Stampotique Designers Challenge SDC99 Summertime

 The Stampotique Challenge set by Carol was Summer but as I live in Scotland which does not always have bright days I was thinking about the colours of the West Coast of Scotland. Photos are probably the easiest way to show how this came about. The journalling says "As the sun sets the Selkie comes out to lure the unwary to a watery wedding...". Selkies are are a Scottish myth and are sea creatures that are seals in the water and beautiful people on land.  I thought my Stampotique Mermaid added a more sinister twist. I began by creating texture using gesso.

Then using watercolours created the landscape.

I added Titan White and Buff

Stamped texture in the distance using Angel Wings...

Stamped the mermaid, coloured her and placed her on a "rock" cut her out and added her and journalling to the page.

Art Journal and no I am not a domestic goddess!

This weeks prompt asked us if we were a domestic goddess or another type of goddess, use stamped wings and a figure. I began with one of the backgrounds I began last weekend and added watercolours to make me think of beach and sea colours.

I then added some of my extensive collection of sea glass, shells and feathers and my journalling explaining that I am the Goddess of Beach Combing. I found the figure below and added her to the page.

I stamped a boat and some birds and added a bucket and space cut out which I painted over. I also added some paint and pro makers to the goddess.

A very cluttered page as I do believe I could be the Goddess of mess and chaos too but it made me smile and I had lots of fun doing this. The Goddess wings were created stamping Dylusions Ruby Rainbow wings onto a piece of Kitchen roll paper that had been washed with watercolours (part of a batch I made a while ago) as I wanted it to look and feel more feathery.

The Octopus and fish were lying in my stash and I just added some doodling.

Art Journal Sweets

Week 4 - Sweets

Two posts in one day - I keep thinking I should spread things out so it was more even but it's done now. I blogged about this earlier this week here and showed you my sweet paper (the inked bag). This is how I did the page and it did not turn out like I originally thought but that is the nature of this kind of thing I think. I was trying to stick to the sweet colours of red, purple/black, citrus green/yellow which is a very in your face colour combination. My five sweets were: cinnamon balls, sherbet fountains, rhubarb and custard, sherbet lemons and pear drops (I can't count!)

I began with a soft yellow watercolour wash and whilst this was drying I found copyright free images of sixpence and thru'pence and turned them into digital looking stamps.

Images made to look like digital stamps

 These were stuck onto the page and I added some pearl dabber to them. I also printed some of the journalling from the earlier blog and cut it up and stuck it on. I then put yellow acrylic paint on but it was a bit yikes so washed white water colour over the top. At this point it went a little green in places as the ink from the ink jet prints bled blue.

Evening light as well which makes things such a strange colour

 I stamped Sweets onto the paper bag and coloured it in and then tore the bag to make a border and some vaguely sweet like shapes. I then added another layer of journaling between the typed one using sakura glitter gel pens. It's very in your face but then so are sweets.

2 levels of journalling

Purple for journalling, red for the sweet names

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.

Card making and more uses for that linen shirt and I made a mess!

This was my desk once I had finished the cards!

Dragonfly card

Today I made four cards and played with paints, punches, stamps, my old linen shirt and a bit of fun. The dragonfly card was to thank middle daughter for lunch she made us last week, The backing paper came free with Scrapbook Magazine as did the blue flower paper and the letters. The dragonfly came from the Graphics Fairy - a great resource for images - and I printed, painted and cut it out. I used the shirt to make a mat and had fun fraying it.

Detail of butterfly thank you card

 I used one sleeve and cut out the embroidered part and then frayed the edges. The butterflies were from a free paper in Scrapbook Magazine that I bent and added pigment powders, the stamp was free in a card making magazine.

Birthday card for Father in law

We are treating in laws to a few nights camping in the Mull of Galloway at Port Logan. We loved it there and know they will too. It's a hipstamatic photo and then I just stamped the greeting on the front. Suitably masculine and combines gift voucher too. If you haven't guessed by now you can probably tell I like to make my cards for as little as possible.

Birthday card for brother in law - sheep

Brother in law has recently invested in 20 ewes and lambs so this is relevant to him. The image came as a black and white from the Graphics Fairy which I coloured with water colours and matted with linen. The weathered paper was another freebie as was the stamp,

Butterfly card - to thank mother in law for having youngest daughter to stay

Work in progress - nice and messy

I was using up scraps of green paper torn into strips and inked and then pva glued to card blank. I then added water colour paint. Once it is dry I will make it into card number five.

Circle Journal part two, watercolour paints add to mix

On to the next stage... I decided that the green background paper needed a bit more oomph so decided to add my own grass with watercolour paints which reflected the style of the original digi kit. Then I took a look at my magic photo wheel and decided the lilac paper was too lilac and needed a little softening...

I have more or less figured out what one side of the lo will look like but not yet stuck it down - there may be on extra surprise that you can't see yet.

On the other side I want to have my cottage garden picture plus my photo wheel so decided I needed to create a pocket that would allow the photo wheel to go on top and be taken out and played with leaving the lo below. Not quite finished yet but almost there - the label will have journaling on back and can also be taken out of pocket. Hope you like - although it may still change a little as nothing is stuck down. The photograph is of the walled garden at Applecross House, Applecross Peninsula on the North West Highland coast of Scotland.