Thursday, February 7, 2008

More Challenges, or There's Gesso on my Breakfast!

Note: Don't miss it - I sneaked in my 100th post a few days ago, and have offered to design a flag for one randomly selected blogger who leaves a comment. I'll be doing the random drawing Saturday - the selection that is! The flag creation will be anything but random.

Challenges are a cool part of the Blogosphere. I had so much fun with Michael5000's Oregon Flag Makeover Challenge (here's the whole sordid story of my flag design process, in reverse, in case you missed it) that I've been keeping my eyes peeled for other creative challenges.

Two that caught my eye are Bigezbear's photo of the week challenge - this week's theme was "Breakfast" - and Jen Worden's weekly art challenge. Jen's project this week involved taking a magazine image, outlining it in black marker, then filling in the colored areas with gesso. I really liked the effect, and decided to try it out.

Here's My Breakfast:


The whole eggs-in-toast thing is a big comfort food for me. Spelt toast. Organic, cage free eggs. From happy chickens! The mug of coffee is not in the picture, but can be assumed. I was probably trying to drink from it and take the picture at the same time.

And here's my gessoed magazine image:



It's from Real Simple magazine - a photograph to illustrate an article on headaches. Really, I only buy Real Simple for the pictures.

And now, here's two great challenges that taste great together!

I love the effect of the hard outlines and selective gessoing on the photograph . . . and I'd love to hear about any cool creative challenges out there in the Blogosphere that you are particularly fond of!

11 comments:

Chance said...

That turned out very well. Love the eggs and toast pic.

Jen Worden said...

Oh your eggs combo ROCKS! I love love love how it turned out. How you used the combination of theme/challenge and truly made it your's by using your own photos. ROCK! :D

Bigezbear said...

Love the eggs. Care to share your recipe?

claudia said...

Challenges are so much fun! I really like your "challenges combo" picture. I don't know what gesso is but it seems very nice ;)

Bridget said...

Chance: Thank you!

Jen: And thank you for the challenge!

Glenn: And thank you for the challenge! I'll post the recipe in a few days!

Claudia: :) Gesso is like a primer for canvas or other surfaces so that you can paint on them - ie, if you don't have a prepared canvas, you can throw some gesso on a board or heavy paper, sand it a bit, and you've got a smooth absorbent surface for painting on top of.

franswazz said...

3 words:
FUN, FUN, FUN!!!

Leah said...

i love these gessoed pieces. they look awesome!

gl. said...

so do you use gesso on the magazine because they're difficult to paint over otherwise? i -love- the look.

Mim said...

Very cool effect! I have to say, I thought we were the only ones who ate 'eggs in a nest' my sons favorite breakfast!

Michael5000 said...

Love the eggs!

Creative challenges -- I tried to drum up interest in a challenge to create a quilt based on the lyrics to a Decemberists song, but somehow it never quite took off. I think it was a demographic problem.

Bridget said...

gl - the challenge recommend gesso, and I'm guessing it was because it would adhere a little better than plain acrylics . . .

michelle - apparently, "eggs in a nest" (I've also heard it called "eggs in a basket" or even "eggs with hats") is some kind of underground food movement . . . a lot of people eat this!

M5K - Sadly, I'm guessing the pool of people who a) listen to the Decemberists, b) love the Decemberists enough to make a quilt about them c) quilt in the first place, d) read blogs, e) read your blog specifically and f) have the time to do a challenge is well, a pretty small pool. Probably wading-pool sized. Let's just say that, cool as these folks sound, I'd hate to have to recruit for a focus group based on these criteria.

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