Seaside Project 2 - Tim Holtz Seahorse frame for Country View Crafts

 Oh I do like to be beside the seaside.

'Anything Seaside' is still a challenge title for June at Country View Challenges on FaceBook.

My choice has been to decorate and make a frame that sits nicely with the idea of being beside the sea on a lovely summer's day.

I love to use up scraps and inky backgrounds and some shapes have been reworked with leftovers taken from my bits folders. I have also used a number of older dies and stamp sets.

Seahorse cut from TH Sand and Sea Bigz die. Not readily available any more. Stencilled with the new mini leaf stencil using distress crackle paste sprinkled with Tattered Rose distress glaze. Later I sanded the texture and rubbed over vintage photo and unchartered mariner distress inks. 

Starfish stamped and cut using Nautical Blueprint CMS194 and Rusty Hinge, Ripe Persimmon and Scattered Straw Distress Watercolour Pencils. Dried and overstamped with Vermillion archival and Scorched Timber distress ink. Over that I applied distress crackle paste and when the crackles had appeared and it was dry I rubbed in walnut stain distress ink.

The frame and background in the aperture were created just by dipping into DWP puddles and drying. Distress crackle paste was applied round the edges and had unchartered mariner rubbed into them when dry. Splattered with white ink.

The sentiment is my own,produced on the computer.

xxx

Tim Holtz Products

Collage Frame

Stamps - Nautical Blueprint CMS194

Distress Watercolor Pencils - Rusty Hinge, Ripe Persimmon and Scattered Straw, Salvaged Patina, Broken China, Blueprint Sketch, Weathered Wood, Walnut Stain.

Sizzix Dies - Wildflowers 1 and 2 

Deco Leaf mini stencil

Distress glaze - Tattered Rose

Distress crackle paste

Revisiting old techniques - watery layers with stencilled textures

Here's another of my techniques and layer combinations using acrylic paints. I like to turn to these when needing some inspiration and I have been documenting them on media boards as a resource.

You will find them added to my Tutorials and step x steps page found on my sidebar.

This one - Watery Layers with Stenciled Texturen- I taught at Ministry of Mixology in April 2019.

Process steps
1. Apply black modeling paste through a stencil. Leave to dry.
2. When the paste is dry paint a coat of white gesso over the whole piece.
3. Paint watery acrylic washes over the whole surface and dab with some kitchen paper to remove some of it from the gesso. Dry.

4. Mix a little prussian blue hue 50:50 with glazing medium and paint over the tag and gently rub back with dry kitchen roll and a babywipe keeping the dark blue to the edges.

5. Mix a little quinacridone gold with water, dribble on one place spritz with water and move around and dab some off with dry kitchen paper before drying. Repeat in another couple of random places.

6. Mix a little paynes grey with water and dribble around the edges, spritz with water and dry. I worked on about a 2 inch spread at a time.

7. Using a small brayer, roll carbon black paint over the raised areas, if some catches in the background don’t worry it adds to the distressed look.



Or a little different -

 

Step 1- Apply some gesso to the  board, squidge it on the craft mat/palette. Dry
Step 2 - Use white modeling paste with white with acrylic paint added to it and apply through a stencil - leave to dry.
Step 3 - Add some dip, drip and dry washes.
Step 4 - Lightly sand raised textures to get some of the colour back.
Step 5 - Add some splatters.
Step 6 - Using a palette knife drag clear crackle glaze around the edges and leave to dry.
Step 7 - Cover crackles with titanium white antiquing cream, leave to dry and wipe back.
Step 8 - Sand the edges and add some quinacridone gold and prussian blue around the edge to frame it.

xxx

Stencilled background with acrylic paints - new technique

I have been revisiting old techniques and posting them recently but this one came out of the blue and is now a new technique I'm sure I will call on often.
I was so excited at the results of the layers building this background and made it into a card for this post.

Process steps

1. Scrape a layer of tinting base over the card using a palette knife.

2. Mix a watery wash using the most tiniest pin prick amounts of cobalt teal and grey paint. Dip and dry.

3. Into what is left of the wash add a tiny amount of primary yellow and repeat step 2.

4. Mix a new wash of prussian blue and repeat step 2.

5. Add tiny dots of the yellow, cobalt and prussian blues on a palette. Take a stencil, a small blender with blending foam and a water spritzer. Spritz over the stencil so water goes through onto the background, pick up tiny amounts of one or two of the colours at a time and blend through the stencil and dry.
See this technique also stepped out for a Spring card.

6. Use embossing powders and a text stamp for interest.

7. Spread some resist paste randomly over and paint over a layer of olive grove leave to dry.

8. Rub away with dry kitchen towel and a wetwipe to reveal most of what is underneath again - some of the original background seemed to fade - did I rub too hard?

9. Repeat step 7 using eternal chalk paint this time.

10. Repeat step 8.

11. Scrape some random patches of white crackle paste around the edges and leave to dry.

12. I found that some of the crackle dropped off when I went back to it and I'm sure it must have been because of the resist paste, so I gave it a coat of soft touch varnish and again left to dry. That sealed it in place.

