Mixed Media - A B C ...

Welcome back to Mixed Media Monday in the Korner.

The story behind today's piece from my large art journal: last week, a crafty friend posted a pic of one of her journal pages in progress, and I commented that her page put my unfinished circle page to shame. :)  She prompted me to post a pic of my page's progress so far - I was taking a little break from housecleaning, so I pulled out my camera and snapped a pic of my page and posted it into the thread.

Later that evening, my journal was still sitting there on my worksurface, and I couldn't sleep, so what better time than "now" to finally finish it? And that's how this page finally got done, many weeks after it was started. Without seeing my friend's post, and without her prompting after my comment, it might still be sitting there on the shelf, and still unfinished. :)

This page is one of the first in my large Dylusions art journal...

I don't have stepout photos for this page because - well honestly - I forgot to even think of it when I started playing with this. But I can give you some of the steps to the end product.

The paper in this journal is heavy mixed-media paper, and this time, I didn't put any gesso on the page first. I put a dab of different Dylusions acrylic paints around the page, and spread them with a combination of paintbrush, fingerpainting, and spreading with a damp baby wipe.

The larger black squares were made through a stencil using heavy black gesso - you can probably see that in the top right and lower left, I applied the gesso through the stencil in the usual manner to get the positive image. But for the lower right and upper left, I turned the stencil over and pressed the gessoed stencil down on the page to get the negative pattern.

I then used jar caps and black gesso to form the outlines for the circles down the page before adding the white speckled areas using Whipped Spackle through a Tim Holtz stencil.

After I had the circles laid out, I used molding paste through an alpha stencil in the lower corner and across the center.

Heavy white gesso was finger painted into the centers of the circles, so I could color them later...and that's as far as I got when I put the page away for another day...

You can see I didn't have far to go to finish this page, so it was well worth my time to get it finished and cross it off the list of the incomplete. :)

I used Gelatos to color inside the circles, blending black, purple and yellow. The little white dots were added with a white gel pen, and the smaller vertical black dots were made with black acrylic paint through a Tim Holtz stencil. 

The last bits were to add a few strips of washi tape here and there, and a trio of word stickers...and it's complete!

Here are a few closeups around the page...

Supplies:

Color Mediums:   Dylusions acrylic paints:  Crushed Grape,  Bubblegum Pink,  Lemon Zest,  Vibrant Turquoise,  Squeezed Orange

Liquitex heavy body acrylic paint - Mars Black;   Faber Castell Gelatos:  Grape, Buttercream, Black

Stencils:   Prima/Finnabair "Grungy Grid" and "Alpha";  Tim Holtz Idea-ology "Speckles" and "Dot Fade"

Word stickers:   Tim Holtz Idea-ology "Big Chat"          

Art mediums:   Faber Castell Whipped Spackle,  Art Basics black heavy gesso,  Liquitex white heavy gesso,  Golden molding paste

Miscellaneous:   washi tape,  Zig Mangaka black pen,  Uniball Signo white gel pen,  Prismacolor white pencil 

Thanks for visiting today...I hope your week is starting with a smile!

Mixed Media - Amaze...

Hello again, everyone...it's Mixed Media Monday in the Korner. :)

Today I'm sharing another project using the new Perfect Paints - specifically, the Shimmering Matte Acrylics. My first experiment with these was the "Believe" canvas that turned out bright and brilliant and very colorful. This time, I wanted to see if I could come up with a muted, vintage-looking project using the same paints, and I think I was successful...I hope you agree.

I got this different look by using a base of black gesso, and applying the paints with a dry-brush technique that put the color on with a lighter coating and let the black gesso show through in spots. The shimmer of these paints really gives this muted look a beautiful glow...

The base is a couple plastic dollar store frames that I glued together with E6000 glue - then added a scroll cardstock diecut to the corners of the very boring, plain, and very smooth outer plastic frame (these plastic frames were very shiny, so to make them easier to photograph, I did apply a thin coating of clear gesso over them prior to this picture so there would be a whole lot less reflective glare)...

And then I made an "oops!"...but then I thought it might work to my advantage because it could be a better way to show you how I did the next step. 

