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
Seasons of Life is the idea behind this picture. The acrylic backrounds symbolize the seasons. Pink for the Spring of babyhood. Green for the Summer of teenage. Orange stands for the Autumn of middle age and gray for the coming Winter of old age. The name of the person is being withheld to prevent the guilty from stealing her identity.
This was a hard assignment for me to come up with - how to come up with a composition that represents all four seasons and I finally settled for my favorite subject, birds. This is watercolor on Arches hot press paper. I have finally caught up for the moment.
I enjoyed our "seasons" challenge. The seasons remind me of life cycles. Mine represents a variety of seasonal euphorbia. I discovered this plant last year and began taking photos. I didn't realize that poinsettia also belong in the euphorbia family. The outer edges are stenciled- an inspiration from Mary Ann's online class. I used Photo Shop to arrange and alter my photos.
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!