I also made a technique bord using different colours
step 2 - phthalo turquoise and medium grey.
step 3 - add naphthal red
step 4 - prussian blue.
step 5 - create different mixes using naphthal red, diarylide yellow, cerulean blue, prussian blue, titanium white, titan buff - going back over the shapes with different blends of colours to create overlays and depth.

Love the Moroccan/Spanish feel to the design and to see what different effects can be achieved.

xxx

CELEBRATE at A Vintage Journey - shabby vintage frame

Over at AVJ we are asking everyone to share what they are celebrating in their art and craft at the moment. I always think there is so much to celebrate and enjoy in the artistic and creative world we live in.

For me the celebration comes at many different times - often when I have created something I feel very proud of;  when I've devised a new technique that gives a great result;  when I see some of my artwork in print;  when I have finished a workshop and the attendees love what they have done or when I've simply had a fabulous session of creating on my own or with a group of friends.

This piece today was inspired by family. My daughter married about 15 months ago and I'd made quite a few of these shabby hearts for the invitations and for decorations at the reception.

As I am working with only one hand fully functioning (I've dislocated my left shoulder so that arm is in a sling) I thought I would use one to celebrate both family and all things shabby vintage.

Process steps - dry between painty layers
1. Seal a piece of greyboard with white gesso, dabble, dip and dribble some burnt umber paint,  add some raw umber around the edges and also add some splatters,
To break it up drag some random thin layers of gesso using the flat of the palette knife.

2. Tear and adhere some tissue collage papers. Sand the edges and blend in some brown distress ink. Add a little colour to the images. I used cadmium red hue, titanium white and titan buff.

3. Take the small media board and seal with a coat of white gesso. Scrape a layer of white crackle paste using a small piece of credit card type plastic, keeping it flat so it is an uneven layer. When dry dribble, spritz and dry a couple of different pink mixes , dry and repeat with titan buff. Sand and blend brown distress inks round the edges.

4. Take a deep shadowbox frame and adhere metal corners onto it., then stipple some gesso over the insides and outsides. When dry add a little watery pink to the corners then sand and distress the edges like before. Seal with a coat of varnish.

5. Assemble. To finish I painted a little TH star painted with the deeper pinkier colours to bring the heart into the feel of the whole piece. I chose a star because that is the symbol my daughter loves and for me has come to represent my children, their spouses and our grandchildren.

I also lifted the panel to give it quite a bit of height within the frame.

So let's see what you're celebrating in your artwork this month.
Pop over to A Vintage Journey and join the fun.

xxx

DecArt products

Media white gesso, white crackle paste, 

Media fluid acrylics - raw umber, burnt umber, used cadmium red hue, titanium white, titan buff.

Deep Sea Fishing - Mixed Media Board with clay - Andy Skinner Creative Team

I am still having fun with some new Andy Skinner products and today I am sharing this media board on Andy's blog.

Process steps

Take a piece of greyboard and cut to size. Firstly layer gesso with a palette knife - dry and repeat round the edges with white crackle paste. Again leave to dry.

Blend layers of blues and browns media fluid acrylics until you are happy with the background. I kept it fairly light at this stage with ideas of stencil textures and dripped inks through it. 

I rollered out some clay and stamped it with the 'Dem Bones' fish stamp several times and dried with a heat gun.

After giving them two coats of gesso I painted and spritzed water over until I was happy with a mottled background and then gently rubbed titanium white over the raised areas with my finger.

The seabed is made up of coloured up cheesecloth and ....

.... die cuts roughly painted and just left as they are.

As I was laying out the design I still wanted to add some text or texture in the background but my brain was also saying no that would look too busy. So as they say know when to give up before you over do it! So I left it apart from some simple splatters of paint ....

.... until everything was glued on and I just couldn't resist adding some prussian blue drippage under the fish.

For a change this worked out similar to how I wanted it to. I was originally thinking about fossil displays but I'm really quite happy with this.

xxx

Supplies from Country View Crafts

DecoArt Media white gesso, white crackle paste, matte medium

DecoArt media fluid acrylics - cerulean blue, prussian blue hue, sap green, burnt umber, translucent white, titanium white, raw umber, dark rey V6, titan buff

Andy Skinner stencil - Inspire

Andy Skinner stamps - Dem Bones
Archival inks - coffee, watering can, olive

Gelli plate mixed media - Andy Skinner

A had some fun time creating a layered collage using the gelli plate, decoart premium acrylics and Andy Skinner stamps and transfers and am sharing this on Andy's blog today.

Using a gelli plate print from a pile made whilst experimenting for a decoart blog post I stamped the gunge wallpaper in tea rose and added one of the French Fancy transfers and sewed round the edges leaving some of the cotton threads free.

A piece of green core'dinations paper sealed with matte medium and given a light edging of white crackle paste, finished with a watery wash of cadmium red and white gesso

Another gelli print left over for the backing layer stamped with enigma using watering can archival ink and some white gesso scraped around the edges. The 'screws' in the corners were left over from a previous Andy project.

The crackled frame and the flower were in a bits box and came out to be fitted into the layers. The sentiment is my own produced on the PC. The vintage lady is from my own collection of photographs.

This measures about 7 x 5 inches which is the size of the gelli plate I used.

It is now in my black vintage visual journal.

xxx

Supplies from Country View Crafts

Andy Skinner stamps, stencils, transfers, Quick Grab glue

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics and Mediums