Four and twenty backgrounds before breakfast!

Yup, that's right, twenty four backgrounds before breakfast.  Crazy?  Not really, just the quickest background technique I know!

1. Smoosh your ink pad onto a nonstick craft sheet.   (You need a water based ink that will bead up on the sheet.  I used Distress Inks.)
2. Lightly mist with water.  (The more water you use, the more the ink will flow on the paper and the smoother the texture you'll get.) 
   
3. Roll your brayer into the ink and then apply ink to the paper.  (Use a light hand and rather than just rolling the brayer on the paper, allow it to jump, bounce and skip.  It needs the exercise.)
   

Here I just used one colour, but there's nothing to stop you using multiple colours on one background.  Just remember that if you put blue over yellow, you will end up with green! 

I paused for breakfast and then scanned the backgrounds.  I think they might be fun to use in some digital collages.  But I wasn't to put the ink away, so I started to turn one of the backgrounds into a piece of art. 

It all came together very quickly.  I love it when that happens.  I just wish it happened more often!  Anyway, here's what I did: 

1. I grabbed the Tea Dye background and stamped over it with Vintage Photo.  
2. Next, I took a jumbo sized metal brad, removed the legs and hammered it flat.  (You can see the little anvil I used here.)  
3. Then I used Jet Black Staz-On to ink up one of the clocks on the Time and Keys sheet from The Artistic Stamper.  I pressed the metal onto the stamp and suddenly I had a clock. 
   
4. The wings did cause me some consternation.  I knew the ones I wanted, from Tim Holtz's Elements Grungeboard set, but the only ones I had were already painted with Brushed Pewter Crackle paint, not the right colour at all!  Then I remembered that you can use alcohol ink on the metallic crackle paint.  So I inked the wings with Rust and we were really going somewhere.  
5. Finally, I used rust Alcohol Ink on glossy paper and then stamped Imagine on it with Black Soot.  A couple of brads secured and voila, the background was suddenly a work of art. 

There are some more things I could do to it - add another layer of ink using a mask, maybe.  Or some Distress Stickles.  But I'm going to leave this one just as it is and do another version for the extras.  It came out really well and I just don't want to risk ruining it! 


Well, now it's time to have some mashed potatoes and then toddle off to work.  Hope you're having a great day. 

So this is why we use black ink!

Since I had all my paints out recently, I did a little fine art stamping as well and discovered why I always use black ink.  If you don't it gets a little too subtle.  I mean, I'm all for subtle when appropriate, but this looks like a background, not a finished piece!  

I used Ranger's Studio Line paints.  I've been using them a lot recently; I like the almost chalky quality they have.  And the stamps are a plate, Ephemera 1, from The Artistic Stamper.  Usually, I cut stamp sheets up so I have them as single stamps, but I just knew this would be a great background, so I didn't cut it up and probably won't ever.

I'm going to cut the border off then use the picture as a background for something.  And if that fails, I can use it in a collage.  I think I've got the whole reusing and recycling thing covered here! 

Decorative tile

After using light molding paste and a foam stamp on the portrait I'm working on I decided to try the technique on it's own.  I hoped it would give me a decorative, dimensional tile. 

I took a piece of hardboard and covered it with light molding paste.  Then, I spritzed a foam stamp with water, so it wouldn't stick, and stamped randomly into the paste.  (I think it's the random stamping that makes me see this as a sample, not a finished piece.)  What I love most about this technique is the irregularity of the height and depth; it looks very organic.

Anyway, once the paste was dry I started painting.  First, a layer of Dash of Red from Ranger.  Then two layers of copper paint.  It would just have been one, but the copper dabber from Ranger wasn't dark enough, so I went over it with copper Lumiere.  Then Classic Teal and Smidge of Blue, again from Ranger.  For the final accent, I used a little copper cream to add some highlights to the raised edges. 

And I've suddenly had a great idea for this technique.  Stamp or transfer an image onto silver mirror card.  Then use this technique around it.  Voila, an antique mirror!  I'm now bouncing with excitement!

WOYWW

Inspired by Jennie over at The Artistic Stamper, I decided to finally post a picture of my craft table for What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday.  Actually, because I'm blessed with a nice large table, this is just a portion of it.

It looks a mess.  But just a few weeks ago it was at least a foot deep in stuff, so I'm doing well!

What have we got?  Up close and personal is a turquoise piece that I'll blog about in the next few days.  It uses light molding paste and a foam stamp.  Very cool, but definitely a sample rather than a finished piece.

I've just found where I put my calligraphy pens and I'm looking forward to getting back to my practice.  Behind the mini anvil are four little pots in a wooden block that are for ink.  I'm going to put in some Distress Ink reinker and write with that.

