Hi there!
Trish Latimer here,
very happy and honoured to be sharing a post today on the blog!
For those that don’t
know me, I’m a messy painty mixed media artist, into all things
colourful and quirky! I also love drawing faces and figures, and I
have my own range of WhimsyGirl rubber stamps
Oh, and I am also
Editor of the best mixed media magazine around, Craft Stamper!
In February, I was
thrilled to be asked to be a guest demonstrator for IndigoBlu at the
UK trade show, Stitches. I had an absolute blast, and loved showing
people how I created painty backgrounds for the figures I had made
using the stunning face stamps by Kay. The journal pages I created
there have since been featured on Hochanda (squeeeee!), with Kay
doing an AMAZING job showing how to recreate the look!
I thought I would share
a step by step tutorial on how I create figures from the faces, but
first, here is the finished piece…
So, how to create the
figures? (Please bear in mind that these are ‘quirky’ people, so
might not be anatomically to scale)
Firstly, stamp the
head, and then sketch in the ‘body’ (or shape of the dress). As a
general rule I simply extend the lines from the sides of the neck,
flaring out slightly as I go…
Next, extend the lines
of the shoulders. For most of my figures, I’m not sketching actual
body shapes, these are the clothes shapes, so the shoulders can be
exaggerated to form sleeves.
For this dress, I
wanted a collar, so this gets sketched in next…
The sleeve shapes can
be finalised…
I’m rubbish at
drawing hands, so most of my girls either have their hands behind
their backs, or I draw an extra ‘something’ that they can be
holding without the need to draw an accurate hand! This little lady
had her hands behind her back…
Details can now be
added, then the sketched lines that you want to keep can be drawn in
with a permanent fine liner pen. You may notice that my figure
‘stops’ halfway down! I know the size
of the background I’ll be placing her on, so I don’t need to draw
in the rest. Of course, lines can be extended down, and legs and feet
added if the whole person will be on show.
She can now be
coloured! The ‘extra’ bit of stamped neck that was present in
the collar was simply gessoed over before colouring.
All kinds of clothes
can be drawn for your figure, check out fashion magazines or web
sites for inspiration about necklines or dress shapes!
I then created a painty
background using IndigoBlu paints, and background stamps collected
from lots of different IndigoBlu stamp plates. No space here today to
share just how I created the background, but if any of you are
curious then I have video tutorials showing the process. The links to
these can be found on my blog:
http://www.inkpaintbeads.blogspot.co.uk/
The finishing touch was
a wonderful phrase from the Mindfulness plate. I hope you like her!
Thank you so much for
having me!
Trish xxx
