DecoArt DT project and GiveAway for February

Just popping by with a heads up that I have a new project over on the DecoArt Mixed Media Blog today and it's a little canvas board done in soft colours with rusty elements added to it. I go through all the process steps to achieve the  soft timeworn look. Here's a sneak peek. It would be lovely if you could pop over to see it in all it's finished glory and let me know what you think.

I also have another giveaway up for grabs - again these are double ups in my supplies and are brand new.  There are two different die packs here, one each for two different people. This will end on Tuesday 28th February and if you'd like to be entered in the draw please tell me below which one you'd like if you were to win in the comments section below..

The movers and shapers arches ..........

 ..... or the Moments - word die.

Good luck.

hugs Brenda xxx

Watercolour powders 2 and GiveAway winner

I'm back with another in the series of watercolour powder techniques. On this one I used the same colours as in the first one (which you can find Here if you missed it) the powders are brown bister, royal blood infusions and grey brusho and they are combined with weathered wood, faded jeans and gathered twigs distress inks.

Step 1. Take a stencil and lay over your card, shake the powders over it and spritz with water. remove the stencil and heat dry. This is the positive image.

Step 2. With the distress inks having been used for another piece and left on the stencil, spritz it lightly with water and lay over the top of the design already made in step 1, carefully matching up the pattern, dab it gently all over with a cloth or paper towel and remove and heat dry again. Now you have added colour to the negative area.

Step 3. Cut your design to fit a card, collect some focal embellishments and a sentiment and assemble.

The lovely Autumn has pointed me to the Stamps and Stencils challenge this month 'Texture, Crackle and Paint' and I think the frame alone qualifies this as an entry so I am hopping over to add this for my entry into their fabulous challenge.

Now for my giveaway winner for January. random Org did the choosing which takes the stress out of this part and the number that arrived was -

- and placed 16 in the list of comments was

Sue Adams

Sue I don't have any more information about you so if you would like to email me your postal address (my email address is on my sidebar) I will get your little prize in the post. Congratulations and thanks for joining in and being part of my blog.

For anyone interested keep a look out for another giveaway being announced in a couple of days along with a DecoArt Mixed Media Design Team project.

Have a wonderful week.

hugs Brenda

Discovery - canvas board

Happy Friday

This board started life as 'let's use up this paste' panel. I had a mix of white modeling paste and sand texture paste left over from another project and just couldn't let it go to waste, so I grabbed Andy Skinner's fossil stencil and one from Seth Apter and just used up the remains and left the board to dry.

Once dry I decided to use this as my February challenge sample for A Vintage Journey where the lovely Jennie has chosen 'Special Words' as the theme for the month. With the stencilled ammonite shape and word suddenly a walk along the beach came to mind and memories of various places where I have picked up shells and discovered beautiful patterns and designs through sea creatures, footprints and the print of the waves left in the sand. So the start of my creation began to emerge in my head and I gathered a few bits together to get me more focussed in.

 The colour combination I have chosen was from a palette I found on Pinterest and I added grey to each one to tone them in with each other. As always by the time I had finished the background I had added more which included some cobalt blue hue and prussian blue.

To get some colour on the board I decided to use a brayer, I haven't used it much for a while and I used several colours layering over the top of each other to get this background.

Then I dribbled, dripped and finger painted in some washes of the same colours to fill in some of the gaps before brayering over with some titan buff and titanium white mixed together to lift it all again.
WHAT DID I LEARN? - That next time I will brayer the paints first and get the background colour on before adding the stencilled texture. Hmm I might be trying that over the weekend lol.

So now I wanted to highlight the textured areas, I decided to replace the fossil stencil and add embossing ink and gold embossing powder. Great but again WHAT DID I LEARN? - I should have brayered over the raised area first with a brayer and a gorgeous deep golden brown colour because the gold has touched most of the texture, not all of it.

So that's what I did with the number and word at the top with prussian blue. But no that didn't work either ....

.... so out came the fine brushes and the titanium white to add to the blue to fill in the gaps. Yay, more contrast this time. So I went over the fossil as well.

Onto to creating the feature and embellishments. First I decided to paint the shells gold.

Next came the little box and I got so carried away I forgot to take any more individual photos but here are some close ups. To make it work with the background I decided the outside needed to be blues and the inside the yellows, I used the fluid acrylics and they blended in beautifully over the wood and kept the rustic  effects.

At this point I changed my mind completely on the design that you saw at the beginning of the post and decided to carry the fossil shape further over on the board, I just laid the stencil down and rubbed over the embossing ink pad and gold embossing powder.

I rubbed a cornflower blue and the coffee archival ink pads around the edges and gave them a good blast with the heat gun before using an embossing pen to add some gold over the numbers nd around the edges.

I assembled the box using some muslin dipped in the prussian blue and adhered it to the canvas and glued the little crustacean piece on the top.

With an easel on the back this stands beautifully.

What do you think of when you read the word 'DISCOVERY" for me it makes me realise that I am still learning new things every day, it might be when I experimenting with my paints, inks and mediums, it maybe in a discussion or chat with a friend, it might be something from the tv or even better when I'm away on a trip or holiday - when I'm exploring and learning about the past history of the place.

