Framed pen and ink over gesso #2

A quick share today of the second of my pen and ink over gesso media boards which I have mounted in a deep Ikea frame but reversed it to look more like a shadow box. If you missed the first one you can see it here.

Again I have used a Tando Creative media board .....

.... and black sharpie pen ...

.... with DecoArt media acrylics to give me the light colour wash.

I really like the quirkiess of putting the art in back to front , it really works for me.

Thanks for stopping by, have a wonderful week.

hugs Brenda xxx

Journal pages for CVCC

I'm here with my second DT sample for the challenge over at Country View Crafts where the challenge is Hot Summer Days. I love being out in the garden at home when it's warm and if I am busy in the craft room I will often take myself outside when the sun is shining. One of my neighbours has chickens and I love listening to them cluck away when they are out in the hen run so I thought I would portray not only the chickens but also the warmth of a hot summer day in my journal.

I followed recipe 3 that I taught a while ago at Pickwell Farm (you can see that post here if you missed it) and again a couple of weeks ago to a local group and these was the demonstration pages that didn't quite get completed during the class but I came back to them to finish them off later.
To this point I had coloured the background with media line paints and a babywipe and used an acrylic block to 'stamp' watery colours over it. I adhered the chickens, taken from a napkin, stippled colours around them, stamped some images, applied modeling paste through a stencil and rubbed a distress ink pad over the raised areas when it was dry.

I dripped and spritzed some burnt umber and a mix of pyrrole red with hansa yellow light and dried it. I scribble wrote some sayings -
If I hadn't started painting I would have raised hens.
Do not count your chickens until they are hatched.
You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by mashing it.

I used distress markers to colour in some of the stamping.
I used black and white posca pens on the chicken images and on the raised texture pattern.

I masked the chickens and splattered paints over the background.

Apart from edging the page with some brown distress ink, I used all DecoArt media paints and mediums.

 Hopefully you have been able to join us at CVC for this fabulous summer challenge and if you have then maybe you might be the lucky winner of a £20 gift voucher for Susan's on-line store.

I hope you can feel the warmth emanating from this page, the mix of pyrrole red, quinacridone magenta, hansa yellow medium, titanium white and titan buff certainly produce some beautiful blends of colours.

Thanks for stopping by enjoy the rest of the week and the weekend too.

hugs Brenda xxx

THANK YOU Give-Away

I feel so proud to have so many followers on my blog and apart from those of you who have my projects come up in your blog reader I know many of you also follow by email, so I thought I would have a random summer give-away - just a little something from me to say thank you for popping in, for taking time to stop and look at what I'm creating and for leaving your wonderful comments.

I have a Tim Holtz Shadowpress sentiments set and a Shadowpress Station and other little bits and pieces for one lucky winner (there might even be a few other bits and pieces make their way into the box). If you would like to be part of the draw please leave me a comment below and ensure you are a follower through google friends connect or google + (both on my side-bar) or an email follower and you might be the lucky winner of this prize which will be drawn in three weeks time on the 31st August. It would be lovely if you could add this give-away to your side bar and help me advertise this give-away on Face Book but it is not a requisite for being entered.

Thank you for being part of my creative journey and sharing the trials and tribulations as well as the successes of this amazing path.

"We are at our very best, and we are happiest, when we are fully engaged in work we enjoy on the journey toward the goal we've established for ourselves. It gives meaning to our time off and comfort to our sleep. It makes everything else in life so wonderful, so worthwhile." 

Earl Nightingale

hugs Brenda xxx

Tailor made - Dapper Street

I have a tag today using the new Dapper stamps from Tim Holtz. The full step by step is over on the Country View Crafts project blog if you would like to see all the details. To try and tempt you over here is a peek.

Thanks for stopping by.

Have a great week.

hugs Brenda xxx

Stencil It at AVJ

It's the first Friday in the month and tine for a brand new challenge at A Vintage Journey. Today we launch a 'Stencil It' theme hosted by the lovely Amanda and she says - "There are so many fantastic stencils available to us right now and so many ways in which to use them so we would like you to include stencilling in whatever it is you choose to create for this challenge. Don’t forget all the ways in which they can be used – inks , sprays , paints, texture/embossing pastes and gesso are all stencil friendly. So be sure to have fun and embrace your stencils in your vintage; shabby; mixed-media; art journaling; industrial or steampunk projects".

