Stencil monoprint and stamping

Happy Easter 

I did a workshop at Grayshott yesterday with an amazing group of ladies including Lois, Karen and Dominique.

They wanted to focus on distress ink techniques and create a tag book. We explored 9 techniques and ended up with 11 backgrounds. I came home with my sample book collection plus 32 more panels/tags so I want to use some of them to create some cards. This is the first.

The background which is a stencil monoprint with stamping through the stencil.

The elements. I collected bits together from my collage envelopes and some extra snippets.

A huge thank you to all the ladies who made it such a fun and enjoyable day. I definitely will be back to Grayshot to enjoy your company again.

xx

Supplies

Distress inks - stormy sky, hickory smoke, ground espresso

Stencil - Tim Holtz - Harlequin

Stamps - small text from my supplies, Tim Holtz - Natures Wonder

Dies - Tim Holtz - Silhouette Birds, Crochet

Tim Holtz - Snippets

Black archival ink

Mixed Media Panel

 Just some playtime using distress inks over modelling paste surface and stamping.

1. Scrape white modeling paste randomly, roughly and thinly over card. Dry.

2. Blend tattered rose and victorian velvet randomly and mostly in the centre of the card.

3. Repeat with faded jeans more around the edges but leaving gaps where the other colours are.

4. Make a puddle of tattered rose and dip your card into it particularly where you have blended that colour- Dry.

5. Repeat with victorian velvet and faded jeans.

6. Blend frayed burlap around the edges and lightly in other areas to get a more vintage feel to the colours.

7. Stamp the shrubbery in the lower left hand corner ...

8. .... I also masked off most of it to add a longer stem up wards to fill the left hand side completely. I also used a black drawing pen to add some little bits to make it all look as though it is one image.

Dipped edges into black soot puddle to get darker distressed outline.

Mounted into black journal.

Supplies

TH - DIs - victorian velvet, tattered rose, faded jeans, frayed burlap

TH - Stampers Anonymous - Urban Tapestry CMS061,  Watercolor CMS217

Halloween Backgrounds - Distress inks and sprays

 Been playing with a variety of colours to make some distress backgrounds for potential Halloween backgrounds. I like most of them lol.

Playing with Distress Watercolor Pencils - choosing the right stamps to colour up.

 Playtime just for me recently - no challenges or FB posts to think about just me wanting to explore how different stamps would work with the Distress Watercolor Pencils (DWPs) how they would stamp, the effects achieved and what to look out for when choosing my next stamps to work with.

Process steps -

Create a distress background with the dip, drip and dry method.

I haven't photographed it but I used a stamp platform for this technique which allows me to stamp over the same image as many times as I want as long as I don't remove the stamp.

I used wet DWPs on the stamp to get some depth of colour. To get them wet I just dipped them in a jar of water for a few seconds to activate the pigment and scribbled over the places I wanted the colour to be.

This stamp is from an old set of Tim Holtz stamps - Distress Damask CMS190 and although I love the damask designs this is definitely a stamp I would not use with the DWPs again. The etching of the stamps is so fine in many places the pigment from the pencils just lay in the tiny crevices and it was very hard to get a good outline of the images in it.

I will definitely add this to my new watercolour book as a reference point reminding me to look for stamps that have nice flat areas and space to get a good stamp from the coloured images.

Here you can see that I lay my wet pencils on a piece of kitchen roll between dippings and at times some colours might get to close to other pencils and leave some pigment behind on them.

I gently use damp kitchen roll or a babywipe to clean them up and leave them out for a while to dry out before putting them back in their tins.

xxx

Let's use more words

 So today's project is using words again for the challenge at Country View Crafts and Challenges FaceBook page which lasts the whole of January.

Hello Winter

I decided to use the same stamp as I did on my first project but use it in a completely different way, this time it was stamped onto vellum paper. 

I used a background that I had made for a frame that was my project for a workshop at CVC before Christmas, 

plus a photobooth vintage photo, 'Hello Winter' from a set by Creative Expressions and a small flower.

I die-cut foliage, some of which I wanted white and the other pieces were cut from an inked background, coloured randomly with watercolour pencils, washed over and when dry sponged lightly with white gesso to create a wintry effect.

I chose to use the card frame from an Ikea small box frame and later added embossed card to it.

Having cut the strips, I covered the frame and gave it a coat of gesso to fill in the cracks where the strips were glued down.

Once the background and frame were added to the box I adhered all the other elements to finish it off.

I put the foliage together ....

.....and I am really in love with the extra grungy Eucalyptus leaves .....

..... the flower gained an addition, a shabbied medallion inspired by Stacy Hutchinson .....

..... and don't forget the photobooth photograph by Tim Holtz.

