Art Process Videos
I love to take broken, unwanted, or discarded items and turn them into something beautiful, I learned about the process from our Heavenly Father who takes us (who are all broken in some way) and turns us into beautiful masterpieces! I hope you enjoy watching my time-lapse videos – friends have told me they find them peaceful and meditative — may you enjoy them in the same way.
About the music: I'm proud to say that many of my videos use music that my son (Daniel James LeBlanc) created when he was younger. In 2016 — he created a piece of music just for my videos, hear it on "Bejewelled Landscape" and "Born of the Spirit." After that, I figured out how to use GarageBand and have made 6 or 7 of my own very amateur instrumental "songs" for these videos. Sometimes I use free Youtube clips or free Garage Band clips.
In this video I upcycle old circuit boards because upcycling unusual things to make my art gives me a good challenge. It's fun finding discarded items and figuring out how to make them beautiful and thus giving them new life! Life needs Art.
Imagination took me from collecting discarded cardboard (from food boxes, etc.), to creating art with a meaningful message. I love finding discarded items and giving them new life! ... Life needs art, doesn't it!
Over a year in the making, what started out as my largest seaglass project ever, turned into a shattered glass project due to a strange accident in my brother-in-law’s home.
Background music:Fountain of Joy (444Hz) ©2011 by John L. Tussey Jr. ASCAP Used by permission Soaring (444Hz) ©2011 by John L. Tussey Jr. ASCAP Used by permission
Upcycling metal fasteners (like screws and nails, washers, nuts and bolts) was a challenge for me. But I overcame all the obstacles, and ended up with a successful triptych. Come see how I did it, and maybe learn some things about glue!
Yeah, so this project went back on the easel and it changed. I was sorry I messed with it but … maybe in a little while I’ll work on it again and then you and I will find out what happened to it.
I began creating these small treasures in support of organizations promoting Life in the Womb. The first 4 I've given to a gynaecologist in Germany who has hung them in his office. The next five I will sell and all the proceeds will go to support the Open Door Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
I re-did this video because of the poor sound quality I had on the original video. Hope you enjoy watching me attach all this cutlery to a panel board.
I walk you through our home and talk a bit about all the art on the main floor. Both my husband and I are artists, so we have no wall space left!
I walk you through our home and talk a bit about all the art in the kitchen and beyond. Both my husband and I are artists, so we have no wall space left!
I walk you through our home and talk a bit about all the art upstairs. Both my husband and I are artists, so we have no wall space left!
I made these as small piece of art as oranaments that might sell at the art gallery where I show my work. They didn’t sell, oh well.
Perhaps THE most frustrating work of art on my wall. It’s really hard to talk about, but I did, in this video.
I describe my method of using oil pastels and show a series of about 8 or 10 rock walls that made with pastels.
Well, I had no idea this video would go viral (in a small way); it was fun to see it happen as we drove across Canada to see our little granddaughter.
A friend gave me his old worn bicycle gears (all cleaned and free of grease no less, thanks George!!). How would they be to upcycle?
I’ve been collecting old jewellery from people and second hand store for a few years now, the beaded necklaces were harder to upcycle on small canvasses so I did this … 20 x 48 inches.
Another walk-through on my method of using oil pastels. It was a summer past time for me a few years ago. I could work on art, no matter where I was.
I’m not sure if this was my most challenging upcycling project of all time, but it comes really close! The colours were fantastic, but maybe too fantastic!
This lamp was a wedding gift from my uncle, I’m not sure when he made it, but he gave it to us in 1980. I hated to take it apart, but it was falling apart and I didn’t want to throw it out.
Another challenging painting which I painted over a challenging painting, which I painted over another challenging painting, etc., etc., etc!
Upcycling this pottery was as hard on my fingerprints as upcycling shattered glass was (ask me how I know)!
This was my second attempt at upcycling cutlery … time consuming but the result was so lovely, a friend has borrowed it for her wall the past few years.
This is about a beautiful journey I had that began not so beautifully with a lot of 3D printed test pieces for a radio that my husband was going to throw out.
I was selling my art on the street one summer and noticed that someone began studying my art. He had some ideas and decided to put me to work. This was the first of 4 commissioned pieces — I had a lot of fun playing with items that someone else had found and then putting them together in a permanent and beautiful design.
This is the 3rd Commission, preserving someone's memories of their "man-drawer items" which were collected over the years. Everyone has a drawer like this, comprising those unnecessary yet necessary items. Items that will surely one day be very useful! When they're collected on a painting, we realize we didn't need them after all!
Made of slate leftover pieces from a kitchen flooring project (the floor was designed by the mother of the home). Her husband wanted the pieces he had saved to be a good memory for him and his family. Now they are his Heirloom Art Pieces.
