I've had both of these done for some weeks, but completely forgot to get them posted. I'm just coming out of hibernation and not quite up to speed yet.
I had a hard time trying to come up with an idea for this theme. Four corners? Four sides? Four ? Until I thought about where I live and the seasons on the mountain. I found a picture I took last year when I was coming back from Hood River on the back side of Mt. Hood. Perfect! Then I took a maple leaf-shaped paper punch and punched out a whole lot of leaves from my collection of tea bag envelopes. I had enough colors to surround the mountain with the colors of the seasons. I suppose you could call them my "Tea Leaves of the Seasons". Don't groan too loudly, you might scare the cat.
This theme was a fun challenge for me. I'm not much of a sculptor and wanted to just try my hand at playing with paperclay. There are no correct proportions for this piece, but it was fun to play with the clay. I used a rubber blending tool to get the textures for the trees and background. After letting it dry, I painted it with gesso 3 times, then added different colored PearlEx to the various areas. After each area was colored, I sprayed hairspray on it to fix the mica powders. That is why it is so shiny. At first I didn't want the shine, but it has grown on me and I like it that way. Only two more to go!
Art and images copyright 2009 by Z'anne Bakke
This "Ocean" picure was painted with acrilic paint on plywood. The sand was
I had a hard time trying to come up with an idea for this theme. Four corners? Four sides? Four ? Until I thought about where I live and the seasons on the mountain. I found a picture I took last year when I was coming back from Hood River on the back side of Mt. Hood. Perfect! Then I took a maple leaf-shaped paper punch and punched out a whole lot of leaves from my collection of tea bag envelopes. I had enough colors to surround the mountain with the colors of the seasons. I suppose you could call them my "Tea Leaves of the Seasons". Don't groan too loudly, you might scare the cat. 
This theme was a fun challenge for me. I'm not much of a sculptor and wanted to just try my hand at playing with paperclay. There are no correct proportions for this piece, but it was fun to play with the clay. I used a rubber blending tool to get the textures for the trees and background. After letting it dry, I painted it with gesso 3 times, then added different colored PearlEx to the various areas. After each area was colored, I sprayed hairspray on it to fix the mica powders. That is why it is so shiny. At first I didn't want the shine, but it has grown on me and I like it that way. Only two more to go!
I have been working on a lot of small, detailed work lately and my husband has been working on a huge 4'x6' abstract piece. So, I figured, why should he have all of the fun? I only allowed myself to use a palette knife, no brushes or sketching, and it was just plain fun!
I used Alma Cox's telamadera fusion technique to make this piece. She was a featured artist on Oregon Art Beat in February. Her work inspired me to do a piece on wood with burnt-in lines of my sketch, acyclic paint and fused fabric. In Spanish, tela is fabric and madera is wood. She also wrote an article about her process in CPS March/April 2008. I see she is teaching at Art & Soul in Portland this year. I left the mountain and sky painted without fabric and burnt into the wood the fir trees. It's a fun process.
For some reason my scanner causes the girl's height to be compressed, so I will post a photo to replace the scan when I have more time. Collage on gessoed board with fluid acrylic, graphite, pen and water soluble crayon. I drew the girl on sketch paper and transferred her to the painting, then painted over the pencil with fluid acrylic.
