27 April 2012

Gothic Arch Spring

This fortnight's challenge is Spring at Gothic Arches here. I used a selection of images from Graphics Fairy to create a layered collage, liberal applications of distress stains and created a stylished spring flower by layering up three sections of flower sketched out on yellow paper.

23 April 2012

Art Journal

I created this page at the same time as the tag for the Stampotique challenge as you can see by the similar colours. I began by transferring a photo and had to glue pages as was a bit gunky and then added gesso and china blue distress stains.
More distress stains and splodges and wet wipes
Some doodling and mini butterfly stamped smudged with posca white pens, I stamped a Paper Artsy flower over the thistle image in black felt it was much to harsh and added some titan buff paint and white doodles.
I hid the more personal journalling under the paint layers and then added the title. I stamped Paper Artsy Butterfly and Dragonfly on some paper I had altered with paint.




22 April 2012

SDC52: Oodles of Doodles

I created this tag for the Stampotique Challenge here, set by Kaz Boughton that asked for oodles of doodles. I have been experimenting with creating a wood distress finish for another finish and on this tage used layers of distress stains and titan buff acrylic paint for the background. I stamped Smushasha onto the tag and then coloured her with watercolour promarkers. I doodled the title "Sometimes life's a beach" with gel pens and posca white and then doodled the seaweed over the stamped image.
I then added some of my large collection of sea glass and beach finds and some seam binding. To hang the tag I threaded ribbon through a holey shell.

My imac is having memory problems at the moment as I have too much stuff on it and even though Lens Guy set up a hard drive for me I haven't quite got round to moving stuff onto it. There is always something more interesting to do...


18 April 2012

Sewing Butterflies and dipping my toe into quilting

This is a new post as it is a slightly different type of craftiness from journalling. A while ago I spent many evenings making little felt birds in the evening and you can see the first one here and  more here. I wanted to explore felt creatures further and as butterflies are everywhere just now I decided to try my hand at one. This is my prototype. I drew half a butterfly in my notebook and then traced this half onto white card, folded it in half and drew the other side. This was to make it symmetrical but I forgot to take into account my inability to do anything in a straight neat way. I then made three card templates and cut out two bodies, and two of each wing shape. I pinned the wings inside the body, backstitched around and stuffed it before closing at the top.
I was trying out ways to photograph this but think I prefer the one at the top. I then added more bits of felt with applique and messy stitches and some buttons. I strung some beads onto thread to make feelers but would do this on wire next time. The underside mirrors the front (minus eyes) and meant I tried to be tidy on both sides. In the picture at the top the butterfly is attached to a hair slide but I think this would work as brooch or as embellishment or in a mobile which is what I have in my head at the moment and why I spent time on the underside.
Can you guess what craft I want to try next? Don't you just love the colours and the material - it is even more lush than a paper stash? My mother in law has been quilting for a few years and has now enticed  my sister in law and me into giving it a go. I am going to make a quilt from a Jelly Roll and then one from my pile of old shirts. My big concern is my problem with straight lines but I am awaiting a rotary cutter and ruler as I think these will be essential tools for me (the material seemed to fall into my online basket whilst I was researching rulers...) At least that is the plan but so far I have spent weeks reading fabulous Modern Quilt blogs and trying to decide what block and style to create. I think it will be Granny Squares but then again... If you are interested in quilts (or just the amazing colours) I suggest you follow this link to the Modern Quilt Guild as this page has links to lots of beautiful quilts. Thinking about quilts made me think about paper piecing scrap pages and journal pages and so it goes on.


Art Journal page

It's been a while due to school holidays and illness - I  am writing this from my bed. Being a responsible teacher I  a scheduled a minor operation in the first week of the holidays to avoid taking time off and  planned to relax and recover up North in the second week. It all went well and we began our holiday with friends and then I became ill. Anyway it appears I have a post op infection and I am now on round 2 of antibiotics and off work for the week. The best laid plans...
The page was in response to a prompt on UKS about composition. This time of year is always hard for me as it is 7 years and 4 years since my dad and brother died. I wanted to focus on the positives and have been trying to look forward instead of back and this was what the journal page was about. As we were away I had taken a few stamps, limited inks and a water colour box. I decided to limit myself to the three primary colours and black and white and play with the colour after dividing my pages into 3's. I found a John Lewis catalogue and cut out some images.
After playing around with their placement I stuck them down and added doodles and paint. I then stamped some random stamps and the TH skeleton as it was about conquering the past and its associations.
I used a posca white pen to add white doodle lines and then wrote my journalling in white/black to blend it into the page. 
It helped to write down thoughts and focus on the positive and showed me I don't need many supplies to journal.




7 April 2012

Gothic Arches Challenge Eggs-travaganza

This is my entry for the Gothic Arches Challenge here. We are spending Easter Sunday with friends who have young children and there will be an Easter Egg Hunt. When I saw the challenge I thought this was the perfect opportunity to create an item for the hunt. The images all came from Graphics Fairy (apart from the bird which I drew). I began with the original bird's nest mounted on card and then printed a second nest and glued it on top of the first one. I added seam binding and the pocket for the egg hunt clues was ready.
The cards for the clues for the hunt are printed from Graphics Fairy.
I covered some chipboard in paper for the egg hunt title and tissue and glitter for the dangling eggs. Yellow ricrac at the bottom and pale pink ribbon for the dangling eggs.
Now all I have to do is hide the eggs and write the clues...



5 April 2012

ATCs - Faces

I created these for a Swap on UK Stampers and the theme was faces. The first one is called Tightly sprung and uses Lady  from Octopode. I added cogs, wheels and springs from a bargain book called "Workbench Ephermera". Some of the pages are vellum and let me have layers of detail. I also used a piece of the wood paper as a background. The stamps were coloured with ink and watercolours.

I gessoed the background and added layers of inks. The face is Dylusions Dependable Dotty which was masked before stamping with Paper Artsy ledge stamp. Scrabble letters and title added and watercoloured.
I stamped a flower head from Paper Artsy Hot Picks HOXT02 numerous times on scrap paper. I also stamped it directly onto the inked background. I coloured all the faces using dylusion inks and cut out and added to the effect. I then overstamped using the complete stamp. If you look hard you can make out various faces.
This is a continuation of the idea of faceless numbers. I created a reverse mask and stamped ruler stamp from Paper Artsy into head space. On an acetate I traced the Dylusion head shape and filled it with alcohol inks. I then journalled on the actetate using black and white pens about the power of faces and stuck the acetate to the inky background.


1 April 2012

This and that


The photos show the front and back of my current art journal. I set a challenge on UKStampers to take inspiration from a modern (ish) abstract painter and alter something using inspiration from your favourite abstract artists and stamps. I choose Wassily Kandinksy. The front is inspired by a painting called Patch of Puddles. I began by creating shapes with modelling paste, leaving three squares flat for stamping.
I then added dylusion acrylic paints and wiped some off with a baby wipe.
I stamped with three Paper Artsy stamps and sealed with some acrylic gel medium.
The back was inspired by the painting Composition V111.
Once painted I added more paper artsy stamps and then some gel medium


I blotted this with a paper towel to create texture. And now for something different... (well not altered or stamped)
This LO shows our eldest two daughters 20 years ago. It is based on a Sketch given by a group I belong to on UKS called Scrap a Sketch. The embellishments on the bottom of the photo hide distracting elements in the photo.

The journalling tag pulls out and describes the day and some of the Easter traditions we had when the children were much younger.