"Blueddah" 18x24 Acrylic, Sharper Marker, Gold Leaf on Canvas. This Blue Buddah, or "Blueddah" piece was created as a gift for my uncle for his 50th Birthday. I started the piece by sketching the face of a buddha onto the left side of the canvas. I knew I wanted a lotus on the right side, so I made that another focal point. At first I started trying to go for a more realistic style, but it was just not coming out how I had intended. I just naturally have a very bright, blocky, bold and whimsical style. So I decided to not force anything that did not come naturally and went along with how things were progressing. After I had the basic shapes blocked in with the colors I had chosen, I slightly rendered the Buddha, and left the flowers and leaves more blocky. 

I then inked the entire canvas in the zentangle style, and added some inspiring words throughout. Also, this was the first time I had ever used Gold Leaf. If I remember correctly, I just added some modge-podge glue to the lotus petals and then lightly pressed the gold leaf to the surface. It adhered pretty instantly. This is probably one of my favorite larger paintings that I have ever done, and my Uncle Billy LOVED it! 

​This was just a self portrait I did of me and my husband (boyfriend at the time I did this). I did this in 2011 or so.  I actually did our portraits on a separate paper, in acrylics that I watered down and used like watercolors, along with watercolor pencils. I then cut us out of that paper, and put them aside. I then did the background of this piece in my sketchbook. It's very layered and textured. I modge-podged tissue paper and photo copies of some pages from favorite books of mine,  and then brayered acrylic paints over those.

​Then I also did a transfer using some gel medium and a photocopied photo strip of us, that you can slightly see on the upper left hand side. It didn't come out exactly as I had hoped, but it was all good for experimental purposes. I had never done gel medium transfers before, so I'll definitely need a bit more practice with that. I believe I also used some pastels or charcoals to rub over the lines in the glue-dried tissue paper, to create a more textured look. I then had some rose magazine cutouts, and the "I Love You" speech bubble was also a magazine cutout. After the background was complete, I glued our figures that I had painted separately earlier, onto the page. And there you have it...

This was all in all a very experimental piece.

 
​​This sketch was done in acrylics , and I watered them down alot to give it that watercolor effect.  All of the black ink was just freehand doodling.  I saw a lot of Hummingbirds in LA, so they represent to me, that time in my life, where I spread my wings and was off on my own.