Treasures - stamps and acrylic watercolours

I've been away for two weeks for some sun. 

I had this little tag in reserve and it's perfect to slot it in here.

It's very quickly made and simple to do but I just love the effects.

Process steps

A coat of gesso layered thinly with a palette knife.

Dip, drip and dry with watery prussian blue hue, 2 or 3 dips did the job.

Stamp Andy's fossils and fern in black archival ink. I used the stamp platform to get a really dark and clear image.

Watercolour the images with watery washes of translucent media acrylic paints to get the gorgeous bright tones shining back at you.

Finger paint some colour around the images using the washes and finger daub some neat quinacridone gold at the bottom.

Stamp the title word and blend ground espresso distress ink around the edges.

Not my usual style I know but it came from nowhere whilst trying to get some projects finished and the vintage feel really appeals to me. It's like a n illustration in an old book.

xxx

Supplies

Stencil cover tag from Tando Creative

DecoArt Media Acrylics - quinacridone burnt orange, hansa yellow medium, quinacridone gold, sap green, prussian blue hue, translucent white

Andy Skinner stamps - Stampendous - Fossils

Media board for Andy Skinner

I have been having fun with chipboards for this project. I love layering up greyboard shapes but sometimes they end up protruding too high especially if you want to use some in a journal or on media boards. So for this project I have soaked some of my Andy greyboard shapes and pulled them apart and it's amazing how you can then play with distressing the layers of the greyboard and even get to put some back together again to create different shapes as I have done here.

I am using a piece of greyboard cut to the size I want as a page for the Andy book I am making.

Process Steps

Paint the greyboard with gesso but do not have too much on the brush so that this almost becomes a dry brushing technique.

Repeat with cerulean blue and prussian blue keeping the edges darker.

Scrape over some gesso with a palette knife keeping it horizontal to the board and getting a distressed look. Dry.

 Repeat with some white crackle paste and this time leave to dry naturally.

Take your chosen greyboard shapes and soak the ones you want to split into thinner pieces and distress. These can be dried with a heat gun.

I split the industrial wings into 4 pieces and took the two thinnest ones for this project. When they were dry I glued them together to create a new shape with a hole in the centre and decided to use a retro palette for the rest of the colouring up.

When they were dry the small rectangle and the heart got a coat of quinacridone red and a wash of carbon black over them.

The industrial wings had cobalt teal hue, titan buff, a tiny amount of yellow oxide stippled over them then a random wash of red iron oxide.

Back to the backboard now it's dry and cracked. Mix a watery wash of turquoise blue hue and prussian blue, paint it over and rub away immediately with a piece of dry kitchen roll. This takes the edge off the white and tones it in with the colours we originally used. It also gives us some nicely defined cracks. Seal it now with a coat of matte varnish.

Use transparent red iron oxide and yellow oxide washes to layer more colour over the background. Dry between each layer.

Use paynes grey as a thick wash to go round the edges use a water spritzer and heat gun.

Stamp the words, add your chipboards using heavy gel medium and finish them with a coat of matte varnish.

It didn't quite look finished to me so I added a few remnant rubs, then I was happy.

The colours are pretty good too. It's not a palette I've used before but I'm loving the retro feel to it.

I'm sharing a shorter version of this over on Andy's blog today for my April DT piece.

xxx

Supplies

Andy Skinner stamps - Stampendous - Curiosity and Unexplained

Andy Skinner greyboard shapes - Tando Creative - Industrial Wings, heart and miscellaneous pieces from kits.

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - cerulean blue and prussian blue, quinacridone red, carbon black, cobalt turquoise, transparent red iron oxide, titan buff, yellow oxide

DecoArt Media Speciality - white gesso, white crackle paste, matte medium, heavy gel medium, ultra matte varnish

Route 66 media board - Tando Creative

I have a quick post today sharing a small media board from Tando Creative, one I made for one of the visits Di made to Hochanda.

The Route 66 badge was stencilled onto a piece of leftover painty paper using  cerulean blue, phthalo blue and paynes grey media fluid acrylics.

The quote was stenciled using black modeling paste.

The background was created using a cracked distressed technique I have used before. The blues were chosen to get a retro look.



Short and sweet I'm afraid but sometimes time is of the essence.

Thanks for popping by and -

xxx

Mixed media - Stitch/sew journal panel

I created a new journal at the beginning of the month to hold small panels with a sewing/haberdashery theme so here's the first one. If you missed the making of the gorgeous journal with neutral outside covers you can find it here.

Process steps.

1. Tear patterned/designer papers randomly and glue to the panel. Also add some tape measure washi/tissue tape.

2. Dip this in watery gesso and dry a few times until you have a lighter and more cohesive look to the background.

3. Add some black asemic writing and areas of light colours to match the tones of the first papers you used with oil pastels or water soluble crayons. (I used oil pastels, sometimes scribbling 2/3 colours together then I heated them with a heat gun and rubbed them with my finger to blend them). Also distress the edges and blend some  ground espresso ink around them.

4. Cover the surface with embossing ink and cover with vintage beeswax baked texture by Seth Apter and heat emboss. Repeat with a layer of UTEE.

 Heat the surface and add a little of the bone mixed media powder from ranger.

5. Rub a coffee archival ink pad around the edges to frame the panel. Heat gently to dry.

6. Now add a third layer of embossing and again I used UTEE and have your stamps and watering can archival ink to stamp into the molten surface. Hold the stamp there for a few seconds so the the embossing cools down a little before removing the stamp.

7. When it had cooled completely I bent the panel t get it to crack the embossing and rubbed white antiquing cream all over. It needed to dry for 5 - 10 minutes.

8. In the meantime I collected together a few embellishments together and blended DI and dark grey and burnt sienna premium acrylic paints over the metal pieces.

9. When dry I rubbedback the background to give it a more shabby vintage feel.

10. And added embellishments. The hooks and eyes are torn from an old packet I gathered from my Mum's supplies many years ago.

The scissors are flat backed and I added some paints to age them.

I added a little burnt sienna to the buttons too.

I absolutely love the finished effects. It's not at all how I thought it might look and I was very surprised at how dark the vintage beeswax embossing is, but mixing it with layers of clear worked well.

This will now be added to the journal.

Thanks for taking an interest and popping by and ........

xxx

Collect Beautiful Moments - Journal Panel

Just stopping by with a quick journal panel that I made some time ago. It now belongs in my 'blessed' journal, it makes me feel so happy that I am able to spend time with my art and have been so blessed to have learnt so much in the past 10 years or so and am able to share what I do with others. It really is an important part of my life now.

Process Steps

Paint a media paper panel with a light coat of gesso.

When it is dry stamp using a largish background stamp using archival ink. I used a stamp platform to help me get a fairly good image over the gesso.

Stamp a small but pretty text stamp with watering can archival ink, lightly and randomly over the background.

Create some age by blending a little ground espresso distress ink over the panel also blend some around the edges. Spritz with water and dry with a heat gun.

Add a small collage with a photo booth vintage picture.

Die-cut a couple of wildflower stems from core'dinations paper, edge with brown distress ink and flick with white gesso.

Add a flower ephemera piece and some words.

The paint behind the panel on the kraft page was just a mop up from a different project, simple but it fitted the bill perfectly colour wise.

I have made quite a good start with a few journal pages this year and I have promised myself I will do more so that I can keep my art safe. Trying to keep canvasses, altered art, tags and media boards are so much harder to store. I currently have three journals on the go so we'l see what happens.

As always thank you so much for taking some time to stop by and ....

xxx