When I was challenged to make a word cloud on the occasion of a Viola Desmond anniversary (in 2018), I created this piece and incorporated a lot of old jewel...
Another commissioned piece … this garbage was collected by my client who has great concern for the condition of our environment … like me.
“HYDRANGEA”
This is a slideshow process video of my acrylic painting, using my own music created in garageband
“RADIANT CHAINS OF LOVE”
These chains were given to me free, and new, from a store that was no longer going to be selling that line.
“THE JELLYFISH”
This is a complete process video of the creation of my jellyfish painting - showing my work in a style I call, "Upcycling in Painting". Although it took me about two months to complete, you get to see it all happen in about 15 minutes!
“WORDS ARE LIFE”
I found a bag of red and black lick-and-stick letters in a second hand store and thought it would make a very interesting texture. This is my first video with a voice over instead of captions. You can hear I’m not as confident with spoken words as I am with written words. Maybe I will improve …
‘HER PRIVATE COLLECTION’
This upcycled painting is made from a collection of 3d printed refuse pieces from my husband’s projects, some old jewellery, and acrylic paint
“CRABBY MAGGIE”
Unlike most of my abstract artwork, this piece began with an image in mind before I even began. It was a lot of fun finding old jewellery pieces to create a crab, and actually making something recognizable for a change was refreshing. Maybe I'll try it again. Soon.
“ANGEL OF THE LORD”
I painted the angel underneath first (from an image of a very old mosaic whose maker’s name I can’t find).
LIKE RAISING CHILDREN
I hope you enjoy watching this piece come to life, it was a painstaking process, for sure! Entitled so because I compare the teaching and guiding our children to the best of our ability (arranging staples) and the unexpected joy and randomness of children (pearls) as they just go and do whatever they want to do!
BUTTON BIRD LANDSCAPE
This piece was a challenge – to get my “texture” flat enough to be painted. And then I neglected to capture most of the painting process. But that makes it short and sweet. Find out what I upcycled to create my texture …
RINGS IN RINGS
This is another upcycling process video. There are a lot of old bracelets and rings floating around in second-hand stores! Most of them have lost their finish but are perfect for my uses! This piece uses old finger rings, curtain rings, earrings and bracelets.
TOHU VA BOHU
This is one of my newer large upcycled pieces. The textures were created using 3D printed excess-parts. This became a city landscape of sorts. There's grass in the foreground with the city scape near the middle, then the atmosphere above the city is somewhat chaotic with flying particles. Then the blue sky appears near the top.
It's a challenge to video these larger canvases so some of the process is missing, but I hope you enjoy it anyway!
PEARL PROFUSION
This piece was unusually long in it's process, a real journey of visual discovery. It began red, transitioned to green, then to multicoloured, then to ... . I'm using a lovely piece of music from Parachute Music (called "Salon").
EVERY GOOD GIFT
This piece is made of a lot of small necklaces and chains, along with other beaded embellishments. The title came to me as I was reminded again of God's goodness; every good gift comes from Him – and He doesn't ever take back what He gives.
I create original paintings using recycled jewellery and acrylic paint – If you'd like to commission a rare and unusual gift for someone, contact me.
SHE SELLS SEA SHELLS
There were a LOT of necklaces I was not using up in my projects, so this time, I decided to create a landscape matching the colours of the necklaces as best I could with the landscape I had painted on the canvas. A successful challenge. I created the music in GarageBand.
FRUIT OF THE VINE
This piece had a very long journey to the finish line, but sometimes a long journey is the only way I can discover what works best for a particular set of textures. I love using acrylic paint and acrylic mediums for my art, because they dry so quickly. They let me change my mind any time I need to.
As you watch this video, you'll hear a new piece of music of mine which had a similar lengthy creation process as the piece I made it for. I've gotten to love hearing this music, it's very meditative.
BEJEWELLED LANDSCAPE
(A MOTHER/SON COLABORATIVE VIDEO!)
Out on another treasure hunt, I found a few boxes of disorganized glass beads (yay!). So I painted a colourful design on my canvas for a background, started applying beads and chains and, voila! A landscape was coming into view right before my eyes. It's such a delight to find out what wants to come out of me as I create!
My son Daniel created the beautiful music you hear in the background!
SAFE PASSAGE
This canvas actually has a number of 10Karat gold chains/pieces on it. I was caught between the thought of the laborious process of getting the gold appraised and the actual fun process of putting it on a canvas. Obviously this stuff is worth more to me the way it looks on a canvas - would you agree?
It's another in the series of small Heirloom Art Pieces, which are all 9" x 12" (23 x 30.5 cm), mixed media on canvas.
