VAMP UP YOUR OLD CLOTHES! And make em' Awesome....er. :)

Hey ya'll!

Sometimes I get creative with my clothes. Sometimes it's with clothes I already have, that I just want to vamp up a little (and make them feel brand new). And on a few occasions, I bought a couple shirts, and knew instantly what I wanted to do to them to make them prettier :) And what's prettier than GLITTER!!!! OOh Sparklies!!! Seriously tho..Glitter really can vamp things up quite a bit.

Example. I was shopping at Ross Clothing store about a year ago or more, and spotted this beautiful Butterfly drapey shirt. Immediately I thought, awww that would be even prettier with some glitter on it! Seriously it was kinda dull. And being that I love vibrant colors...and well....vibrancy or POW all together...I thought....Hey! I can buy it and ADD some glitter. So I did. I also had recently purchased a huge 24 pack of Martha Stewart glitter glue at Dick Blick Art supplies, and hadn't had a chance to use them yet so...Voilà!


In the picture below, you can see the right half of the shirt is shiny, and the left is not. The whole butterfly was like the left side....just... dull...Blah...Meh. So I had just Finished the Right side in this pic. And although the gems in the center are nice, (they were already there) it kinda made me feel like... did they get tired or bored putting these gems on? Because if you look closely, the right sides gems go farther out, and almost completely around the first two butterfly shapes on the wing. Weird. I'll probably add some of those later, but it needed some shine immediately.

 

Below is a picture of the glitter glue I used. I just used what I thought best matched the color tones of the aqua and the gold. I wrapped the shirt tight around a piece of cardboard I had in my studio. The colors I used here are:  Turquoise for the darkest aqua, and Aquamarine for the lighter areas of the hue (where it fades). For the golden colors I used Yellow Barite for the bright Golden area, and Florentine Gold for the faded gold. I squirted out a bit onto a watercolor tray, and used a paint brush to brush on the glitter the way I liked, and blended the two colors where they met. You have to be careful NOT to allow the glitter to dry in your brush though. Rinse it in water after each application of the glitter glue to the shirt. Or you'll ruin your brush. Once you're finished, make sure you wash your brush thoroughly with  dish soap and warm water.  

 

As you can see in the picture below, it came out really nice! Very shiny! The day I wore it, I matched my eye makeup to the colors.

 

And here's the very unfortunate yet funny part. I was doing laundry weeks after doing this...I forgot about the glitter on it (Shame on me) and washed it. :( And....the glitter was completely gone. :( So now I have to do it all over again. lol. Waste of glitter, but it'll be fun to do again. And this time I am going to try ironing it...see if that makes it stay? If you have any suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment.

 

Hope you enjoyed! Peace, Love, Coffee, and Paintbrushes!!

 

Inspiration drawings

I've been working really hard on my character design. Between Joe and stephens books, I've been disciplining myself to draw a few new zany characters each day. I'm not as free with the face parts as Stephen Silver is, but then again I just started doing these toon people back in January after I got Stephens book in the mail. These books really help alot, especially on days when you feel like you have no oomph to draw. Some days, It's like my hand has never used a marker or pencil before. It sounds crazy, but there are days like that. Some days when I don't even want to LOOK at a marker. But latley...that hasn't happened so much.



I've been using the Faber Castell Pitt Brush pens to color my characters. I'm not crazy about the way they blend, but it works for now. Just to get the idea's out of my head. I really don't want to get the copic sketch markers, or the prismacolors because of how bad they smell. I have enough headaches. So I've been doing extensive searches on Dick Blick and other websites, to find good quality artist illustration markers that DON'T SMELL. I found a few that I'm still thinking about. I did buy a couple different flesh toned Tom Bow markers. So far I like them mainly for the skin tones.

Goofy Caricature doodle

I've been playing around with imaginative caricatures from my head, between customers at the stand. I've also been experimenting with the prismacolor col-erase pencils, for backgrounds, but sometimes also for different shading techniques. Basically, whatever I'm in the mood for at that particular moment.

I see areas where I'm weak, and ones where I'm getting better by the day. I still have trouble with cartooning teeth, but I've been taking more risks on customers caricatures latley, trying to stretch myself beyong my comfort zone.

Either way, I'm having fun with it. :)

Art Update

Since I've been a caricature artist here in Las Vegas, I have passed out hundreds of my business cards. Sitting at my drawing table 855ft on the 108th floor of the stratosphere tower, I meet many people from all over the world. There were even a few countries that I had never heard of. As I'm sitting there stretching the limits with their faces, eventually they start to ask me questions like, how I got in to art, am I from Vegas, have I ever had people yell at me when they see the drawings, ect.

One question I do get asked alot, is if I sell my artwork online. So here's your answer. My website is still in the works, where you will be able to buy prints of some of my art. In the meantime, while you are patiently and anxiously waiting for my website to be be up and running, you can always email me at amandanikkiart@aol.com if you would like to order a custom painting. Currently, I have no originals for sale, and I do apologize.

So, if you would like to check out my albums of paintings, type in

http://www.myspace.com/amandanikkigallery

I also just signed up for facebook, but I haven't quite figured out how to change the name in the address bar. So when you go to facebook, just search "Amanda Nikki Art"

Hope to hear from you soon!
I'll be posting some doodles from my sketchbooks, so check back soon!