Eyes In the Foreground~ Ink In the Background

Dusty desert background calls for a roadrunner

I like this already in a less is more sort of way.

Just showing off this guy on the background, he won't live here.

Believe it or not I was trying for a tiki head here!

Dog head floating above the mountains.

I had been remarking the other day that it seems that any sort of craft that has eyes on it is an easy seller.

When I first started making beads I tried my hand at making beads with faces but I ended up following a path that took me in a more organic nature. Perhaps because I didn't have the fine sculptural steady hand required for fabulous figural work and wasn't in the particular head space to devote the time to improve my skills. I was getting good feedback on the beads I was making and felt satisfied with the improvement I was making with that style. Or perhaps is that the caffeine I liked to imbibe for energy was at odds with my nervous system and I just shake too much for well placed eyes. They ended up coming out rather Simpsonesque.

I decided to give them another try the other day and maybe this time I'll put more time into developing them. I was thinking of doing some mask type faces and maybe it will behoove me to map out some of the design elements in advance even though that is SO unlike me!

The backgrounds are gessoed cards from some promotional that we got in the mail. I thought I would experiment with my new inks on them.

Here is a tutorial that Tim Holz has on using his alcohol inks. I was using some of my distressed ink pads as well with these backgrounds.

I'll continue embellishing some of these pages but it was a good lesson in familiarizing myself with some new products and techniques.

I have to give some credit to my friend Heather from Mountain Heather Creations for my mountain design elements in a couple of these. She makes awesome hats with a mountain and moon or sun motif.