Halloween in August!

HeLLO!!! (ween) Long time no post… had to spend some time getting rid of the cobwebs that were starting to form on my blog! Of course we’re coming up to that time of year when we start to see cobwebs, goblins and ghosts all over the place!

I was watching one of Jim The Gentleman Crafter’s videos on how to make his Haunted Panorama… and just had to make one! After hubby played golf, we drove out to Langley (45 minutes on a good day) to get some supplies and found nothing Halloween. Because the traffic going home was crazy we decided to drive over the Golden Ears Bridge where I asked politely, “Can we stop at the Michaels just on the other side of the bridge?”

We came out of Michaels empty handed as well and continued on. That evening I checked both Hobby Lobby and Joann’s websites and found nothing online. I either found the paper mache round boxes to be ‘out of stock’ or a ridiculous price for shipping just two to Canada so gave up on that!

The next day I was determined to find the supplies to make two panoramas and drove to both our local Michaels stores, Walmart, Party Packagers and any dollar store I passed along the way. I finally came home with a fancy cylinder shaped wine box, raw wood fences, miniature sisal Christmas trees (I was going to make them black), a Halloween decorative pick and a skeleton garland.

I managed to make ONE of the panoramas with a pumpkin theme. The second one should not take me as long, lol, and it will have a haunted house in it. 

I cut the cylinder wine box in half to get two panoramas. I made the bases and tops with chipboard. For this first one I painted my fence to look old and rickety and then dove into my bins marked ‘Halloween’ for old paper and all the embellishments, etc.

Lastly, I grabbed a battery tea light from my studio today (couldn’t find any yesterday while grocery shopping) to put inside… At first I thought maybe this was a project that wasn’t meant to be, but I did it and am really happy with the results!!! Bwa-ha-ha-ha… ~ Sharka

Studio Tours... Harmony Arts Festival

I said the same thing last year, “I can't believe the Harmony Arts Festival is but a few days away”, but this year it has really snuck up on me! I thought I still had a few weeks…

I will once again be participating in two events; two paintings for sale under the "big white tent" as a North Shore Artists’ Guild member, and in the Studio Tours along with 15 other fellow artists’ at 195 Studios.

The Studio Tours are a unique opportunity to meet the artists in their studios. We will be there to give personalized tours, answer any questions or simply just “chat”.

HAF is August 3-12, with the studio tours on the weekends only. See our listing for dates and times in the HAF Guide (Page 10) in Sunday, July 29^th’s North Shore News or online.

If you are able to make it to the festival, the BIG white tent will be located west of the Silk Purse in West Vancouver's John Lawson Park. For both events, come and browse through a great collection of art, from oils and watercolours to acrylics and mixed media... ~ Sharka

"A Window in Tuscany"

It was nice to finally finish my painting today, “A Window in Tuscany”. This one took me some time… but I’m happy even if I am the turtle racing the hare, lol!

I’ve had the photo in my reference file since 2008 and when I went through them, I kept putting this one back. I knew I would paint it one day. I had hoped that by the time I got around to it, I would have actually had the experience of seeing a window in Tuscany. Tuscany is on my bucket list!

I almost had it finished last week, but my old stone Tuscan wall was a tad flat and dull. I rushed over to Opus (the art store) and bought some molding paste. I laughed because a while back I had a few jars of it and didn’t think I’d ever use it – so gave it to a friend. Maybe keeping one jar would have been a good thing.

I enjoyed using the paste and think I’ll be using it again for paintings where I want to create and enhance the texture. You might say I went outside my ‘box’ on this painting as texture is not typically in my repertoire.

I hope you enjoy… ~ Sharka

4-legged Memories

In the last few months, four of my friends have sadly lost their 4-legged companions to Rainbow Bridge. One friend lost two within a few weeks of each other… :(

I knew I had to do something so I decided to create a doggie mini album for all the memories.  I finished the album this week and would like to share some of it.

