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This quote caught my eye on Pinterest the other day

I knew I had to use this quote on a mixed media project for my daughter’s room, but I wasn’t sure what else I’d put on it.  Then, Livie got this T-shirt for her birthday (from Aunt Tanya):

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T-shirt

This girl reminded me of Suzy Blu’s Petite Dolls class, which I took last summer.  I drew and painted lots of “dolls” last summer and into the fall, but I hadn’t made any in recent months.  They are so whimsical and folkie… perfect for a little girls’ bedroom!

So I quickly did up a sketch and shaded it a bit.  I didn’t spend much time on it, and the eyes aren’t very well done at all, but I kind of wanted it to be 2-dimensional, so I didn’t bother with eyelids.

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Sketch inspired by t-shirt

As you can see, I pretty much copied the girl from the t-shirt, although I did her eyes using Suzy Blu’s style.  I absolutely LOVE how her hair turned out!  I’ve always had so much trouble with hair, so it was good to just copy and have it actually come out looking good.

I whipped up a background pretty fast!  I has hardly any layers, because I didn’t want to wait for things to dry.  It’s basically just book pages and colour washes and a tiny bit of paint.  I love using colour washes because they have such rich pigment and you can move it around on the paper and it’s translucent, so the layer below is not covered (I am still not good at covering my layers when I work so hard for them!).  I cut out my girl’s head, paper pieced her shirt, headband, skirt, and neck, then painted over her face, skin, and hair.  I added some store-bought flowers and rub-ons, paint stamped and doodled a border, and stamped the phrase.  Then I painted and doodled up the letters, drew on a branch for my rub-on bird, and it was done.  Here is the result:

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Mixed Media Canvas for Olivia

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I’m so loving this hairdo!!

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Lesson of the Day:
Super fast doodling turns out almost as good as slow methodical doodling!

Although this is much simpler than some of my other mixed media pieces, I really like how it turned out.
Mercy Tiara

Mercy Tiara

You may be wondering who is Mercy Tiara, and why the name? MercyTiara is an anagram of my first and middle names, Tracy Marie. I discovered this name in the 90's in grad school when we were all coming up with alter egos for one another in a lab one day. I've used it ever since, but you can call me Tracy or MercyTiara, or anything you want... just don't call me late for supper!

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