I was recently teaching my Recipes for Success #3 and  #4 journalling workshop with DecoArt media paints and mediums, whilst demoing and joining in I produced this A4 sheet and intended it to be cut into two journal pages but I liked the three main areas so much, with the reverse stencil monoprints, I decided to chop it and make two cards.

I used the two main corner pieces and also cut up the left over piece to add layers.

I found two photos that I have printed using free internet images (usually the Graphics Fairy).

And put them together using sentiments (I think from Crafty Individuals) ....

.... and some stamped and die-cut pieces.

I hope you will be able to join us at AVJ, you can use any products, all we ask is your project reflects a vintage; shabby; mixed-media; art journaling; industrial, timeworn or steampunk style. Please do go take a look at all the wonderful contributions from the Creative Guides, as always they have pulled out all the tops to share their amazing inspirational pieces.

Welcome to new followers and thanks for stopping by. I know I get a huge audience that come through Pinterest and I do appreciate all who pop in to see what I have been creating. I really appreciate each and every one of you who takes the time to scroll through my projects and posts, thank you.

Have a great weekend.

hugs Brenda xxx

Hot Summer Days

The theme for August's challenge at Country View Crafts Challenges is 'Hot Summer Days' and for me there's nothing better than being by the sea, not necessarily on the beach but on a pier watching the divers or fishermen, in a harbour looking at the boats or on the cliffs looking down and hearing the waves crash on the rocks below. So here's a card using PaperArtsy stamps inspired by those thoughts.

I began by stamping the crab collage stamp from Hot Picks 1302 using coffee archival ink and then dipping it into watery scattered straw and dried marigold distress inks several times to create the layers. When dry I used a water brush and added some more colour to the crab and flicked some spots of hickory smoke DI for contrast.

I then stamped the boy and fish from the kids plate - #2 (again PaperArtsy) and using a water brush and distress inks I painted in the shapes not inked by the coffee archival and took some iron oxide media paint to colour the starfish.

The starfish were stamped from the same plate as above in chrome yellow and tea rose archival inks then I rubbed ground espresso over them and flicked water on to get that mottled effect. The sentiment is from Artist Outpost's think and wonder set of stamps.

I just kept it simple and flat for posting.

I hope you will be able to join us this month in this great challenge and do pop over to take a look at what the rest of the fabulous team members have made.

hugs Brenda xxx

Under the Sea - DecoArt challenge

I am participating as a DecoArt Mixed Media Design Team Member (DMMDT) in their summer challenge 'Under the Sea', you are invited to submit a project up until the 12th August and there are two fabulous media packages to be won.

So get your DecoArt supplies out and get your thinking caps on, this is one not to be missed.
I have had some fun with a cheap Ikea frame for this one.

Process steps 

(These can be taken out of order, when you are waiting for drying or crackle times work on another piece of the project)

1. Give your frame a coat of white gesso and dry. Take some muslin and cheesecloth and adhere to the frame with a fabric structurizer (I used one I have in my supplies but DecoArt do a fabric stiffener you could try). Leave to dry.

2. Cut your card to fit the frame and give it a coat of white gesso. Mix some transparent/semi transparent sea blue and greens with water separately on a craft mat and dip and dry your background several times keeping the wash very light in colour.

3. Use a bubble like stencil with transparent crackle glaze and randomly add sections to the background. Leave to dry.

4. Take a piece of card and brayer red, orange  and yellow paints over the surface both horizontally and vertically and finish with a brayered wash of yellow oxide. Use a crackle stamp with red geranium archival ink and when dry die-cut flowers. Because they looked deeper than I wanted I dipped them in a watery titan buff and dried them.

5. Make another piece using greens and brown (without the crackle stamping) and cut foliage. Again I knocked the pieces back by dipping in watery titan buff.

6. Adhere glass flat backed cabochons to the background. Make more colour washes in the blue/greens and then drip and spritz with water. Repeat layers as necessary to achieve required results.