The plan was to apply one-coat crackle medium in spots along the smooth outer frame, and the smooth section of the inner frame, then apply heavy black gesso over everything. But I got carried away and started applying the heavy black gesso with a stippling brush and a palette knife, and then realized I'd forgotten the crackle medium...oops!

So I decided to finish the gesso coat, then apply the crackle medium, and put another, thinner coat of black gesso over the whole thing again. Turns out I was right - you can see the shiny clear crackle medium better in the photo when it's over the matte gesso...so here you go..."spot" applications of the crackle medium along the outer edges, and a continuous coating on the inner frame...

With the final coating of gesso done, you can now see how the crackle medium and a stippling application technique of the heavy gesso combines with the cardstock corner diecuts to add a great overall texture to what were smooth sections of the frames...

The next fun step was to start applying a base coat of colors. In my head, I was picturing a finished project with a border of silvery-blue and a center of rose-gold embellishments. To start, I combined red and blue paints until I had the purple shade I wanted, and started dry-brushing the color on, being careful not to cover too completely, because I wanted the black gesso to show through from the lower areas of the textures. 

Next, I applied some of the blue paint alone, and then some silver...blending the three colors around the outer edges. I didn't worry that this was looking darker than I envisioned, because I could later add some of the lighter colors used on the embellishment areas to the frame to blend it all together...

Then I started pulling out and laying out embellishments. There's a bit of everything here - a paper baking doily, an old hand scarf pin, a handmade flower backed with cotton lace (that I didn't like after I'd made it years ago, but set it aside to find a way to rework "later"), some older chipboard alpha letters from my scrapbooking days, buttons and paper flowers and silver seed beads, a metal corner scroll, a snippet of lace, an air-dry clay frame, dragonfly charms, and butterfly beads - little bits of fun to layer and stack.

Except for the seed beads, I coated them all with black gesso before gluing them down, then, after the seed beads were glued down, applied a final coating of gesso over everything to cover the beads and any wayward glue blobs...

Here are some detail shots, starting with the paper flower I made too long ago...it's text patterned paper with just a touch of clear coarse glitter on the petals and a cotton lace bottom layer. I didn't like the finished flower at the time, but never got around to taking it apart and redoing it. I pulled it out and discovered it was a pretty good fit for use up in that corner! A coating of gesso and some beautiful paints and you'd never know it was doomed for the "round file" so long ago. 

There wasn't a way to continue the clustered look of the round seed beads up in that flower corner, but I did find some stamens in my flower boxes that were almost the same size as the seed beads. So I clustered some of them up and stuck them in around the metal leaves, and after they were painted, you can't tell where the beads stop and the stamens start...

A mulberry paper cherry blossom sits among lots of metal bits and bobs, along with an air-dry clay mini frame and a chipboard bracket, also left from my scrapbooking days (and if you look closely, you'll see I couldn't resist applying pink paint to the fingernails on my old hand pin... :) )

These chipboard alphas are covered with copper, green, and red paints to simulate old metal with a couple different patinas...

And finally, a closeup of a corner that shows a bit more of the blending after applying a bit of the lighter, center colors to the outside frames...

Supplies:

Color mediums:   Perfect Paints Shimmering Matte Acrylics - Red Wagon, Peony, Tarnished Silver, Peacock Blue, Moss Green, Spring Green, Aged Copper

Art Mediums:   DecoArt One-Step Crackle;   Art Basics heavy gesso - black

Dies:   Spellbinders "Twisted Metal Tags & Accents" (corner scrolls)

            Metal leaves, metal flower, metal corner element, scalloped lace:   TheFunkieJunkie.com

Small metal findings:   Prima/Finnabair             Stamen clusters:   ChocolateLetters on Etsy

Frame clay mold:   Martha Stewart           Chipboard letters:   Heidi Swapp

Miscellaneous craft store supplies:   Plastic frames,  Wilton doily,  chipboard circle,  chipboard bracket,  hand pin,  washers,  butterfly beads,  dragonfly charms,  shaped buttons,  air dry clay,  silver seed beads,  mini pearl trim      

Thanks so much for visiting today...I hope your week is starting with a smile!

          

Mixed Media - DREAM canvas...

Happy Monday, everyone! Today's share for Mixed Media Monday is an 8x8 canvas that I made just for fun. I played with a few of my newest colors of Golden heavy body acrylic paints for the background, then layered some stenciling, and finally lots of findings with a twist...