  

For the album I used an older paper collection by Basic Grey© called Max & Whiskers and I used Kathy's (from Paper Phenomenon) hidden hinge binding system. 

We are animal lovers ourselves… we have a 13 year old tabby named Kramer and a 7 year old (her birthday was on Wednesday, July 4^th) cocker spaniel named Molly. She is the “Princess’” of the house!

If you would like to make one of these mini albums for yourself or as a gift, I will be selling a few of them as a kit. It will have complete instructions, photos and materials. If you would like one already assembled instead, I can do that too… you can email me any time at info”at”sharkaleigh.com to order. ~ Sharka 

(Sorry... As of August 29th, this kit is sold out)

Wisdom Made Visible Group Exhibition

Colouring Within the Lines

My markers are here, my markers are here - finally!!!

I have tested my new Tim Holtz Distress markers and well, where to start…

From Ranger’s review, my set includes:

• complete 37 water base dual tip colors; 36 translucent with brush tip and fine detail tip made with a plastic nib great for journaling, and 1 Picket Fence opaque pigment ink marker with a felt tip instead of plastic nib. The Picket Fence is perfect for dark backgrounds or highlighting. Goes on clear, but dries white!
• designed to coordinate with Tim Holtz‘ Distress Ink Pads and/or Stains
• reactive to water
• work on a variety of surfaces, including manilla tags, variety of paper including glossy and specialty stamping paper
• used for watercoloring and/or stamping
• blend without worry of contamination of markers! 
• markers are NOT refillable like ink pads.

I tried to use the markers and stamping inks on Bee Paper Company 110lb Artist Marker Pad. The first issue I faced was most of the stamp inks (all except Staz-On) didn’t seem to dry properly on this paper. Even now 6 hours later the stamp ink still smudges.

Then I tried using the markers to fill in the stamps and the colour didn’t move easily to blend and fill the space. In many instances the markers still made the smudging stamp ink run.

Next, I tried Strathmore 300’series 140lb cold press watercolor paper with the same stamp inks. Only a few inks worked well - Ranger Archival, Versa-Magic and Staz-On.  However, without water blending the marker was again difficult.

I did find that when I pre-wet the area before applying the colour, it was easy and the markers worked well. It isn’t always easy to get the colour nicely blended as they leave hard to get rid of stroke marks and harsh straight lines. When I worked too long, the paper started to pill.

The samples I tried are shown here:

The way I found that works best for me is to “colour” with the markers on a non-stick craft sheet or an acrylic block. Then pick up the colour with a water filled brush (as if I were painting) and color in the image with the brush.

In my bird samples I started with Tumbled Glass in the head, then added Stormy Sky and ended with Faded Jeans. The beak is just Spiced Marmalade and his body was coloured using Scattered Straw and Worn Lipstick which gave me a nice orange colour. All this was done with the water filled brush, not just the markers on their own.

I was really excited when I got the markers, and I love most of Tim Holtz' products. However the jury is still out as to whether I will like using them in the long term. I was watching his video again and it appears that maybe I have to use both his archival ink and specialty paper for it all to work?
 ~ Sharka

Bessie

Do you recall at the beginning of the year I said I had two goals for 2012? One of them was to paint four 36” x 48” canvases.  Well, I just finished the second of the four. The more I’m thinking about it, and after completing two I think three may be good! I started this second painting on February 28^th and it has taken me a long time to finish.

I woke up to a beautiful sunny morning and headed into the studio early and was determined that today, Friday, was the day! My hubby came by with a bubble tea - I love those black tapioca bubbles. He gave me a few critiques while sipping his bubble tea, I made some changes, put my signature on, and voila, she is finished!

I have to tell you that I found the photo to paint from on the internet. It belongs to Johan Peijnenburg, from NiO Photography.  I emailed Johan to ask if he was ok with me using his photo for a painting, he thought about it, gave me the ok, and the end result is finally here…Bessie!

Johan has some gorgeous photos on his website. I recommend going to check them out. His photos will inspire you!

~ Sharka ~