Week 1's main lesson was to create a beautiful whimsy character to be our "Beacon of Light", guiding and supporting me through the year.
I have never drawn a face before, and am just amazed at what I've done here with Tam's absolutely superb video instructions. Here are the progress photos - click on any to see them larger
Tam's figure was done with a yellow/gold monochromatic colour scheme - I shared her sample in my post HERE. Although I want to follow the lessons closely to learn as much as I can, those colours just weren't me, so from this point mine looks quite different from hers. My girl's face is tanned from our lovely NZ summer. I have created a background that references sand and sunshine at the beach, and a bit later I added some additional stamping and embossing with distress powder that adds to the sandy feel
I used metallic paint for her hair, and the rest of her is paua colours. Took these shots in the sunshine so you can see the shimmer
Butterflies appear regularly in my work. I decorated the dress with a butterfly from a serviette, and I stamped my word on another piece of tissue before gluing that too. The dress has a background of torn sheet music since music is always playing in the background of my life. The little purple heart is a brad.
The character holds symbols that are meaningful to us. Tam's were drawn on. I want to try and include stitch in all my projects this year. I machine stitched down from her hands and left ends of thread to tie some charms on. They are fairly flat so if I want to bind them into a book at the end of the year they are not too dimensional.
The heart symbolises how I always approach my art, and the other charm says stitch. I also machine stitched around the edge when finished...I stitched it unevenly on purpose ;-)
Love that I've learned so much from following the lesson steps but made my beacon of light my own. I am VERY ready for the next lesson, and she stands on my desk to watch what happens next
