Thursday 27 March 2014

Spring Tulips - PaperArtsy style!

Well my month rolls around fast and tonight my latest creation for PaperArtsy went live on their blog. 

If you haven't seen because you aren't a follower of PaperArtsty do pop over and have a look at what I made but also all the other great artists as well, loads of inspiration if you are at all arty!

The stamps and paints produced by PaperArtsy are some of my all time favourite products to work with with and Mr & Mrs PA are the nicest people as well!

Until next time.

hugs
jo
xx


Sunday 23 March 2014

Roses on a brick wall


Well I said there would be more roses (I know I said it ages ago, but better late than never) and here they are! 

I started off with a small canvas that had PaperArtsy Chartreuse (from the Lin Brown Limited Edition) paint all over. I then stamped some tissue paper with one of my favourite PaperArtsy collage stamps (I basically love all the Ink & the Dog collections and often leave them uncut to use as a whole plate in this way) in a green ink.  Painted the back of the tissue paper in chartreuse and glued this on and ripped away (see top right, a happy mistake as it wrinkled and tore as I was gluing, so just helped it a bit more!) in places and scrunched it up a bit in places as well. 

Over this I added a thin layer of Grunge Paste, not neat and certainly not smooth!

Once this was dry I added more Grunge Paste through the bricks stencil and left to dry.

Now for the painting. 

Lots of light layers to get the look of aged bricks using the Seaweed, Chutney and Tikka paints.  I really wanted the keep the definition of the bricks, so I used quite a dry brush technique (squirt a blob of paint on your craft sheet, add paint to to your brush, work it in a bit by dabbing on your craft mat and then wiping of the excess on kitchen roll) and basically dabbed the paint on. 

I jut kept adding layers seeing what gave the best look and used a little bit of Little Black dress to touch the edges of the bricks as well. 

I also added a bit of Tikka around the edges of the canvas to edge it and give that look of staining you often see on walls.

The roses were made in the same way as the blue roses from my last PaperArtsy post (ok I'll be honest they were spare ones left over!) and I added a Lin Brown sentiment on a scrap of linen in plum ink and some Vintage Photo Distress ink on it to, well - distress!.

I have to say this includes some of my favourite techniques to make shabby distressed art and I'd quite like to replicate the tissue paper and brick stencilling on a much larger canvas with a whole bunch of trailing leaves and flowers or use as a background for some of flower photographs, and I could image transfer them ...

Arggh, to many ideas not enough time!

hugs
jo
xx






Sunday 16 March 2014

Dark Heart

Sometimes you just need to go dark and grungy.

This has actually been made quite a few weeks but I just haven't got round to blogging it (lazy madam I know).

I felt the need after I'd been doing quite a bit of design work for PaperArtsy to just let rip with paint texture, metal treasure gold and embossing powder, no stamping and no real plan in mind apart from the idea of the embedded heart.  


And to be honest that's just what this canvas has.

It was thoroughly lovely just scraping Grunge Paste on, slapping Fresco paint on, sprinkling Frantage embossing powders on and stippling Treasure Gold on to make a lovely textured piece.


What do I love about it? Well:

The texture, I just love Grunge Paste (have I said that before - yes loads of times Jo and you know it!), I love how it can be a thin layer, a thick layer, smooth or pitted depending on the "look"what you want to achieve.

The heart, cut from Grunge Paper using my favourite PaperArtsy die it was sunk in the Grunge Paste, painted and embossed and then edged in Oil Pastels.I heated these and they melted to give definition and another layer of gloss, when you heat the oils they sort of melt and sink in and intensify the colour.

The splodges of London Bus Fresco paint add some pop and give a matte contrast to the high sheen of the Embossing powders and the dull metal of the Old Gold Fresco paint.

The linen and hand made paper scrap combo to add another texture. the stamp is one of Lin Brown's new ones and I think it really echos the art that even when your  heart feels dark and hidden , somewhere every day there is a chink of light, of happiness, of joy to make the heart beat faster, for it to sing and emerge from the darkness and remember that life is worth living. 

Very profound I know but art should say something and it should come from the soul, doesn't have to mean its a tortured soul, happy souls are good as well!

Right well no crafting for me today I have lovely family visiting for lunch so its all about cooking (still crafting really as in creating and still from the soul).  I'm trying a nw recipie today, Jamie Olivers Empire roast lamb, its been marinating all night and is about to go in the oven - wish me luck!

hugs
jo
xx