Instead of layering all the findings and fun pieces flat across the center of the canvas, I turned two 3x3 mini canvases upside down, adhered them to the center of the 8x8, and layered the pieces inside and out of the mini canvases...it adds lots of fun dimension...

Here are a few stepouts showing how it came about. The first step was to gesso the backs of the mini canvases with black gesso, and pencil in their final position on the larger canvas. Then I randomly added some of my favorite acrylics for the background, and splattered with white gesso...

Then I added some molding paste through a stencil...only in two corners, since the other two would most likely be covered with embellishments...

Then it was time for fun. The first step was to glue the two mini canvases to the larger one - I used fabric glue for that, since it was canvas-to-canvas. Once it was good and dry, I started adding...and adding...and adding...chipboard die cuts, wood cut shapes, lots of layers of metal findings...the works!

I coated most of the pieces with black gesso before I glued them to the canvas, so I'd only have to do light touchups after they were all secured. I didn't want to risk having some of the black gesso cover areas of the background where I wanted color to show. Once I photographed that step, I thought the middle looked like a big black blob (and who wants to look at that? - haha). So I painted some of the pieces with one of the colors I planned to use, and added the seed beads for contrast, so you can see a bit more where it's going...

Once I had the embellishments secured, and painted that first small area, I thought the stenciled background areas looked a bit too bright. I was using Inka Gold metallic paints on the embellishments throughout the center, and I wanted that area to be the brightest part of the canvas. So I got out a black Stabilo pencil and shaded the stenciled areas to tone them down just a little, and add more dimension to the unembellished corners...

Here are some more detail shots. Once I had glued all the embellishments down, I touched up some of the areas with more black gesso, then started applying several different colors of Inka Gold metallic paints.

I love how some of my very-old metallic-colored buttons are so perfect for this type of project. Many years ago, you could find bags of these silver and gold buttons in the craft stores. There would be mixes of wonderful shapes - butterflies, hearts, stars, keys, zipper pulls - all sorts of goodies all in one bag, for about $5. Years later, I'm finally starting to get to the end of the supply from these button bags, and sad that they're not available anymore. You can see in this first pic one of the butterfly buttons, and on the left, the rope-edged pull-type button beneath the wooden scroll...

paper and metal flowers, hearts, buttons, findings...lots of goodies brushed with metallic colors...

This pretty round medallion was in my stash, so I topped it with a silver button, then put a Finnabair finding right in the center of the beautifully-edged button...

The "dream" key in this next photo was the inspiration for the title of the canvas and the small phrase stickers that were added around the finished canvas...

Supplies:

Color Mediums:   Golden heavy body acrylic paints:  Teal, Primary Yellow, Ultramarine Violet, Quin Nickel Azo Gold, Quin Magenta

Viva Decor Inka Gold metallic paints:   Aquamarine, Green Yellow, Steel Blue, Orange, Magenta, Violet

Stencil:   Prima "Circular Lattice"             Stamp:   Prima/Finnabair "Messy"

Dies:   Sizzix "Flowers Branches & Leaves             

Word stickers, pen nib, arrow:   Tim Holtz Idea-ology            

Metal flowers, large metal butterfly, "dream" key, floral medallions:   TheFunkieJunkie.com

Paper flowers:   Wild Orchid Crafts             Small metal findings:   Prima/Finnabair

Wood scrolls, buttons, hearts, stars, butterflies, seed beads:   local craft stores

Miscellaneous mixed media supplies:   Stabilo All pencil (black),  drywall tape,  black & white gessos,  Golden molding paste 

Thanks so much for visiting today...I hope your week is starting with a smile!

Mixed Media - Believe in Magic...

Happy Monday, everyone! I had to take a little break from crafting recently to tend to some family business and a sick family pet, but I was able to sneak in some crafty time in small bits and pieces during the past couple weeks, and will have a couple projects to share with you this week. :)

The first is a canvas (of sorts) to get back on track for Mixed Media Mondays. I recently purchased some newly released paints by an artist friend, Cheryl Mezzetti. They're called Perfect Paints, and they're acrylic paints with a beautiful sheen to them...colors that are brilliant with just a bit of reflectivity that makes the colors dance...they're called Shimmering Matte Acrylics, and the hardest decision to make was which colors to start my collection with!

