Art Journal - Dangerous Words

These pages are about the words and feelings I have been experiencing in the last few weeks.  Mum is still in hospital with more complications and infections but we did mark her month anniversary by getting her an ipad and that has made her life less boring. My life is one of those groundhog days of get up, work, visit hospital, home late and sleep. I now have a week's holiday for  half term which is good but we had to cancel our original holiday plans due to mum's hospital stay.  I was able to pass our week in holiday cottage onto good friends who are also having a bad time at the minute. I remind myself constantly that many people are much worse off than me and plaster a smile on my face.
These pages have been evolving in my very limited spare time. It began as an experiment with alcohol inks being thrown on the pages as I have had these for ages and very rarely use them. I also put some random letters on the pages using gesso and a stencil.

When I blotted the page I turned the letters into a splodge and the page sat waiting forlornly, for days, for more input. The other evening grabbed some white and black posca pens and began to doodle everywhere. I then found a stamp a little like an art noveau shape and scattered this on the pages. 

As the page was very uneven due to gesso and ink layers it was not a flat surface for stamping. I have a lot of feelings about my current circumstances but did not want to vent too much on the page so resorted to my dictionaries and tore out words and meanings I was feeling and experiencing. I swiped these with distress stains and added these to the pages and outlined and circled the words.

Looking at the words I thought they were quite suggestive and added "Dangerous Words".

In between hospital visits (and the endless telephone conversations that you seem to have afterwards to keep family and friends up to date) I am planning some sewing and journalling and maybe even some more blogging. But don't hold me to that as life recently has had the habit of disrupting any plans I make.

Gothic Arch Challenge

This is my entry for the challenge at the Gothic Arch Challenge blog here. The theme is metallic fever and I have made a Gothic Arch Wall Hanging. After looking around the web at images or original Gothic Arches and finding a template on the Gothic Arch site I traced the template onto some metal and then cut  it out. I wanted a circular shape at the top so after some trial and error I traced and cut out the shape I wanted. I used Pebble, Sunshine Yellow and Red Pepper alcohol ink on the metal.

I then created 3 card arches each a little bigger than the next. I used barn door and wild honey distress inks around the edges and then randomly stamped a paper artsy hot pick flower.

I found some images of butterflies on Graphic Fairy and cut them out and coloured with the colours above and spiced marmalade and then mounted them one on top of the other with pads to give some depth. I coloured a dragon fly charm with inks and stamped more butterflies from Tim Holtz and Paper Artsy onto the Graphic Fairy images. I then added the large butterfly at the front of the arch and gave it some metal feelers and two red bling eyes.

Finally I used some Tiny Alphabets from prima to create the title and added an eyelet and chain.

Stampotique Altered Poison Bottle

At Stampotique Maria challenged us to alter a bottle to a poison bottle and only use Stampotique stamps... hmmm... much thinking ensued. Here is the almost step by step approach, it just leaves out the  swearing, smiling and general messiness that went on. 

I began with an empty perfume stick bottle which I filled with  sploshes of alcohol inks and gold mixatives but I found it hard to get it to go where I wanted it to go.

I coloured the lid with pro markers and alcohol inks and doodled some details on the lid with sakura white and glitter pens. It is a poison bottle but it also needs an antidote which I created and stuck to one of the perfume sticks.

In my bits and bobs box I found an old dried chilli and that seemed a great antidote to poison when wrapped with beads, ribbons, pin and the definition of antidote. I had to really think about how to get the stamping on and then staring at the glass bottle inspiration stuck - shrink plastic. There was a lot of unladylike cursing at this point as bits curled over too much and got stuck etc but I finally ended up with these pieces edged in alcohol ink.

Angel Boy, Oh Deer, Smushasha and Olivia (Eric had a major melt down and curl up)

I decided the bottle needed a stand so found the plastic protector from a stack of cd's added ink and stuck on some metal fasteners as feet. If I had taken photos in daylight you could appreciate how giving the bottle a base that is raised up helps the colours bounce. I then stuck my shrink plastic stamps to the bottle with glue, masking tape, glue dots, tape and more swearing as a curvy bottle and wavy shrink plastic make it tricky to stick. I also added another layer of ink to my shrink plastic.

Olivia perhaps suffering from Poison?

Angel Boy hiding under what began as a hideous flowery chipboard tag  before I covered it in gesso,  inks and my drawing of a wonky skull and crossbones - and another bead from that box.

  

Here you can see the shrink plastic poison charm above Oh Deer and a key and owl charm that were dipped in alcohol inks and added to the sign.

The curved bits hanging from ribbon on each corner are from a broken shell necklace in my bits and bobs box that I dripped red ink onto to make them look a little like blood. I enjoyed making this. I hope you enjoyed reading about it. 

Stampotique Challenge Bookmark SD37

Kate Crane set the challenge here at Stampotique  time to make a bookmark. I stamped Oh Dear on Acetate and then coloured the background with Alcohol Inks. I then cut a long strip of TH resist Kraft paper, folded it in half and inked it with spiced marmalade and Worn lipstick. I cut an window in the resist paper and then mounted the acetate with some lost and found cream paper inside the window.

 On the back I stamped Olivia and then stamped her head onto two die cut flowers from TH die and mounted them onto of each other. Finally I stitched all round the edge with two colours of embroidery thread and made a little tassle.

