Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Reach for the stars

I'm sharing recent art journal pages and also sharing my inspirations, and I have to show this one because its inspiration comes from Dina Wakley. You can see her work in multiple Stampington publications and she will soon be having online classes at her own site. I took a few when they were on another site and love her approach to art journaling and creativity in general - so serendipitous! She often uses Adirondack Colorwash sprays over stencils and big bold motifs like stars, hearts, circles and silhouettes. Starting with a base like that on your page, it's just fun to doodle and write.

Monday, January 30, 2012

Fun with black gesso

This art journal page is one done with inspiration from Julie Fei-Fan Balzer in her online class 30 Days in Your Art Journal that you can find out about on her blog. Starting with a base of black gesso instead of white, it was fun trying out different things over top of it. The doodled flowers are Caran D'Ache Neocolor II crayons and all the writing is done with white gel pen (I found that the Uniball Signo worked better than the Sakura or Ranger's Inkssentials) or white china marker. The really bright white doodled starry things are white Souffle pen - it gets much brighter when it dries.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

How do you create?

I have more art journal pages to share this week and I'm starting with this one using techniques I learned from a class with Catherine Scanlon online at My Creative Classroom. She has several mixed media classes that are a lot of fun and filled with techniques. This one used stencils over your underpainting that was then painted over with black acrylic paint. I added words with white ink and a dip pen. Notice those spatters? Well, I got sloppy and dripped my ink and just went with it and spattered more! So, how do I create - MESSY!!!!

Friday, January 20, 2012

Doing a HAPPY DANCE!!!

It's always an absolute thrill to have your work chosen for publication in a Stampington magazine and I have 2 in the February/March issue of the Stampers' Sampler!!!!!!!! Both are part of the special surfaces challenge and the first is an ATC concertina book. You can see the cover in the magazine - I used some of my crayon glassine paper to stamp on as my special surface.

Want to see the inside?

This is how the concertina looks opened and I used more crayon glassine on alternate panels. Here are a couple of close-ups:



My second project is a set of 3 collages built on 3in square acrylic blocks that are usually used for stamping with your unmounted stamps. I adhered paper to the back and stamped images onto the front of each block.

On the facing page they even show a photo from the side so you can see the dimension.

I've been smiling all day :-)

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Random art journal page

Here's a page from my art journal turned on end that started with washes of watercolor paint and then random lines of tissue tape. I then added in the words of a quote around the tape using mostly embellished handwriting, but some stamped letters as well that I highlighted with a white gel pen. Wish I knew where the quote came from, I found it in a recent online class, but it wasn't credited to anyone; really liked its meaning. I have recently been pondering about how I don't want to get to the end of my life and realize that I only lived the length of it - I heard that quote somewhere too and liked it also - maybe it needs to be another journal page!

Monday, January 16, 2012

RRD Rebel Challenge #7

There's a new Rebel Challenge on the Rogue Redhead Designs blog and the challenge is to use vellum. I experimented a bit and first stamped the trio from Milliner Misses onto vellum and colored it from the back side using colored pencils. I'm just not good at coloring and doing it this way hides my mistakes! Once I had my image colored, I ran my piece of vellum though my Cuttlebug using a frame embossing folder. Embossed vellum always gives a cool white effect and I added more white also on the back with a colored pencil to make it even more obvious.

So what did I do with my piece then?

I created this collage for it with French flair using 7Gypsies tissue paper with French place names and a page from an old French dictionary.