Here's the finished project...

Can you tell what my "canvas" is by this photo?

In my stash, I had the backing chipboard piece from an empty wirebound 9x12 watercolor paper pad, already gessoed for later use. When my paint order arrived, I pulled out that piece, and started laying on colors - just playing to see how they covered, how they blended with each other, and what would happen when I layered one on the other after drying. These colors are so rich!

When I saw how beautifully the colors blended, an idea started to take shape...and that's about the time that other life issues started taking priority over my crafting time. So I started jotting notes on post-its as the ideas came while I was tending to other things, and playing with those ideas when I had a few minutes in the evenings.

Along with the paints, I purchased a few colors of Perfect Paints Polishing Plasters...a sort of molding plaster with color...but a bit of a different texture, and when buffed, a slight sheen...or when burnished, a shabby, vintage look. So, following my "try this" notes, I pulled out a couple stencils, and played with laying down the Plasters...and then I had this...

Here's where you can see how different the colors look when the combo of natural light and Ott lights aimed at the canvas board (in my little homemade photo booth) reflect the sheen of the paints. In real life and to the natural eye under normal room lighting, the colors look more like they do in the first photo above. 

I used "Organic Sugar" Polishing Plaster for the stripes along the left side, and a combo of "Cayenne" and "Sunwashed Clay" Polishing Plasters for the tree and branches. Once they had dried, I burnished each with the metal blade of a palette knife, and it gave them a smooth but vintage appearance.

As a finishing touch, I used Stabilo All pencils in black and brown to add a little bit of shading and dimension before adding embellishments on top of the pastes.

And here's where taking stepout photos ended, as I only devoted short periods of time in the following couple weeks to add bits and pieces to the canvas board. 

Among the little burlap flowers and diecut cardstock leaves decorating the tree branches, I added some dark bronze metal flowers, touched up with pink and yellow Shimmering Matte Acrylics. I also dry-brushed those colors on top of the multicolored micro and seed beads that I added around each of the larger metal flowers...

These chipboard hearts were first painted with the pink paint (Peony), and then a watered-down "wash" of the Peacock Blue paint gave me the violet/purple shade for a little variety...

I had painted this chipboard fairy for another project, and didn't use it, so I covered it up with black heavy gesso, then added some of the Peacock Blue and Peony paints to the wings, and topped them with some Rock Candy Distress Stickles...

The sentiment stamp is by Unity Stamp Company - it already has some of the words "blocked" but I drew in a couple more lines and some white dots around "magic" for fun...pens write beautifully over these paints! The pink and blue Shimmering Matte Acrylics were added inside the crystals of the butterfly to make it stand out a bit more...

Supplies:

Color Mediums:   Perfect Paints Shimmering Matte Acrylics ("Cantaloupe" "Rain Slicker" "Peony" "Peacock Blue" "Moss Green")

Perfect Paints Polishing Plasters ("Organic Sugar" "Cayenne" "Sunwashed Clay")

Stencils:   The Crafters Workshop "Branches Reversed";   Tim Holtz "Stripes"

Dies:   Simon Says Stamp "Fancy Believe";   My Favorite Things "Rose Leaves"

Chipboard:   Dusty Attic "Garden Fairy" and "Heart Attack Panel Small #2"

Stamp:   Unity Stamp Company "The Time is Now"

Burlap flowers:   The Paper Studio             Metal flowers:   theFunkieJunkie.com

Crystal butterfly:   Prima             Gems:   Prima and Creative Imaginations

Mixed media ink supplies:   Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens (black);   Stabilo All pencils (black & brown);   

Mangaka black fine and medium pens;   Uniball Signo white gel pen

Beads and glitter:   Rock Candy Distress Stickles;   Martha Stewart clear coarse glitter;  silver and pink German glass glitter;  

 Doodlebug Sugar Coating BonBon glitter;   craft store micro and seed beads

Thanks for visiting today...I hope your week is starting with a smile!

Flowery Mixed Media All Occasion Card...

Happy Monday, everyone! Today's share for Mixed Media Monday is a summery all-occasion card.