Thank you for stopping by. 

xxx

Gelli Plate Printing - DecoArt Media Team

In July last year I was over on the DecoArt Media Blog with the process steps and outcomes of  trying out some mixed media style gelli printing. I am not a complete newbie to the gelli plate and have played on numerous occasions to get some background prints to use in my journals - on this occasion I thought about the steps I normally take to create mixed media layers for my art work and how I could use the gelli plate to create the distressed and peeled paint looks I so love.

Gather supplies and choose your paint palette. Gelli Art kindly sponsored the plate and brayer for the DecoArt Media Team members and it was great to experiment for my July project. I chose to use parchment paper to pull my prints from the plates.

Please note in working through my process steps - I made sure each layer was dry before adding the next. I also had a second gelli plate I used as a palette and brayered on all the leftover paints as I used them. I stenciled on this plate as well and left it to dry at the same time. It provided a second lot of prints.

Step 1. Roughly brayer some phthalo blue and titan buff paints over the surface and leave to dry, as it does randomly dab off some of the paint with dry kitchen paper.

Used a harlequin stencil and burnt umber to add a random design.

Step 2. Brayer a thin coat of white over the layers and pull a print. Here you can see the print on the right and what was left on the gelli plate on the left. So far so good.

Step 3. Use another stencil and colour, I sponged on a mix of burnt umber and titan buff.. The plate on the left is the one I'm working on to pull the focused steps prints - the plate on the right is the one I am using to roller off the excess paint between layers and colours. It looked good enough to use as well but I will wait to the end before I pull a print from it.

Step 4. Using some very old 'Reflections' text stamps with black archival ink I did some random stamping.

Step 5. Now to see what happens when I brayer over a thin coat of cream and white paint and pull the prints from both of the plates - oooh will it work? Now it's becoming a bit of a competition to see how they both respond!
Yay I'm really happy with these.

Step 6 - Both plates had painty bits left on them so I repeated the thin layer over with just titan buff and still got two more prints that are serviceable. You can even see an area on the plate 2 print where some paint I had left on from another project came off too.

What did I learn or what would I do differently next time?

In Step 1 when I dabbed off some of the thicker paint layer it would be better to dab more off so there are larger random distressed spaces. This is so that more of the following layers will show though.

In Step 4 the stamping needed to be seen through the gaps, therefore it worked much better on plate 1 than plate 2 where there were no distressed spaces.

The results in Step 5 showed me that by not rubbing off some paint in some of the layers on plate 2 there was much less depth and interest in the prints. This seems to be a key feature of achieving the peeled paint and distressed look.

In Step 6 if I had stamped or maybe used a stencil I would probably have achieved more depth and interest again.

I really love the feel of the prints on the parchment paper and when it came to stamping and cutting images it was a boon for small parts like antennae as it doesn't tear easily.

So I certainly learned a lot and have a much better understanding as to how I could recreate similar prints. My next step is to experiment with drippage and splattering in the layers but for now I can still use them as after techniques to add to some of the lovely prints I achieved.

****************

For the project I chose the print that looked very much like a timeworn shabby wallpaper to me, mounted it onto brown paper and ....

.... then I selected all the elements I thought would build a beautiful shabby vintage design.

I took one of the plainer gelli prints and I stamped the Gypsie Queen moth as the key focal element using the stamping platform and a blend of coffee, watering can and cobalt archival inks. I cut one to use and one that I will keep in my bits box. The words are mine created on the PC and printed out.

I found a stamped clock face to add as well.

The transfers provide great background interest for the fame.

Step 8: For the project I chose the print that looked very much like a timeworn shabby wallpaper to me, mounted it onto brown paper and ....

Photo Step 8

Step 9: .. then I selected all the elements I thought would build a beautiful shabby vintage design.

Photo Step 9

Step 10: I took one of the plainer gelli prints I had pulled and I stamped the Gypsie Queen moth as the key focal element using the stamping platform and a blend of coffee, watering can and cobalt archival inks. I cut one to use and one that I will keep in my bits box.

Photo Step 10

Step 11: I found a stamped clock face to add as well. 

Photo Step 11

Step 12: Some new mixed media transfers from Andy Skinner provide great background interest for the fame.

Photo Step 12

Once compete I added it to a journal.

xxx

Supplies

Gelli Arts 5 x 7 gelli plates and a brayer

DecoArt Premium Acrylic Paints - phthalo turquoise, titan buff, burnt umber, titanium white

Stencils

Parchment paper

Reverse text stamps (an old set from Tim Holtz called Reflections)

Black archival ink

Embellishments to make up the project -

Andy Skinner Mixed Media Transfers French Fancy, Gypsie Queen stamp, 

Tim Holtz shabby frame, wildflowers stems.

Cheesecloth, stamped clock face, natural foliage, american style seam binding, pin,