Seedheads Panel -

Poppy Seedhead with collage 

I found a small wooden panel and decided to use chalk paints for the background and include the lovely Alison Bomber's stamps. Her love of nature and using plants and seedhead images reflects my own, so I totally resonate with her projects and ideas. So poppy seedheads it is!

Process steps

Paint a layer of london brick mixed with white and lace to tone the colour down a bit (I love mixing my own colours) and dry.

Rub some candle wax over the surface then paint with primitive, dry, rub and sand down to create some distressing.

Rub candle wax more heavily in chosen areas and paint a layer of lace and dry. Again rub and sand down.

Repeat last layer with snowflake sanding edges well to expose the wood.

Blend the edges and surface with walnut stain DO, splatter with water and pull droplets off with kitchen roll, repeat until happy with the effects.

Rub white areas with a damp cloth to lift DO and bring some brightness back to the panel.

Stamp Tim Holtz text onto surface using permanent black ink and heat dry.

Also using Tim's stamp add texture (circles) with embossing ink and use white embossing powder to create this layer.

Stamp and cut round poppies and grass. (I extended the stems of them to help make these fit to the panel size).

I started to design the panel and gather all the bits together and to achieve the look I wanted I did some mass stamping of ephemera and numbers. I'll make my next post about this and show what I used. (See also supplies listed below). 

As it's February and very near Valentine's Day I added some hearts.

The completed panel

xx

Supplies

Chalk paints - London Brick, Snowflake, Lace, Primitive,

TH DOs - Walnut Stain

TH DIs - Pumice Stone, Tea Dye, Walnut Stain

TH stamp - Ledger Script CMS241, Halftone & Rings CMS260, Paint by Number CMS483,

                   Ornate Trims CMS326, Curator CMS493

TH Small Talk

TH Heart Punch

Alison Bomber Stamps- Poppy Edition, Pressed Grasses Edition,

Miscellaneous - candle wax, real poppy seedheads (picked from a neighbour's garden, with permission lol), twine

It's Valentine's Month

 This card was made for hubby as well as a new FaceBook challenge at Country View Crafts Challenges where the theme is - 'Love'.

The background was made using Aged Mahogany Distress Stain and Tim Holtz Hearts stencil and created by mono-printing the stencil three times onto the card. Although it looks uneven and very distressed I can live with it as I knew I was going to collage over the top and therefore cover a lot of it up.

This fits an 8x8 card blank.  

The ephemera papers are mostly either from Tim Holtz Ephemera packs or cut from his paper pads.

The 3D  heart is cut from Tim's Thinlits Faceted Hearts die and VALENTINE was printed from his Valentine Silhouettes stamp set, laid out on a piece of vellum.

Here you can see how I used the vellum to create that translucent look.

These are some of the embellishing bits collected together.

The Faceted Heart has a small heart punched from one of Tim's punches and stamped with a small text stamp. The stars are also from another small punch by Tim.

Hubbly loves feeding the birds and doing a bit of bird watching from time to time so this paper came in handy.

I'm pretty sure the text letters are from a Tim die. I keep extra die-cuts in a tub so I didn't have to get the Big Shot out. You can also another of the little white hearts placed strategically in a line of hearts where there was a gap.

I also used a Season's greeting die-cut and some small snippets (also all Tim Holtz).

Thanks for stopping by.

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.

Media board for Andy Skinner

I have been having fun with chipboards for this project. I love layering up greyboard shapes but sometimes they end up protruding too high especially if you want to use some in a journal or on media boards. So for this project I have soaked some of my Andy greyboard shapes and pulled them apart and it's amazing how you can then play with distressing the layers of the greyboard and even get to put some back together again to create different shapes as I have done here.

I am using a piece of greyboard cut to the size I want as a page for the Andy book I am making.

Process Steps

Paint the greyboard with gesso but do not have too much on the brush so that this almost becomes a dry brushing technique.

Repeat with cerulean blue and prussian blue keeping the edges darker.

Scrape over some gesso with a palette knife keeping it horizontal to the board and getting a distressed look. Dry.

 Repeat with some white crackle paste and this time leave to dry naturally.

Take your chosen greyboard shapes and soak the ones you want to split into thinner pieces and distress. These can be dried with a heat gun.

I split the industrial wings into 4 pieces and took the two thinnest ones for this project. When they were dry I glued them together to create a new shape with a hole in the centre and decided to use a retro palette for the rest of the colouring up.

When they were dry the small rectangle and the heart got a coat of quinacridone red and a wash of carbon black over them.

The industrial wings had cobalt teal hue, titan buff, a tiny amount of yellow oxide stippled over them then a random wash of red iron oxide.

Back to the backboard now it's dry and cracked. Mix a watery wash of turquoise blue hue and prussian blue, paint it over and rub away immediately with a piece of dry kitchen roll. This takes the edge off the white and tones it in with the colours we originally used. It also gives us some nicely defined cracks. Seal it now with a coat of matte varnish.

Use transparent red iron oxide and yellow oxide washes to layer more colour over the background. Dry between each layer.

Use paynes grey as a thick wash to go round the edges use a water spritzer and heat gun.

Stamp the words, add your chipboards using heavy gel medium and finish them with a coat of matte varnish.

It didn't quite look finished to me so I added a few remnant rubs, then I was happy.

The colours are pretty good too. It's not a palette I've used before but I'm loving the retro feel to it.

I'm sharing a shorter version of this over on Andy's blog today for my April DT piece.

xxx

Supplies

Andy Skinner stamps - Stampendous - Curiosity and Unexplained

Andy Skinner greyboard shapes - Tando Creative - Industrial Wings, heart and miscellaneous pieces from kits.

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - cerulean blue and prussian blue, quinacridone red, carbon black, cobalt turquoise, transparent red iron oxide, titan buff, yellow oxide

DecoArt Media Speciality - white gesso, white crackle paste, matte medium, heavy gel medium, ultra matte varnish