8. a) Die cut two seahorses from mount board and glue them together, dip in tiny amounts of pyrrole red and cadmium orange with water, seal with a coat of matte medium. b) Draw on markings with a ground espresso distress marker, c) then spritz lightly to move the distress ink around a little and seal with micro glaze. d) I spritzed again to check it was sealed but it wasn't fully and more ink moved around so I dabbed it off and re-drew in a few parts of the seahorse and sealed it again. e) To finish I splattered with some of the pyrrole red and quinacridone orange and used a posca white and a posca black pen to draw in a few dots and details. 

9. I didn't like the eye in the last photo so I played with it a bit more and now I'm happier with it (although he doesn't look as angry irl).

Right after that marathon onto more of the frame.

10. a) When the fabric is dry on the frame adhere glass glitter and micro beads to the fabric using matte medium. b) When dry splodge translucent blue and white paints over, spray with water mister and dry - you will need to repeat several times all around the frame. c) Again when dry spray perfect pearl sprays and dry again. This time add in some brown and yellow colours.

11. Knock back the deeper colours by splattering translucent white paint and by adding some snowtex.

10. Take the fun crab chipboard piece, add sand texture paste and dry, then stipple sandy colours and brown over him.

11. The other embellishments also had a bit of a make over including the starfish and shells that are real.

12. Give everything a spray of Americana matte sealer and finally put the frame together adding some knotted string and raise the seahorse to give it added dimension. I hadn't added the title of the piece on this photo but I am really pleased with the effects.

I hope you have been following the team and their projects this month, so do pop over to the Media Blog to see what they have been creating AND look too at what you could be in with  chance of winning if you join in.

 Many thanks for stopping by Bumblebees and Butterflies and checking out my Under the Sea frame.

hugs Brenda xxx

Taking Sara's steer I am entering this into the 'By the Sea' challenge at Frilly and Funkie which includes a nautical or beach theme and colour palette. Thanks Sara. xxx

I also notice that Anything but Cute has a Summertime Fun challenge going so I thought I would enter it there too. No better fun than being by or in the sea.

So then I thought let's have fun with anymore challenges I could find and Mixed Media Mojo has Summer Fun with a twist of Shells.

PRODUCTS AND SUPPLIES

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Phthalo Green Blue

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Cobalt Teal

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Phthalo Turquoise

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Titan Buff

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics – Quinacridone Magenta

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics – Yellow Oxide

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Pyrrole Red

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Quinacridone Red

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Cadmium Orange

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Transparent Red Iron Oxide

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Viridian

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Prussian Blue

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Green Gold

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics – Raw Umber
DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics – Raw Sienna

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Quinacridone Gold

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Burnt Sienna

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics – Translucent White

DecoArt Media Mediums and Specialty Products – Transparent Crackle Glaze

DecoArt Media Mediums and Specialty Products - Clear Matte Medium

DecoArt Media Mediums and Specialty Products - White Gesso

Sizzix (Tim Holtz) Wildflowers thinlits

Sizzix (Tim Holtz) Holiday Greens thinlits

Sizzix (Tim Holtz) Sand and Sea Bigz die

D2C Skinzapfel board

I realised I hadn't shared my Skinzapfel project from Dare to Create in Coventry a few weeks ago with the amazing Andy Skinner and Tracy Weinzapfel.

I loved this class where both Andy and Tracy shared the projects they had made whilst on a Skype or FaceTime session, daring each other to add the next layer and not showing what they had created until the end, their projects were very close in visual appearance. The heart took centre stage and you can see it has been distressed with Andy's stamps and given a dark shadowy aura around it, it really stands out.

We added stenciled modeling paste for texture ......

.... and stenciled with the media paints as well.

I love the colours I used and wish I'd written down the names of the ones I had chosen to put together. Of course they were all from the DecoArt media line.

No process steps today in respect for Andy's and Tracy' class, but I know I will be making something similar again soon. I did however get my three D2C pieces shown on Andy's blog HERE.

Hope your week is going well.

hugs Brenda xxxx