The little anvil is fabulous; the hammer is off camera, but together they're great for flattening wire and shaping metal.  I have a little show and tell for the anvil, but not today!

The pink blobs in the yellow container are Mold n Pour molds I've taken.  And you can see my Melt Pot as well, just sitting around waiting to be used!

Everything else is pretty much just general supplies and bits and pieces I've discovered as I tidied.

Why is it that no matter how big your craft table, you always end up working in a teeny tiny space?  Still, pushing everything out of the way works so well!  And when everything's a mess it can be very inspirational: things end up next to each other that you would never think to put together otherwise.  Despite that I have to go finish tidying my table.  I want to have guilt free play tomorrow before I go to work!  (Yes, I'm working on Thanksgiving, but I'm British so it's not a big deal for me.  Working Black Friday however, has me a little scared!  Wish me luck.) 

Happy Thanksgiving to people celebrating it.  And happy regular Thursday (when it comes) to everyone else!

A happy little fairy

Sometimes a stamp comes along that speaks to you.  It says "drop everything and use me right now".  Well, that's what this happy little fairy said to me.  She's brand new at The Artistic Stamper, and she gave me a wonderful little break from the portrait I'm working on.  So here's my first card with her.  It's just stamped and then I used punches and sparkly paper.  Not that you can see the sparkly paper in the scan.  Why does sparkly paper never come out in photos and scans?  If anyone has any tips, let me know! 

I nearly coloured her in, but I like the simplicity of just the outline.  Although, I can't wait to attack her with glitter.  And Copics.  And maybe stamp her with a resist ink and see where that takes me!  In other words, expect to see this little cutie popping up a few more times! If you use her, send me a link so I can take a look and be inspired. 

The portrait continues

Yesterday I did quite a bit of work on my first ever portrait. 

I added some new images.  This time, I sprayed them with a Krylon finish before gluing them on; this worked really well to stop the inkjet image bleeding.  While I didn't mind the bleed on the first images, these ones will be more visible, so I want a better quality for them.  Looking at the large image in the bottom left corner makes me wonder why I didn't tear all the images out like that in the first place.  I have a feeling it will be easier to blend the edges into the piece.

Next came light molding paste.  This is one of the many acrylic mediums that add texture to your paints.  If you use stencils and stencil paste, then you already use light molding paste.  It's usually cheaper to buy it as molding paste rather than stencil paste, and you can colour it yourself with acrylic paints or water based reinkers or even watercolour paint.  I left it plain so I can cover it with a mixture of colours.  I used an old credit card to smooth the paste and blended it out with my finger so there wouldn't be a harsh line.  Overlapping some of the collage images meant that those edges were well hidden!  If only I could do that all over the piece! 

Before the paste dried, I stamped into it with a foam stamp I picked up at Michaels.  I spritzed the stamp with water to ensure it didn't stick.

I used the same stamp with Ranger's Copper Paint Dabber to add even more interest to the piece.  With the repetition of the woman, it seemed appropriate to repeat the stamp as well. The copper was to add some variety to the piece.

At this point I needed to give the paste time to dry.  This gave me a chance to go do my laundry and to think about where I needed to go next.

There were a couple of things that concerned me.  One, the colours of the piece were a little samey and I needed to find a way to punch it up a little.  However, this is a portrait, so I don't have unlimited freedom, not if I want the piece to tell people about the subject, even though they have no idea who she is.  So I needed to punch it up without losing the subtle elegance.

The other thing that concerned me as hiding the edges of the collage elements.  I want them to look as if they just grow out of the paint.  Ann Baldwin recommends painting the edges with mat medium and then painting over them.  But I've done that and the edges still seem a little obvious.  So I need to figure out how to solve that.

Here you can see the start of me "punching" it up a little.  I painted the molding paste brown and then added copper.

Here it is with a more verdigris tone.  At the launderette I kind of figured that if I added vintage colour, it would make the piece a little more lively but still elegant.

Watching my washing go round and round didn't help me solve the edge problem, except for just adding on a lot more layers of paint.  Or maybe a thick glaze!

Sorry for the long post, but this has really helped me understand what I've done and figure out where I'm going!

Unfinished... or not?

 

Not just another unfinished canvas, but another one inspired by my journal.  This time by the cover. 

As you can imagine, this was incredibly easy to do.  I covered a canvas with black gesso and then painted on swatches of Lumiere paint.  I also used a little glossy black paint that I picked up at Michaels. 

I thought this piece wasn't finished.  But now I'm not entirely sure.  I was thinking of transferring an image onto the canvas; probably the same one in different sizes.  But, as I said, now I'm not sure.  Because I rather like this.  Sure, it's simple, but the effect is rather cool. 