I did take step-out photos as I went along this time, but then I pulled a total Homer-Simpson-DOH! move and reformatted the card in my camera before I double-checked to be sure I had transferred the photos to my computer. (It was a busy and stressful week around here last week with a very ill family pet, so I prefer to think that was the reason for my distraction....more than likely it was simply lack of good sleep...LOL)

So if you see items on the supply list and wonder "where are they?" they're most likely on the base of the multi-layered background, and now slightly covered with the flowers and embellishments...

I started by coloring a piece of mixed media paper with Lindy's Stamp Gang sprays, then adding some die cut lattice shapes in two corners, and molding paste through a stencil across most of the front. 

In the lower left corner, I die cut a couple pieces of paper doily, colored them with the same sprays, and layered one on top of the other, with foam tape and a piece of lace between the two. Then both upper right and lower left corners got more stenciled molding paste for texture.

Here are a few closeups around the page...in this photo, you can barely see the edges of the two die cut doilies with the lace between them...

The two fuchsia-colored flowers were made using Spellbinders Rose Creations dies, but forming them into generic flower shapes instead of roses...

One day while we were out shopping together at a fabric store, my friend was searching through the remnant bin for animal prints, and found a beautiful piece of wide, sheer lace...she told me it was destined to go home with me...LOL...so it did...and a piece of it was a perfect subtle addition to the lower right corner of this card...

Lately I find I love to add little details up in the corners of my cards...and this one was no exception...

Supplies:

Color mediums:   Lindy's Stamp gang sprays - Screamin' Banshee Black,  Pink Ladies Pink,  Tilt a Wheel Teal

Stencils:   Prima "Flourish";   The Crafters Workshop "Mini Circle Explosion"

Dies:   Cottage Cutz "Tea Time Doily";   My Favorite Things "Wild Greenery";   Spellbinders "Rose Creations" and "Grateful Lattice"

Lace:   TheFunkieJunkie.com and local fabric store             Small roses:   Wild Orchid Crafts

Stamens:   ChocolateLetters on Etsy            Pearls:   Recollections

Miscellaneous:   Golden molding paste,  cheesecloth

Thank you for visiting today...I hope your week is starting with a smile!

Art Journal - Wildflower...

It's Mixed Media Monday again here in the Korner, and I have a colorful journal page to share today.

Unfortunately, I didn't take stepout photos this time...and this is one of those pages with a lot of steps. But I think once you see it and I explain what I did, you'll get it. I played with Dylusions acrylic paints, and masks and stencils...and this spread is one of the few "flat" journal spreads I've made.

So, once again channeling my "flower child" younger years, here's the finished double-page spread in my small Dylusions art journal...

I started by eyeballing where I wanted my two figures to sit on the pages, and in those two general areas, went to work creating a background of text tissue paper, hand-drawn flowers, circles, pens and inks, Dylusions paints...fun and bright colors.

Then I placed the masks over the areas I wanted to show through, and used black heavy body acrylic to cover the rest of the background around the figure masks. 

I knew the text I'd be using, and since it was song lyrics, I happily remembered I had an older Tim Holtz music mask in my supply stash...and an older Heidi Swapp loopy flower mask, too. I left the masks over my two figures, laid the music and flower masks down over them, and added more colorful Dylusions paints over the black gesso, covering most of the background with blocks of color.

After that dried, a stenciling of black heavy gesso at the bottom, and more magenta paint through the same stencil around the top and sides, and it was ready for the quote and handwritten lines.

Here are a few closeup shots...

I printed the text onto white cardstock  (the font used is called Janda Truly Madly Deeply) and glued the words down through the center of the spread, then hand wrote another line from the song up the sides of the two figures...

Supplies:

Art Mediums:   Ranger Dylusions acrylic paints-Bubble Gum Pink, Squeezed Orange, Vibrant Turquoise, Fresh Lime, White Linen;   Liquitex black heavy body acrylic paint;   Art Basics black heavy gesso;   Sharpie white poster paint pen;   Uniball Signo white gel pen;   Ranger Fudeball black pen

Masks:   Dylusions "Annie" and "Flossie";   Tim Holtz Idea-ology "concerto";   Heidi Swapp "daisy"

Stencil:   Tim Holtz "dot fade"             Orange gemstones:  Heidi Swapp

Thanks for visiting today...I hope your week is starting with a smile!