Saturday 17 June 2017

Guest Designer Trish Latimer


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





4 comments:

  1. Trish, she is an absolute beauty! I love her blueish hair and spotty dress and the background you created is stunning! Love everything about this. Anne xx

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  2. This is a fabulous tutorial Trish, we are so excited to have you as a Guest Designer as we all love your work. Thank you so much for taking time out of your very busy schedule for doing this, we so appriciate it. xxx

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    1. Thanks so much for doing that Trish, your very talented. I am off now to have a go myself, I adore her full wardrobe x

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  3. These ladies are adorable Trish and I love the different outfits you have given them, and the background for the one above looks fabulous! x

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