So I think I'm going to hang it up on my wall and live with it for a while before making any dramatic decisions.  After all, this is the second version!  I tried stencilling on it and was forced to re-gesso the whole thing and start again!  Maybe next time I'll work on acetate and lay it over the top to see if I like it.  Although I have been thinking about buttons.  And those I can just lay on top and see how I feel about them!

If you have any suggestions on what I should do next with this, I'd love to hear from you.  Meanwhile, I want to get back to yesterdays piece.  That I have ideas for!

Beginnings

Some time ago I bought "Creative Paint Workshop for Mixed-Media Artists" by Ann Baldwin.  It's fabulous to just look at, but it's also been very inspirational.  But I never got started on anything.  Until I started work in my journal.  I was totally using techniques from Ann's book and it finally gave me the confidence to grab a 20"x16" canvas and give it a go. 

So here it is, my starting point.  After creating a self portrait that didn't actually look like I do (but looks how I feel!) I decided to create a portrait of DMK.  (I can't use her actual name; it would embarrass her too much!)  The image is Lina Cavalieri, the famous opera singer. She looks just how I feel about DMK. 

I printed the image on my ink jet printer, which meant the colours ran when I coated them with gel medium, but it added a good look, so I decided not to worry about it!  Maybe coating them with Amazing Glaze would stop that happening; but would it also stop the gel medium from sticking?  Something to try out. 

Getting the paper to be smooth on the canvas was tricky.  I didn't manage it on all the pieces; the one in the bottom left corner has bubbles.  Since taking the photo I've actually ripped that part off.  I lost a lot of her face, but I think it will be OK.  After all, there's still a lot more I want to do with this piece. 

What next?  It feels a little flat, so maybe a wash of gold.  Not to mention some texture.  And stamps.  A piece isn't finished unless it's been stamped!  Ephemera 1 is perfect for it. 

This is so far from being done, but I'm not stuck.  I'm just excited about the journey. 

My lovely play date.

Today I played with my new stamps from The Artistic Stamper. 

(For anyone dying to know when I finally went to the Post Office to pick up my parcel, I went yesterday on my way to work.  I queued for half an hour, with a crazy lady behind me yelling at all the postal workers for taking too long!  Then I got my wonderful parcel and opened it up on the train.  It was totally like Christmas, with all these wonderful goodies and made my commute feel a lot shorter than usual!  Huge thanks to The Artistic Stamper and their incredible generosity.)

All the stamps from The Artistic Stamper are unmounted rubber.  They have cling mount that you can use to turn them into cling stamps that work with your acrylic blocks.  I just dove straight in and used them; didn't even trim them! 

I was very happy to receive a sheet of nude images.  What drew me to them especially is that you're stamping the negative space, which means the woman's body will be the colour, or pattern of your paper.  For the cards above, I stamped and embossed the images onto a serendipity background I'd made previously.  Because I was working on the sheet without separating the images, I ended up with the words as well.  Talk about serendipity! 

After trimming the pieces, I mounted them onto alcohol inked backgrounds.  I'd made them previously using the Ranger Adirondack Lights.  These are the colours that I couldn't see the point in...  till I tried them!  Now I love them more than any of the others.  I then mounted them onto white cardstock.  Looking at them now, I should probably have mounted them on something vintagey, but I can always make some more. 

Not satisfied, I heated up my Melt Pot and poured in some black UTEE.  I inked up the stamp sheet with Distress Embossing Ink (as a release agent) and then poured on the melted UTEE.  I knew I didn't want the sharp edges of the stamp, so I carefully poured the UTEE on so it didn't spread too much.  Once it had cooled, I peeled it off and used some Rub n Buff to highlight the legs.  I'm definitely going to make another one to make into a pendant, but in the meantime I turned it into a card.  Again I pulled out a background I'd made previously.  This time I'd used gilding flakes on a sticker sheet, rubbed and buffed and then put to one side till I was ready for it.  Mounted on the glossy background I think it looks really cool. 

Enough of the chat, I have to go play some more.  Hey, it's a hard life, but someone has to do it! 

I finally like crackle paint!

Distress Crackle paint is one of those things I've always felt I should like, but never really have.  I've managed to make a few things with it that I loved, but it never really floated my boat.  Except for the metallic Crackle paint; I have a dep and abiding passion for that! 

Anyway, yesterday I started playing in my journal and, for no reason I can think of, I grabbed some crackle paint.  And I think I've finally got it.  It's a texture, and extra, an addition.  I didn't use it as a full coating and so it enhanced the piece, rather than dominating.  Brushing it out, so the edges fade off rather than being abrupt.  Not that you can see all of this in my terrible photo. 

Obviously, this page isn't complete, but I was too excited about the paint not to blog about it.  What next for the page?  I think it's time for some ink, especially into the crackle paint.  And maybe some more stencilling.  Probably some stamping.  Oh, who am I kidding, I'm still on an unknown journey, and loving it!