Hellooooooooo, Ladies!

Monday Murals -- From The Ocean's Depths

I'm taking part today in 

Monday Murals hosted by Sami.

In the spirit of Halloween's approach,

Beware The Creature From The Ocean's Depths!

This exquisitely beautiful giant octopus mural

was painted by Shane Ford, an outstanding

Edmonton tattoo artist and muralist.

It's on the side of a commercial building

in Edmonton's Old Strathcona district.

I don't know if those are apartments on the second floor,

but I would gladly rent one just to be able

to come home every day and enter

via this awesome door, LOL!

[Photos © Debra She Who Seeks, 2026]

Iridescent Dragonflies

[A link party about art issues hosted by

Nicole of DVArtist, Art, Food and Everyday Things]

Last week I attended a half-day workshop

on creating multimedia art

featuring iridescent dragonflies.

We made two bookmarks and a small painting.

It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot

about art supplies which were new to me.

My pieces were sufficiently okay for a first effort,

so I'm happy enough with the results.

The background spatter was done by wetting the paper,

applying a light sprinkle of powdered watercolour paint

[Colourcraft Brusho Crystal Colours],

and then blotting it with a paper towel.

Next, we did some stencilling of botanical imagery

using acrylic gel paint [Artist's Loft Color Shift Acrylic Paint]. 

Gel paint is better than regular paint for stencilling,

because it does not "bleed under" the stencil's cutout design.

The final step was drawing stylized dragonflies and outlining them

with permanent (non-water-soluble) ink. Then we painted

the wings using two or three shades of special iridescent acrylic paint

[ARTME 20 Colors Iridescent Acrylic Paint]. 

Unfortunately, photos don't really do the iridescent paint justice --

you have to see the art in person so you can

wiggle it back and forth a bit in order to get 

the full shimmery, light-reflecting colour effects.

So there's not much point, really, in using iridescent paint on

static artwork which will simply be framed and hung on the wall.

Iridescent paint is best, it seems to me, for small, hand-held

artworks such as bookmarks, tags or cards.

[Art and photos of art © Debra She Who Seeks, 2026]

Practical Curses For The Modern Age

Coping Mechanism #198 -- Whimsy

Who DOESN'T Love October?

Pink Floyd, Accidental or Otherwise