Ombre blooms....

When I'm designing workshops options/ideas get discarded along the way (because they're not quite suitable for the event etc etc etc)... and this canvas was one of them... I'd painted the backgound (I love an ombre background!) and the flower stem (grunge paste through stencil PS131) and it sat propped against the side of my desk for a while... and then I caught it with my foot one too many times and I picked it up again to work on it....

This is a 50x20cm canvas... which is quite large (!!)... (for me anyway!)

I stamped scribble flowers randomly along the bottom area of the canvas using Pearl Glaze - I like how it catches the light but doesn't crowd the area.

The top edges are filled with dangling leaves and tendrils.  The gold spots are created by running glue dots around the edges and laying foil over the top...

Here are the stamp sets I used:

I think the canvas might need some butterflies or something but for now I've reached the 'put the paint brush down, move away from the canvas' stage of the project.

I'm saying its done... finished.

Thanks for stopping by

A little bit of this'n'that....

... went in to creating this 5x7in canvas board.

I was just playing around and so didn't take any process photos, but after being asked about it on Facebook and Instagram I wanted to list the products I used.

PaperArtsy stencil: 

PS130

PaperArtsy stamps: 

JOFY73

(and a secret something...)

Dies:

Elizabeth Designs:

Kaiser Craft:

Foliage (DD506) :  sadly now discontinued :o(  

Paint colours, Fresco Finish (of course, lol) were.. I think...
Lavender, Cerise, Vanilla, Koala, maybe Bougainvillea, and possibly some Seaglass (gotta love a Seaglass! lol), and a touch of Green Patina/Sargasso

These might not be the exact colours but when you blend them they are going to look FAB.U.LOUS!

Play with the colours - you'll find things you didn't expect and have fun!

Search for these items at your local shops, and online.

Thanks for stopping by!

Paints, stencils and gelli prints... Oh my!

So I've been a bad/abset blogger for a few weeks... the reason for this is my PC became a victim of the curse of 2016 and we had to add it to the list of 2016's fatalities - it died the week before christmas! This was a drama for me because
a) I use it A LOT!!
b) EVERYTHING is stored on it - you know things like holiday photos, work bits and pieces, existing designs, working designs....
c)  I HADN'T BACKED IT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My friend was brilliant & took the pc apart and retrieved the hard drive and all the information (he is now my tech'geek hero!) ... YAY! WOO HOOOOOO!! (a massive thank you to him!)
aaaand breeeeaaathe!

I can now see all my information and use it but I'm working on hubby's laptop which is good but its not like using my pc - I feel like I'm working with one hand tied behind my back!  sigh  but, I appreciate it could be worse & I could have no pc at all.... so I am grateful (very grateful!) for what I have.

aaaanyhooo enough about my PC/technical woes an on to prettier paintier things...

I made this box canvas late last summer (inspired by the gelli print play day I had with friends) and forgot to share it with you (like I said at the start  - bad blogger, bad blogger).. its a gelli plate printed box canvas, painted with Fresco Finish paints in various shades of green and blue and stencilled using Stencil Girl, Artemio & Donna Downey stencils.
I really like how it turned out - so much so its actually on the wall in the lounge! I know! Shocker!! My own work on the wall in my own home! Whatever next!

x

ACP:2 Pink + H

I'm not going to beat around the bush - H is for HEXAGONS!!!

I'm slightly obsessed with hexagons at the moment!... ok, in truth its been while now... punches, dies.... gelli plates - boxes:....

Look at these lovely hexagon nesting boxes I bought on the PaperArtsy stand at AllyPally... I've temporarily put my kokeshi dolls in them to illustrate the size (tallest doll (in black) stands about 17cm) - I like them A LOT (both the dolls and the boxes lol)!!  The shape is so on trend at the moment and these boxes make for a more interesting display than square boxes - not that I have anything against square boxes of course...

A couple of  years ago there was this scrapbook page... (and the quilt that inspired it..).. lots and lots of hexagons! (the patience my Mum must have to have hand sewn all those!)..

OK, so Hexagons are my theme for the last part of April's Pale Pink month (and yes, I am aware that its now May - where is this year going!!!)... I chose to use the colours below with the hexagons... (I didn't actually use the pale pinks but have put them here to illustrate the palette I'd chosen)(and I actually picked several other paler colours as the project progressed)

I like the look of pale pink with pale blues and grey (pink and grey together look great on their own, and in my book Slate/dark grey goes with EVERYTHING)

This is the finished project.... or so I thought... the more I looked at it the more unfinished it seemed... (you'll see what I mean later)

Let me show you how I made this - its not overly complicated...  The substrate is a 10x14in board canvas - this is quite big for me - I'm itching to go bigger with projects but I'm doing it gradually :o)

Painted the canvas with a wash of slightly diluted 'Space Cadet' paint

I didn't want a 'solid' base coat and so I broke it up by removing the paint 'ragging' stylee - ie crumple up a piece of kitchen roll and dab the surface.... 

I decide this was too dark so I added paint (Hint of Mint) using kitchen roll again.... 

Still not happy with it, I added some 'Chalk' and 'Slate' ... the kitchen roll was being used a lot for this project...  I really like how this looked (the photo below is a close-up) started to have lots of lovely paint layers and texture... but its now what I wanted so..

I painted over the whole piece with a wash of Antarctic' and 'Chalk Fresco Finish paints and laid on the die cut pieces of pink patterned paper... 

but it still felt too dark so I repeated with another wash of the colours...

I laid the pieces on again and now I was happy...  I think its important to keep checking (if its possible) how the different layers are looking and working together as you go along... because you can then tweak colours, finishes and layouts... 