RINGS OF FRIENDSHIP
Some of my bangles get used up in this interesting video - I had no idea where this was heading, but after a lot of play, I was happy with the final result!
And the music is another creation of mine. Hope you like it!
LOVE COMES DOWN
This piece, is also using a 9x12 inch canvas. It is attempting to tell a story about how the love of God comes down to us so he can bring us back to His place where all things are right – but I only got as far as the love coming down (represented by the bird), and I'm still working on my story telling skills ...)
I buy bags of junk jewellery wherever I can and on opening one of my treasure sacks, I found a yellowish brown fish necklace. It wasn't very appealing to look at but an image popped into my mind and I was off to create this piece. See the process video
This is the first in my series of SMALL Heirloom Art Pieces, which are all 9" x 12" (23 x 30.5 cm), mixed media on canvas.
9" x 12" mixed media pieces on canvas.
Rock Wall #11 with Rocks from Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia. Peggy's Cove is the mother rock of the province, as far as I have seen. The landscape is magical.
Music by Daniel James LeBlanc.
This is an acrylic painting on board - of the lighthouse near Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. Love doing winter paintings ...
This is my first video ever - I had taken some photos while I was drawing this oil pastel, but got so carried away with the process that I forgot to take enough photos for a decent video. Hope you enjoy what it is!
Another 9x12 inch oil pastel of a lovely yellow lily from my garden.
Music by Daniel James LeBlanc (my son!)
CONGREGATION
I had a good handful of dead coin batteries from some plastic candles (that I wish I hadn't bought because they stopped working). And I knew they could be put to good use on one of my upcycling paintings!
A friend chose a very appropriat title for this piece because the circles started to congregate.
By the way, this was my first composition ever, created in Garage Band!
REFLECTIONS OF GLORY
This piece was a fun, yet a very challenging piece. I had intentions of maintaining the shininess of the pins throughout the painting process, but it became so fiddly that I had to just paint the whole thing disregarding the reflective surfaces. So, the challenge became removing all the acrylic paint from the shiny pins after each coat of paint to bring back that lovely reflective quality before the paint dried completely.
SWIRLIING TIME PIECE
Typically, my husband likes to take things apart and when he ends up with stuff he doesn't want, I get them! So, when he took apart some watches and an old camera, gleaning the things he wanted, I got the rest of the pieces! There's also some from old jewellery on this piece - can you find which pieces were jewellery?
From my series of small Heirloom Art Pieces, which are all around 9" x 12" (23 x 30.5 cm), mixed media on canvas or boards.
My second ever video ... before I discovered time-lapse!
PEARL DIRECTIONS
Sometimes I get carried away with the underpainting, working on my lap or another surface, away from my iphone camera, and that makes me forget to record my work. I had a lot of diagonal lines to draw and paint in this pieces, and so the canvas was constantly being repositioned – which makes it hard to record.
ANGEL STONES
My daughter had given me some discarded "crystals" that she had made. They had lovely subtle colours but when I secured them to my art piece with a glazing medium, the moisture in the medium destroyed much of the colour. Nonetheless, I attempted to paint them a similar colour.
BRASS PLAYGROUND
There aren't a lot of brass items I find in jewellery these day, but the pieces I did find ended up on this canvas – which progressed very playfully indeed! When you watch the video, you see the pieces marching around the canvas as they look for their final resting spot.
From my series of small Heirloom Art Pieces, which are all 9" x 12" (23 x 30.5 cm), mixed media on canvas or board.
Rock Wall 12 - another scene of Peggy's Cove Rocks including me packing up my pastels as I pause to do a portrait painting. Peggy's Cove is a tourist attraction, no wonder!
Taylor Head Beach - I was at this beach with my daughter; it was a sandy beach with some stones. But very odd, was this lonely huge rock surrounded by water, about 10 feet out from the edge of the beach - and not another rock in sight.
BORN OF THE SPIRIT
This Jewel painting went through a major process of experimentation as I tried using up many different pieces from my recycled jewellery collection. To me, it's perhaps a picture of the process the Lord our Maker goes through, molding and making us into his image as we live through our ups and downs, our good times and bad times.
ALPHABET SOUP
Confession - I did purchase these wooden letters in a dollar store. But the jewellery is recycled. Letters make an interesting texture, I used recycled letter shapes before in the large abstract piece called "Light Path".
I create original mixed media paintings using recycled jewellery and acrylic paint. And I make my own music for these process videos too - using GarageBand and iMovie
BLOWING IN THE WIND
I had a desire to put a scarf on canvas, just to see if it could be successful, was it? I chose a small silk scarf of mine that had a beautiful pattern on it. I'm very happy with the result – I also sewed on some long ceramic beads.
The answer, my friend, was blowing in the wind.