I actually made 2 backgrounds with the tissue paper when I started - I was being indecisive! On one, after adhering the tissue to white cardboard, I randomly applied paints and gesso with a palette knife and added more textures with gesso through punchinella and on a bottle cap to stamp circles. The second background started with a piece of white cardstock given a wrinkle free distress treatment with vintage photo distress stain prior to adhering the tissue and then antique linen distress stain over top. The second background I cut into pieces and arranged them in a pattern on top of the first background. I also completely avoided the difficulties of adhering vellum; by creating decorative corner punches in my image mat, I could just slip the piece of vellum under each corner punch. How do you like to use vellum? Why not join in on the challenge on the RRD blog post HERE - the challenge will be open until February 5th.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Glimmer Misted Bag

I decided I needed a decorated totebag and have altered this one starting with a base of Glimmer Mists in Turquoise and Meadow Green on the bag and lace strip. I made rolled roses with muslin strips and sprayed them with GM in Rose Tea and Creme de Rouge. They are layered over white paint stamped Queen Anne's Lace (Donna Downey for Unity Stamps) and given stems of lace strips also misted with Meadow Green and Forest Green. I added some words with my dip pen and India Ink - I'm slowly getting better! Fabric can be tricky as the pen nib wants to splatter ink as it goes over the textured surface. One tip if you try your own Glimmer Misted bag - spray it with a fixative (I used Krylon workable fixative and left it outside to dry and air out) or if it gets wet you and your clothes will become a lovely shade of blue-green!

Thursday, January 12, 2012

GC#134 Spicy Supply Challenge

It may be snowing like crazy outside my window today - yea!!! :-) but I'm thinking about flowers this week with my project for the Gingersnap Creations Spicy Supply Challenge where the chosen supply is ribbon. I made these little notecards using up some scraps of ribbon from my stash. I used a Stampotique Originals stamp called "the wave" to stamp a simple border on the card and if you look closely, you'll see the same stamp used on a ribbon scrap in each flower. I created an epoxy circle button for each flower center using a word cut out from another Stampotique stamp called "word collage". Quick and easy cards!

Enter your project using ribbon on the GC blog post HERE by February 5th and have a chance to be the one randomly drawn winner of a $30 certificate to the Stampotique Originals online store!
Now go get those ribbon scraps and have some fun creating :-)

Thursday, January 5, 2012

GC133 Chestnut Theme Challenge

This week at Gingersnap Creations it's the Chestnut Theme Challenge to use a set or line of stamps. January's sponsor is Stampotique Originals and I chose to use stamps all from one line by Amy Wilson Wellenstein. I love to use photo stamps so I couldn't resist building a hanging collage around this stamp called "Winter Ride". I layered that onto a background paper where I heat embossed 2 more stamped images - "The Wave" and "Joy Definition" . The swirl pattern coordinated beautifully with a swirl embossing folder that I used on white cardstock, and then I layered all of that over another scrap of embossed cardstock left over from my gift card project where I embossed snowflakes and highlighted the embossing with white pigment ink. I added punched snowflakes that I lightly swiped with Versamark to be able to add white EP to give a snowy effect and then did the same to the edges of the whole hanging. The final stamped piece is the word joy cut from the "Word Collage" stamp and added to the main photo stamp image. I think she definitely looks joyful, but I'm not so sure about her little sister on the sled! Being a big sister myself, there was always a certain amount of satisfaction in picking on your younger sibling, but of course I would have never done anything like that to my little brother ;-)

The challenge is open until January 29th and you can leave a link to your project using a set or line of stamps on the GC blog post HERE. One randomly drawn winner will win a $30 voucher to the Stampotique Originals store.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Gift Card Holder

Here's a quick and easy to make gift card holder that I used recently to hold a Christmas gift and loved the wintery look. I used a gift card holder template from the Dec 2011 Vamp Stamp News issue that had a whole bunch of different ones to try. To decorate it, I used Oxford Impressions set "Winter Snow" stamps on glossy paper. After stamping the little boy and postmark with Archival Ink, I stamped the other background stamps using Ranger Watermark Resist ink and then rubbed distress inks over all but his face to color the glossy cardstock.

This is how the opened holder looks. I used a Sizzix embossing folder to create the snowflake paper and then rubbed over the embossing with Snow Cap Pigment Ink for subtle highlights.