The stencil I'm using is from Artemio - I love it because its so big! (Its the one I used on my suitcase HERE )  I laid it on, checking that it worked with the position of the pattered hexagons

It would bother me if the hexagons weren't straight (!) and so I drew a pencil line down the canvas as a guide to line everything up to

...and glued them down. I'd always planned to cut the hexagons off at the canvas edge but I really like how they look hanging off the edges...

I stenciled the flowers in Slate - I like the bold contrast - black would've been to harsh...

To finish the canvas off I die cut the word 'Hope' (using Sizzix Serif Essentials dies) and painted it with Slate to coordinate with the stenciled flowers.  I dry brushed Chalk around hexagons - over the edges and onto the canvas to halp blend the two surfaces, and then I used a Grey Stabilo All Pencil to draw around the hexagons to give them a bit of depth.  I dragged the edge of the canvas in Slate.  The word 'Hope' was attached to the canvas using 3d foam.

Here's the 'finished' canvas again..

which I liked but felt it was missing 'something' down the left hand side... I wanted to write on it... in my head it was turning into a BIG journal page of sorts - what does the word HOPE bring to mind... what do I hope for?? (I think it about here that I occurred to me that HOPE begins with H which is letter of this post! lol I'd like to say I planned that but it was happy accident!)..
I couldn't bring myself to just write on it... Its a canvas, something to go on the wall - that little inner voice started up: what if its not straight? what if it looks 'wrong'? what if writing on it ruins it!???
So my husband had the 'brilliant' suggestion of writing the words onto acetate and laying it over the top of the canvas to get an idea of how it would look! That was a fine idea!

Biggish writing.... thickish pen... not really liking that...

What about if I wrote IN the hexagons... no, I liked that even less! lol 

Then  my husband suggested just single words ... die cut like the main word.... another great suggestions - he doesn't often suggest design options/ideas but when he does they are good - he was on a roll!
I dug out my QuicKutz dies (going old school here!) - the perfect size! and so quick and easy to use with the Big Shot!

I cut words out - 'eternal' 'weather' and 'well' using the QuicKutz dies and then 'Cure' using the Word Play die from Sizzix (I wanted that word to be bigger)  I painted these words in a mix of Slate, Space Cadet and Chalk - I didn't want these to distract from 'HOPE'. These words were glued flat to the canvas surface and I wrote phrases and journalling around them in grey felt tip pen - white was too pale, and black would be too strong/bold... I didn't want the handwriting to be too obvious.

Here is the finished canvas (yes, now definitely finished!) 

Woah that was a long post!

Thanks for stopping by - and as its now May I'll be moving onto a new colour and 2 new letters very soon.... 

xx

Upcoming Classes in April... part 2

Hi

During the weekend of 16-17 April The Artistic Stamper is holding an

This is going to be a fun creative weekend.

I'll be running a workshop on Sunday - creating a gorgeous A4 canvas using paints, stamps, stencils & incorporating a word/name of your choice (as long as that word isn't  supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! lol).

Go HERE for more details - places are running out fast so give the shop a call to book your place.

I hope you can join us.

x

ACP:2 Yellow + E...

... this post is brought to you by the letter 'E'.... Here are my colour choices for this letter... fresh and springlike....

There were several options for this letter - when I look back at the list I obviously had favourites that I'd asterisked....

I found a bag of Cadbury Mini Eggs in the fridge (that were Hubby's apparently) so, purely for reasons of this project of course because E stands for Eggs,  I picked out the yellow ones - took the photo... & because they smelled soooo good I ate them (only the yellow ones, not the whole packet!)

Don't judge me - I didn't like to see them go to waste! lol (very tasty they were too - but you didn't need me to tell you that did you lol)

I didn't just use this project purely as justification for eating chocolate, I had my cunning plan (mentioned in the previous post).  I had a project in my head that featured a big butterfly but we have passed the 'B' point... hhhhmmm what to do..... ENTOMOLOGY!! study of insects - which, loosely talking, a butterfly is one of these! (in my books anyway!)

A 5x10in board canvas..painted and stencilled with Fresco Finish paints and decorated with a bespoke butterfly and die cut seed heads..

E stands for Embroidery - machine, hand and faux (simple stitches), Entomology and I was going to include embossing to give the wings texture but I was so carried away drawing and paper piecing the butterfly together that I forgot! :o(

I really enjoyed making this project - I especially like the canvas itself - so fresh - I almost wanted to keep it without the butterfly and seedheads - but then its not nearly yellow enough. :o)

Thanks for stopping by - I'm feeling a little lonely working through this project by myself - I'm thinking of a way of having you join in as and when you'd like to... I'll let you know when I've come up with a plan... I like 'a plan', almost as much as I like 'a list'!

Take care..

x

PS  There was a bit of a glitch with the link to my 'not so mellow yellow' Pinterest page but its now fixed so you can feast your eyes on the loveliness of yellow HERE

Final class of the year.... Part 2

.... a fun class creating this:

A 6x4 box canvas - people could make this with an initial of their choice - would make a cute gift..

and here are a few of the lovely colour variations created by the ladies in the class:

I'd demo'd painting the box in green and was really pleased when Denise (Denise, I think this is your  - apologies if its not) made hers using the same colour and pink flowers - one of my favourite colour combinations - so pretty!

I LOVE this yellow version - so bright and fresh and sunny! I think I may have mentioned on here how I am not a fan of yellow - but this project of Sue's may have converted me! Gorgeous. (Sue was wearing a cobalt blue top on the day so it looked even more striking against that!).

This blue and yellow version (Sue's) - again its swaying me towards yellow - love it - so fresh!

They all created beautiful projects.... I might have to rethink yellow!

x