close up of mid canvas. The glue is still wet on the grey sea weed. I think I'll add some little pearls to this seaweed before it's all said and done. Haven't decided on that just yet. My fishes kinda disappeared on that background...

Close up of right hand side of canvas. The flash and all that glitter on the canvas don't go together too well. The flash changes the colors from what they really look like. Least on my monitor the colors are not right.

This is the entire canvas taken without flash. Only daylight and the three lamps in this room for light. This color is truer than the flash pictures are.

The rocks along the bottom of the canvas shouldn't be there yet...I jumped the gun on those. Should have waited...can't take them off though so will have to work around them. All in all I'm pleased with it so far.

There will be more things added before the day is out and I'll do another progress post in a few days.

Yes, coming along nicely.

Have a happy Tuesday. Monday's almost gone!

Peace

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Gabriel Needs a Wife

Guess you get the kids before the commentary.

Martha Louise

BCK

April 2010

Esther Elizabeth

BCK

April 2010

Bonnie Lou

BCK

April 2010

Sara Elizabeth

BCK

April 2010

Genny

BCK

April 2010

Allison Nicole

BCK

April 2010

Helena  Marie

BKC

April 2010

Linda Cathrine

BKC

April 2010

I have some kids that haven't been named yet and they need a name so that is what this post is all about. That and Gabe DOES need a wife! I present to you the ladies in the running to be wed. I'm assuming Joss will get a Justice of the Peace to hitch the two so they aren't just shacking-up! ;) (Choice is your's, Joss...both in if you get them hitched and which one of these lovely ladies is to be Gabe's!)

I hope you all are getting your hugs and finding happiness in your every day. Hugs are essential to that happiness and happiness just fuels the hugs. Either way, you win! Be good to one another! It does matter!
Peace
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ATCs, Postcards and Progress on Fish Picture 3

More ART for your enjoyment. I'm not sure any of this can really be called FINE ART or even good art, but art it is~!

Zig Zag Fish

ATC

29 May 2010

365 Project #152

Markers on recycled cardstock.

Marcell and His Mutt Howling at the Stars

ATC

28 May 2010

Markers on recycled cardstock.

365 Project #150

Baby Elephant

ATC

31 May 2010

365 Project #149

Markers on recycled cardstock.

Pink Poodle with Martini

ATC

29 May 2010

365 Project #151

Markers on recycled cardstock.

The next four pieces are 4 x 6 inch postcards with only white gesso on thier backsides. They're made from food packaging chipboard and painted. All original artwork right out of my head!

Red Vine

Postcard

May 2010

Acrylics and dimensional paint.

Seahorse

Postcard

May 2010

Acrylics and Gesso.

Seascape One

Postcard

May 2010

Acrylics and Gesso

Seascape Two

Postcard

May 2010

Acrylic and Gesso

I've been going at the Fish Picture 3 like gangbusters for the last few days.

One, maybe two more layers of seafloor and then I'll start attaching all the things that will make it look like an undewater seascape complete with fishes. That makes it sound like this canvas is almost done, but in reality, I still have a lot of work to do in making the sea creatures, plants and what have you for this large canvas!

The seafloor is actually a bit more on the blue side than this picture shows on my pc. The purple easter grass turned out to be a not-so-good idea afterall and I cut most of it off with the scissors after the joint compound dried. Then I slathered on some red glitter glue which give it a bit of purplish tone. I'll add some sea plants before I add the next layer of seafloor.

That's Miss Lola (the terrorist) peeking up from the bottom of the picture.

The strands at the top of this picture are milliflorie (? spelling) beads crocheted onto copperwire salvaged from a VCR (if memory serves me correctly). Some of these strands will go on before the next layer of seafloor. I've been making more of these this evening.

The Pink and blue things are sea creatures out of my imagination. Crochet cotton crocheted into flower shapes, painted with blue glitter paint and a fake pearl plopped down in the center of them.

I will be making more of these in different shapes and colors for this canvas too.

Here's a shot of all the elements I made in the last few days. Except for the fan corals which you have already seen. I dragged them out to see how much stuff I had made for the seafloor. there ain't near enough of anything there to cover like I want.

Red acrylic beads and silver florist wire. I still have one more of these to make. I have only three more leaf beads to work with and I might make three more with only one leaf. I really haven't decided on this yet.

Rocks. These are actually chunks of styrofoam painted a barn red color with cheap acrylics. They'll get a few more coats of color to make them more rock-like. I need a lot more rocks for this picture than I have here. I'm going to have to find some more styrofoam to make rocks out of.

These things were a pain in my neck before I painted them. Static electricity made them terribly hard to work with. They stuck to EVERYTHING!

The next set of rocks will not be this color as there is no more of this color. The bottle of paint was almost dried up. Had big bugers in it so when I was done with these rocks, I tossed it out.

More corals from my imagination. The tops ones are about 2 1/2 inches across. Crocheted copperwire. The bottom ones are purple glass beads strung on silver florists wire and shaped. I'll be making more of each of these. I'll probably make other wire and bead creatures as well.

These are my version of sea urchins. They're crocheted monofilament (aka fishing line) with rose colored glitter paint (looks purple on my monitor) and gold dimensional paint. these are about an inch and a half across. I'll be making more of these but only smaller than these and I'll probably make a boatload of them in different colors as well.

Another look at the fan coral. It's made from red tissue paper, fabric stiffener and copperwire to hold it all together.

I was sitting in the livingroom talking to Susan earlier and an idea hit me on how to make sea anenomes. I'll show you all those tomorrow. They should be dry by then. I have another idea in my head about other anenomes that will be larger than those I made today. Gotta experiment with those though. Not sure that will work out. If it does work out OK, you'll see those tomorrow too.

Behave yourselves! Go get your hugs! I need more hugs.....

Peace

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