ATCs - experimenting with fluid acrylic layers with glazing medium

Every Sunday I receive an email letter from the very talented Shawn Petite. I subscribed quite some time ago as I have been fascinated by her grungy, mixed media paintings and the layers she includes. Shawn is a member of the DecoArt Media Team with me and I love seeing her projects and articles/videos, they are so interesting and informative. You can find Shawn's website here to see her blog, inspirational art and free resources.

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I was feeling rather lack lustre the day I worked on this couple of ATCs. I had started to prepare them before Shawn's newsletter arrived, so I thought I would use some of her steps to get me into a groove. Here's my version.

Process steps

 Begin by brushing some gesso lightly over the card don't worry if it doesn't seal everywhere. 

Mix some DecoArt modeling paste and white gesso together and scrape through a stencil, leave to dry.

Drag some white crackle paste over randomly and again leave to dry.

Mix some raw umber with glazing medium and paint all over the substrate and wipe back with a damp piece of kitchen paper.

Repeat the last step with prussian blue hue.

Repeat again with burnt umber to get a lovely vintage hue.

To bring in some colour mix some raw sienna and hansa yellow medium to any left over burnt umber and repeat this step again. (See the right hand sample).
Or mix some quinacridone magenta with burnt umber and the glazing medium to repeat. (See the left hand side sample).

Then to get some white back on the raised stencil texture gently knock it back by rubbing over with a cloth dampened with surgical spirit.

Drip some quinacridone gold watery paint onto the backgrounds and spritz lightly with water allowing the paint to move around and pool in the recesses. Dry.
Distress the edges.

So I was really happy with my experiments seeing how grungy I could get the effects but I think I will stick to only two layers if I create something more shabby in the future. It's all a big learning curve when you are experimenting with something new.

So to finish and get these into my altered book journal I just created a couple of layered collages and added a photo booth pic and a vintage paper doll.

I you haven't heard of glazing medium you can add it to paints for more transparent layering effects and of course by rubbing it back you can create some fabulous cracked paint looks. I think you'll be seeing me using this technique a bit more in my projects.

You'll probably also see me using surgical spirit to rub acrylics back as well. I love it when I've learnt something new.

My thanks to Shawn who shares her inspiration, ideas and creativity so freely and if you pop over to her blog you can see her posts and videos here.

xxx

Colour theme at Tando -

It's a colour theme this week and here is the gorgeous palette. Winter is definitely heading our way.

I've created a canvas board and the process steps and more photos are over on the Tando blog today.

The canvas board background went through a couple of transformations and although started off quite 'pretty' my muse decided to take me off in a different direction when I came to finish it off.

I used an acrylic media board shape for the focal element ......

and stamped and painted it to get to this almost night sky look.

An embossed star and a hand made grungy word band ........

 and I was ready to assemble.

So if you'd like to see how the background got transformed and how this came together please pop over to the Tando blog for more information.

Thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxx

Craft Stamper Christmas projects

I have a new project, well actually two samples, in the current Craft Stamper magazine which gives a step by step on creating that faux encaustic technique I have been loving using and there's also a follow up post on the Craft Stamper blog to create the simple background and an easel to attach so your project can stand on display. I love using easels on special canvas board cards.

Here are the sneak peeks .....

and the magazine pages .....

If you are reading this in November 18 you have a chance of winning some DecoArt fluid acrylic paints and a pot of the fantastic clear modeling paste being promoted in the magazine and on face book. As you know the DecoArt media range are my go to products and this is a prize well worth winning.

Thanks Trish Latimer and Craft Stamper, I always feel so proud and excited when a piece of my work has been published. 

And to you my fabulous readers -

xxx

Paper Stash at AVJ

Yes we all have them drawers or shelves stacked with patterned papers that we dip into but never seem to reduce the pile. Well here is a chance to get into them and decide what to use for a challenge sample.

Sandy is our hostess today and is asking us to create a project of any kind using some designer papers in creative ways and in one of the AVJ preferred vintage, shabby, mixed media, art journaling, industrial, timeworn or steampunk styles. My choice was a vintage Christmas card and I used two of the stamps from the new Tim Holtz Stamptember release.

I used paper from an old Christmas pad as well as my new worn wallpapers. Because the worn wallpaper was directly below the frame I wanted to knock back the central area and used a couple of layers of watery gesso and then some distress oxides.

Wanting to get the frame covered with some of the DecoArt clear crackle paste before I went to bed I layered it on with a palette knife and left it overnight but realised the next morning that I had forgotten to seal/prime the surface underneath.   I rubbed in some raw umber and titanium white antiquing creams and left it for about 20 minutes and then started wiping away with a damp baby wipe. It looked a bit dull and murky so I began rubbing in some more of the white antiquing cream and hey hello, what a fabulous effect it gave me. Very little of the crackle lifted and as I rubbed the white in and rubbed away again just using my fingers this most amazing cracked ice effect appeared. Love it, so I didn't bother to try and rub any more away, I just left it.

I designed the card as I went along choosing the layers and these are the inked and stamped die-cuts and elements.