Hybrid Scrapping Mirror Fun

This is a double page LO and will be part of my Paris album. I created the background of the first page by printing out elements of french graphics from the graphic fairy web site and then distress inking and stamping onto it. 

The second page used TH shabby French stamps which are embossed with distress powder. I didn't have suitable coloured alphas so coloured them with alcohol inks and promarkers. I punched the flowers out of Rangers metal and put ink on them too but it was a little too "yellow". One day I might go back and change it.

Art Journal Fashion

A little bit behind with my journal prompts. Fashion required us to list our best and worst fashion items, use fabric and a picture from a magazine. My background has many layers of photos and paint and then my figure is three different magazine pieces painted and drawn over. The fabric came from one of my old shirts that had ripped beyond repair but I now hoard the old clothes as they come in useful at some point. I used some TH stamps (tiny ones that I bought on QVC). My worst disaster - wearing leggings the first time, never mind now. My favourite items are white linen shirts and hats, with a scarf or two thrown in for luck. I also had to add in a few lines from "Fashion" by David Bowie. Excuse photos as it is late and DS has just arrived home and now we are going to pack...

Lidly pearl acrylics and some magazine photos

Then decided I needed to paint over with Dylusions pink, red and white

Head, legs and body from other magazines and a fair bit of overdrawing.

A card and a mish mash of experiments and work in progress

I have been experimenting with the Faux Barnyard technique from Technique Junkies as I'm creating my week 8 Journal page using this page for UK Stampers and the Stampotique Challenge. However I do love guddling about with paint and so had to have a few attempts at this. I used my teal/white background as a layer for a 40th birthday card for my sister. I stamped "Oh my dear" from Stampotique onto card and then coloured her with watercolour pencils - it is  how she feels about her looming big day. As my sister is in denial about the big 40 I had to put it on the card - I used a number 40 chipboard as a stencil and sprayed Jade green dylusions to mask it and then doodled a little. The circular and wavy text is a rub on from Lilley-bee. I added some comments in black/white to add to this. On the back of my card and underneath the barnyard door mat I painted dylusions teal/white with a sponge and then stamped Olivia on the back with an apt quote.

I also had a play with acrylic paints and Ranger alcohol inks on acetate to see what kind of random effects I could achieve.

My DD is creating a piece of graffiti cross stitch from a photograph taken by Lens Guy as part of her school design project. I have not picked up a piece of cross stitch in ages and it got me to thinking. She drew her design on the linen in pencil and I wondered if you could stamp it on... I got out boy angle with wings as I want to use him for the jff challenge and had a go. The ink is hard to see in places but I sat with my needle last night and began it - whether it gets finished is another matter - and I think it will be a loose interpretation of the original stamped image.

First Ever ATCs

These are my first ever ATCs made for a 3 x 3 swap - one was to say Health, one Happiness and one Hope at UK Stampers. I used my homemade foam stamp for the purple background and then sprayed it with pink inks. I stamped Olivia three times (Stampotique) and coloured her with pro markers. The wings and hats are from Love Struck  Lucy (Dylusions) stamped onto leftover backgrounds from my Valentines.

Art Journal Friends

Week 6 and our prompt at UK Stampers - set by the inspiring Efemera who has a stunning quilt on her blog -was Friends  and we had to include a who/when/where; a story and a stencil/mask. This page has layers and layers. I began with acrylic paint and then I used the the TH Timepieces mask with Rangers Pearl dabber. When it was dry I added some pieces of dictionary papers and crackle accents. At this point I sprayed it with Dylusions Jade, Sky Blue and Lime Green inks. I then added the journalling. I almost kept it without text as I loved it as it was but I still love it now.

stage one paint, masks and pearl dabbers then the crackle accents

luscious inks

The journalling is all about one of oldest friends Anne. We met in Primary five and shared a love of horse riding lessons. Our friendship meant many shared adventures and the story hints about our adventures one new year when we were outrageous and hungover and expected to eat a special dinner with her parents. Very thirsty we drank lots of acidic orange juice and sat down to a dinner of pheasant. I think we both managed about one mouthful before turning green and having to leave the room - oh to be 17 again!

Experiments with backgrounds: My Play School Moments

Splodges become flowers?

Paper Bag for Sweets Page and some alcohol inks

Kitchen towels and watercolours

 Lots of photos in this post - may be slow ...

Sometimes what I love the most is just playing with my materials and seeing what might happen. Sometimes it works and sometimes it is a disaster - I think of this time as my play school moments as there are no restrictions, no rights or wrongs and it is just for fun which is what we used to be taught at Play School (Kindergarten) before some government inspector and politician decided we should restrict and monitor and evaluate everything. After all that is why most of us do this, isn't it?

The paper in the bag seemed to almost stop the inks blending - I was thinking of rhubarb rock and cinnamon balls here

I also played with those cheap Lidl pearl acrylic paints. I had been painting some backgrounds and using a piece of card as a palette when I decided to see what would happen when I put some acetate onto the paint. Oh that was fun and the only acetate I had to hand was box lids for flowers.

I had downloaded the document about mixed media backgrounds from Cloth, Paper, Scissors and decided to try using water colours and kitchen rolls. I love the bright colours and will hopefully use these papers in a project soon.