Do you think I am now thinking ahead to warmer weather? I could do with some sun on my back right now but that's always the case when January is out of the way.

Looking forward to seeing the entries for this challenge and I highly recommend this post for some amazing inspiration from the Creative Guides.
Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy your art.

hugs Brenda xxx

Under 30 minutes?

That's the title of the new challenge at Country View Challenges - ME make something in UNDER 30 minutes, you gotta be kidding, so what to do? I had been umming and erring for days before I decided that the best thing was to write myself out a recipe to follow and hope I could get it done in the time. Here are a few before, near the end and after photos, no process steps as that would have compromised me making sure I got done in the 30 minutes.

This is the recipe -

1. Take a tag and dip it in several watery washes of dark blue media fluid acrylics and dry to get a mottled effect.

2. Take a numbers text stamp, embossing ink and gold embossing powder and randomly stamp and emboss to create a design.

3. Tear a piece of patterned paper to fit across the middle of the tag and ink over it with chipped sapphire distress ink. Flick it with water and dry it then glue it onto the tag.

4. Add some torn strips of of tissue tape and blend the blue distress ink over that.

5. Stamp some text randomly over using watering can archival ink .

6. Take the embossing ink pad and run it roughly round the edges of the tag and sprinkle with gold frantage.

7.Grab some rusted embellishments, discarded fabric pieces and ribbon to build up a collage to finish it. 

Ok, I had a sort of design in my head so I gave myself permission to pull out most of the items I thought would work well together as I guessed it would take me more than half an hour to make decisions on what to choose and where to find all the bits. This is what I had.

I also got out the tools and supplies I had itemized in the recipe. Gluing all the metal bits on wasn't going to be easy under time constraints so I got the glue gun warming up too. At the same time I was writing my blog post, I always do this so that I capture the essence of the process with the write up as well as the photos.

I laid my desk out ready to start ......

.... and set the timer to go.

I worked through the steps dipping, drying, stamping, embossing and was really pleased with the progress I made, so much so that with still a little over 2 minutes to go I had finished all the steps  .....

.... and managed to grab the camera quickly to show you.

  So I pulled out some rustic ribbon (one of Tim's I think) inked it with the chipped sapphire and quickly stapled it to the top of the tag and managed to grab a photo of the finish line.

Two seconds left and yes I was done - phew the recipe had worked. I got the blue mottled background I wanted ....

.... and the rusted elements I collected together went on fine.

 The gold frantage picked up some of the text stamping as the archival ink must have still been wet.

Yes you can see hot glue in areas but that was the sacrifice for getting a mixed media tag done in 30 minutes .....

.... and because I had grabbed elements that were in bits boxes I had time to create the background and get it made up in the time. Yay.

Not too bad for a quick project - I'm sure it would have been a bit different if I'd given it the usual procrastination and over thinking time lol.

So if you fancy having a go then do pop over to the Country View Crafts challenge blog and see what the rest of the team have come up with and pop over to their blogs to see what sacrifices they made to get something finished in the 30 minutes.

Thanks for stopping by, have fun with your crafting this week.

hugs Brenda xxx

Canvas board mixed media

I'm over at the Country View Crafts shop project blog again today with a textured background and layered paints and distress ins canvas board. You can see the texture here and if you would like the instructions as to how I made it I would be happy if you popped over to CVC Project Blog to find out.

It's Friday and another weekend but would you believe the last one in January - no I can't believe it either. here we go again.

Take care and enjoy your art.

hugs Brenda xxx







Updated - from CVC project blog

I am using one of my most loved canvas boards which is 5 x 7 ins in size. I have made a fairly simple textured background and then take bits from my 'left overs' box to die-cut the dapper man and create a card.

.

I began by taking a palette knife and mixing DecoArt modeling paste and white gesso together in about a 50:50 mix and then roughly spread it over the surface leaving some of the canvas board exposed and left it to dry.

Choose three colours that will tone and blend together well and not create 'mud', ie 3 warm colours, 3 cool colours or take one colour and make a tint and a shade of it to go with the original.

(In color theory, a tint is the mixture of a color with white, which increases lightness, and a shade is the mixture of a color with black, which reduces lightness. A tone is produced either by the mixture of a color with gray, or by both tinting and shading).

Take blue-green light media fluid acrylic paint, mix with water to create a very watery wash and dip the board in and dry it.

Repeat the above step with burnt umber.

Take blue-green light, mix with titanium white and drip the paint through the canvas, spritzing with water and heat drying when you are happy with it. Repeat with burnt umber mixed with titan buff.

Blend over evergreen bough distress ink, flick with water and roll dry with kitchen paper.

Repeat with vintage photo and again with evergreen bough to get depth of colours.
Give a coat of ultra matte varnish to seal the distress inks. Be very light with the brush otherwise the varnish will move the distress inks around.

 

Rub a coffee archival ink pad around the edges and over the high points.

Then choose the elements you want to add to make a mixed media piece of art or you could add an easel and give it as a card.

I love mixed media backgrounds, hope you like this one.

Have a great weekend.

hugs Brenda xxx