Florence Turnour's Blog

Day 10 of Creative Jumpstart was a lesson on Gelli printing by Annie O'Brien Gonzales . I'm a big fan of her work, and I have her book, so I had a flip though for additional inspiration before I got going.  I used a new stencil I just designed and my Gelli plate to make this. Some of it is collaged from Gelli prints on deli paper. I just bought some Posca paint pens (I blame Andrew Borloz), and used the yellow to draw on the flower. I was tempted to keep drawing all over it, but I thought the better of it. Thanks for looking!

I love this mask-and-pattern technique so much! Today I did another pattern from Lisa Congdon's Pattern class on Creativebug, following Andrew Borloz 's inspiring lesson from Creative Jumpstart . You know the scene in Bridget Jones' Diary, in which she make blue soup? The pattern of the day is Harlequin, but I got some of my pieces backwards, so... This time, I kept my details a little more under control than on the paisley page . So much fun to do! I either need to use bigger regions, or make some finer detailed stencils. Thanks for gnikool.

Day 7 in Creative Jumpstart  is a lesson on the Gelli plate by Rae Missigman . It took a few tries to get the right amount of ink on the Gelli plate to make this happen, (tip: roll it on THIN), but once I got it to work, it was great fun. Here are some of my more successful and photograph-able attempts. And here is a collage I made in my art journal. It was tricky to print right into the journal. I ended up flipping the Gelli plate onto the journal page, and then slipping my hand underneath between the pages to burnish it. Thanks for looking!

You know how common sense says to just follow the recipe the first time, and then alter it after you know what's going to happen? I could have probably stood to do that. Instead, since the pattern of the day from Lisa Congdon's Patterns class is paisley, I thought I'd combine that with Andrew Borloz 's Hodge Podge Soup recipe in Creative Jumpstart . Well, my version of the recipe has quite the mix of spices! I'm going to do one with bigger-than-a-paisley patches of color, so that the patterns in the stencil will show up better (my paisleys were only a bit courser than my stenciled patterns). Still, the stencils made for excellent guides to make semi-symmetric doodles. When in doubt, more dots! Thanks for looking!

I love stencils, so I kept experimenting with the Take Away technique that Michelle Ward showed in Creative Jumpstart . This is going to be my background for Day 6's project (I seem to have skipped a day. I'm not sure what happened, but I plan to go back to it later, although Day 6 looked like it is going to be SO MUCH FUN that I may only do that for the rest of my time off). I painted paisley (tear drop-isn) shapes in gesso, and then brayer-ed on some red and magenta paint, and used my new stripy stencil to remove the paint. I used this stencil I made from hand-drawn lines. Here's my background in full (with a little of my chevron pattern from Lisa Congdon's Patterns class on the side). Thanks for looking!

I made this background using techniques from Michelle Ward 's workshop in Creative Jumpstart . Love her stencil designs and her technique. I used two stencils I made a long time ago. They are a set because they use the same shapes in different configurations. I tried it with dark paint over light background, and with light paint over dark background. The dark paint on top produced a clearer image. Thanks for looking!

Today's Creative Jumpstart workshop was from Carolyn Dube . She suggested, among other things, that we use something from the garbage in our project. My first reaction was, "I have so many wonderful supplies. I don't want to use garbage!" Then I spotted my envelope collection (we pay most bills on-line, so the blank envelopes they give us to mail in go unused). Then I looked up and noticed my coffee can collection, and my gelato container collection, and I thought about that cabinet over the pantry where, if you open it too quickly, the oatmeal containers will fall out on your head and go rolling down the hall. I did use the envelope, but took pictures of the rest of it. Toss or keep? KEEP! I made the envelope into a pocket. And here's my hand, in case you think I neglected to use a medium that was not completely under my control. The acrylic ink I used for the background got on me. And my desk. And my pant leg. And a drawing on another page (wiped it of...

I made the Junque Journal in  Julie Balzer's Make Your Own Junque Journal class.  I've made a bunch of junque journals, and a couple of books with watercolor paper, which I love working in. It's full of random gelli prints, nothing finished, and nothing that I'm unwilling to paint over. I'm hoping to add a lot to it during Creative Jumpstart. Today I painted a bird in my new Junque Journal, after watching  Mystele Kirkeeng 's video in Nathalie Kalbach's  Creative Jumpstart Workshop  series. Unidentifiable bird atop a branch of a mysterious variety of fruit.   Thanks for looking!

Day 30 Day 31 Day 32 Day 33 Day 34: Gant Gator Graduates (1) Day 35: Taking a look at a Gator photo Day 36: Gant Gator Graduates (2) Day 37 Day 38: Emergency backup drawing for a day I was too lazy to put on my paint pants Day 39 I made a couple of them into buttons. I'm going to have to think "round" when I design the next few. I definitely need buttons of these.  My projects from these 10 days were inspired by Ed Emberley's collage work on books he wrote with his daughter. Thanks for looking!

I love making stencils, but stencil designs are limited in that they have to be one piece. For example you cannot have a stencil top print this shape because the inside white bits in the leaves would fall out. The white part, which is the stencil, is not one piece.  Stamps do not have this issue, but if you are cutting them out of foam, and gluing them down to make a stamp, lining up all the insides of the leaves, for example, would be tricky. Another option is to use a screen. Here is my first one. You can see the screen, taped to a cardboard frame in the top of the image, and some patterned paper I made with it at the bottom. I had the best results screen printing onto a Gelli plate, and printed from there onto paper. The screen suctioned itself onto the Gelli Plate, so there was very little leakage, and I could use the brayer to spread the paint, as there was no longer a need to push hard. I loved how it worked, so I made some more. These I mounted in mat boards, whi...

These goats are on 5x5 birch board. I painted the background using home made stencils, and then drew and collaged the goats.

Last week, in my continuing effort to squeeze as much art as possible in before school starts, I attended a two-day workshop with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer  at Studio CRESCENDOh  in Santa Ana.  In it I started two large collage paintings, one of which I finished today. Look how big it is! Goat! by Florence Turnour For this canvas, Julie directed us to draw a large half-face, but I decided I'd rather have a half goat face.  She reassured us that almost anything with a mouth and eyes will be recognizable as a face, but it occurred to me about a quarter of the way in that this was not necessarily true for goats.  I used a snapshot from my phone, and worried over the minimal drawing on my canvas for a while before diving in.  (I was finally spurred forward when Julie's mother, Eileen, passed by my table and said, "Oh, a goat." Sometimes even goats need validation.) I was super excited to learn how to glue.  Collage has always been one of my favorite med...

For Day 8 of the    Creative Jumpstart  (I skipped a few) , artist Brigit Koopsen  demonstrated a painting in the style of Jean-Michel Basquiat.  I found Basquiat's art grim though  fascinating, but I loved how Brigit pulled inspiration from Basquiat while much of the grim behind. I may have taken more inspiration from Brigit than from Basquiat in the end. I did the drawing and decided I would get the most out of it if I actually tried to take something from Basquiat's work. I chose my colors from the images in the Creative Jumpstart pinterest collection. I also added the scribbled writing as a vague tribute to Basquiat's word-laden imagery.   Do keep your eyes open, because sometimes there really is already a pterodactyl in the dumptruck  Thank you, Brigit. That was a fun assignment.