I decided to add some natural elements to the card and chose these pepperberries that I picked up a few weeks ago.

I also painted a small glass star with a white paint pen and stuck on.

I hope you get a moment to pop over to the main A Vintage Journey challenge blog where you'll find some more fabulous inspiration from some of the Creative Guides.

Thanks for stopping by and .....

xxx

Happy Halloween

I have a post over on the Tando blog today sharing photos of a recent workshop I taught at Country View Crafts of a Halloween Triptych I originally made last year for the DecoArt Mixed Media blog.

If you would like to see how a fabulous group interpreted my boards please pop over here to the Tando Creative blog to see the results.

I hope today is full of treats and no tricks.

hugs Brenda xxx

Backward, turn backward,

Time, in your flight

make me a child again

just for to-night!

Elizabeth Akers Allen

Halloween panel and giveaway winner

Well this just seems to have been the busiest year ever and I don't physically have to go out to work anymore!!!!! But of course all the commitments I have for teaching and projects for manufacturers, magazines, shops and design teams really is a job in itself now and keeps me on my toes.

Talking of being busy we had a new baby grandson born to my daughter and her partner at the end of July, went away on holiday in August with my son and family, came home to a period of catch up for DT projects, taught at the fabulous 'In House Crafts' shop in Pembrokeshire towards the end of September and within 36 hours of getting home we were off again for nearly 3 weeks in California and literally 36 hours after our return last week I was teaching for Susan at Country View Crafts. I am so lucky and feel truly blessed to be able to do all of these things and have a wonderful hubby and family around me as well as lots of amazing friends and crafting buddies.

Anyway - I managed to squeeze a few supplies into my case coming home from the USA and of course added to them on my visit to Susan so I have been itching to get back to the work desk. I decided to delve into a little bit of Halloween fun and used one of the new Halloween Worn Wallpaper pieces from Tim Holtz and the packaging it came in to create a spooky panel.

I cut the packaging down to size and added some black distress paint and vintage photo distress oxide round the edging to continue what had already been printed on it.

Taking the worn wallpaper I altered it also with walnut stain and vintage photo oxides around the edges, blending, spritzing with water and dipping them into the watery colours on my mat. I then took carved pumpkin and spiced marmalade oxides and splattered using weatery mixes and also added some white acrylic ink to them to splatter with as well.

Next I gathered some collage layers, die-cuts and a framed portrait to start building my design.

When I got home last week so many of my flowers were still in bloom but starting to fade with the onset of autumn so I gathered some of them and some beautifully turned leaves and dried them in the microwave.

These salvias had been dried and sprayed with DecoArt matte acrylic spray but they were still very fragile. I ended up using DecoArt's decou-page glue to add them to the finished piece then painted some over the top of the flowers, covering it with wax paper and popping it under a heavy box for a few hours. This made them more durable.

Next- huge apologies for the lateness in choosing a winner for my giveaway which should have been chosen quite a few weeks ago - but all those life things above got in the way. I have now entered 15 comments into Random Org to generate a winner and we have  -

Congratulations to #13 who is Kate Yetter.

Kate wins the fossil stamps by Andy Skinner.

Woo hoo Kate, if you could send me your snail mail address I'll get them in the post to you. My email is on my side bar.

Thank you to everyone who entered I really appreciate your time in visiting my blog and leaving a comment.

That's my little bit of catch up and spooky art for today.

xxx

Make today Count - panel to mini book.

Gosh I'm still showing projects I made earlier in the year - but I'm so glad I had a few held back as it enabled me to spend lots of time in my garden during the warm weather - and I'm still catching up with project deadlines now.

Here's the panel I made.

Proces steps

1.      Seal the substrate with tinting base. 

2.      Use premium acrylic paints in cobalt teal hue, primary yellow, burnt umber, pyrrole red and titanium white. Blend them randomly through a stencil (Prima).

3.      Take media acrylics in translucent white, cobalt teal hue and phthalo green blue (all translucent colours) and blend over the background with satin varnish on a sponge. 

4.      If too dark rub over with dry kitchen roll and then spread translucent white with satin varnish over, let it pool, dab some off if necessary and dry. 

5.      Dip and dry in cobalt blue and titanium white mixed media acrylics. 

6.      Repeat step 4 with raw umber media acrylic. 

7.      Splatter with white media acrylic. 

8.      Add some random and torn tissue tape. 

9.      Stamp with black archival ink. 

10.  Add embellishments. 

11.  Sand and ink the edges.

Stamps are by Andy Skinner. This is from the Stampendous Shabby Chic set.

Paper dolls by Tim Holtz.

So that was the panel finished ......

..... but I decided to use it to make another little book for my shop space.

The pages are from a watercolour paper pad cut to size ....

.... and I used green thread to match in with the colour tones.

I used a coptic binding so that the journal open right out and lies flat when you use it.

I just simply tied it up with ribbon to keep it closed.

Making art on panels is a fabulous way to create and then to use the panel to make a book of your own is even more pleasurable.

xxx