A news print collage

This is a part of assignments submitted to a course from coursera.org about introduction to arts. It was my last assignment to be submitted. The course completed long ago. What took me so long, was to take permission of my one BFF to post her pic here, as I made a news print collage of her photograph, that was with me for a long long time, that's 8 years now. That time, I asked her to get her portrait photo clicked so that I'll sketch. But, time passed, and I never really completed the sketch. So, when the time came to create a news print collage for assignment, I took this opportunity to do this. And to my surprise, she was very happy to see it :) :).

 It was made from news paper, the objective was to recreate the areas of lights and darks that we perceive in the photograph with different values of newsprint.



And here it is, at last I completed the course, and earned the statement of accomplishment with "distinction" :D. Fortunately I got good marks in peer evaluation.

My intro through and art piece

I joined one online art class, in which they asked to submit an art piece to introduce yourself. It could be 2D, 3D, on any media and of any dimension. I wanted to put so many things in it. But, I ended up with a quick and simple sketch with colors. It's quite rough and also I didn't know how to draw the background which looked like in bokeh photos.

By this piece, I intended to show an independent girl with zeal to learn through books and her love for nature as she's lying on green grass and colored leaved tree in background.

A wise old owl

"A wise old owl sat on an oak; The more he saw the less he spoke; The less he spoke the more he heard; Why aren't we like that wise old bird?" 

"Barbade gulistaan karne ko bus ek hi ullu kafi tha, har shaakh pe ullu baithe hain anjaame gulistaan kya hoga?"

Meaning: One owl is enough to destroy a flower garden, here there's an owl sitting on every branch, don't know what's going to happen...

I love this bird. <3 Nowadays even my mobile message tone is an owl's voice, a light howl. :)

I think this is my last acrylic painting, not satisfied. Sketching is much more easier I guess, because pencil tip is not brushy kind. Did you get what I meant? People who paint are great! :D

Sun, Sunshine, My sunshine, My you..

The time has come my people, to put some colors in the greyness...

I don't usually paint, but till this time when ever I painted or did something creative, to make hand made cards or painting a ceramic mug and baking it, all these ideas came to me for only a soul purpose of gifting it to someone I love.

Because I always gifted all the art I created, there was nothing left for me to keep. So, this time I thought of putting it on display.

Following is the front view:

I used acrylic colors, I was experimenting to use stencil that came with the color box, but it became messy, so I took a broad brush and painted with different colors with horizontal strokes, it was all rough work. But in the end it was looking good, so I added the text with white (Pearl white) on it. And also cut the sides with art scissor.

The dark blue background (border sort of) is a piece from a marriage card.

And also in the extreme left, the pale yellow cutting is also taken from another marriage card.

The Eiffel tower is cut from an apparel tag, that I usually collect sometimes if pretty.

And one more thing is the tiny red cat stamps I bought from a stationary :)

The next one is when you flip the horizontal banner. all the items are taken from some or the other things like, apparel tags - honey from pantaloons, one was of insense', sugar and spice was another part of honey tag, the heart one was from Globus, I cut the middle part in shape on heart. And various buttons and sewing materials, which comes with clothes.

The embossed thank you was from an envelope from 99labels(online shopping site) people.

Now the third view: The dark blue top and bottom footer and right curved border pattern is also from marriage card.

The words are taken from Kal Barteski Art site, she writes beautifully and is a very good artist as well.

I drew the multicolored background and the design pattern by color pencils and same acrylic paint.

The next one is the third page:

I am very happy, the way it came out. I tried to create Japanese cherry blossom tree, flowers/leaves didn't come out properly (flat brush stokes need much of practice) but I love the background as I don't paint. I can't remember the last time I painted before this :)

"The whole world turns

The pallette changes

as the light moves over again

The sun

The sunshine

My sunshine

My you

Warms + lights + fills

The smallest ever part of all I need"

And the last but not least: From the day I created my first hand made greeting card, I never forgot to draw bar codes and logo, it's fun :). The 'like us on Facebook' wooden stick is from some ice cream I had :D

Click on the images to enlarge.

P.S: *Blush Blush*