Photo on Friday #3

Texture and shape intrigue me whether its nature or man made.

These poppy heads were in my garden.  I have added some heavy filters on them to blur some of the features, add a grainy effects as an overlay and softened the edges. Colour wise I went for a monochrome effect, the contrast of light and shade.

This neutral palette allows the features on the top of the poppy heads and the fragile decay on the side would show up as the strongest elements of the photo.

What would you use from this photo to make art?

Well, it's got a lot of texture

Ummmm, right I'm just putting this out there, its almost how I wanted it, but not quite.And I think I like it and then I think ummm, do I really?

What do I like?

• I love the main background.  Kraft card that has had paint (Caramel, Vanilla, Chalk), stamping (mini bricks and mini numbers), candle wax resit and crunched up to break the fibres to create the cracks, distressed edges for the rips  and then inked with Distress Ink.
• The brads in the corners
• The shading of it all with watercolour pencils (purple, brown and charcoal) to give depth
• The gold pitted and scrapped Treasure Gold covered Grunge Paste layer under the corrugated card layer
• The rusty wire, alcohol ink dyed eyelets and grungy alcohol stained staples.
• The burnt Lutrador
• The ripped, stamped and painted corrugated card.   

What don't I like?  

• Well the corrugated card top layer is too angular on the side of the small pieces.
• I wanted more of a gap between the eyelets with the rusty wire, but boy was it fiddly.
• I'm not sure about red / brown Lutrador focal point.
• And I don't know whether it works best portrait or landscape orientation. 

All great individual elements, but do they all work together? Is it too much?  Am I being over critical (do have a tendency to set high expectations)?

When I can decide which way it goes round I'll put it in a frame.  The one thing I do know is it needs a big frame with a lot of "white space" behind it so it looks as though its floating (like an island, to be honest I think the corrugated card element does look like an island!) and you are drawn to it because its the strongest visual and you aren't distracted by anything else. Framing, a border is so important.

Anyway enough pontificating. In the end its only card and I enjoyed creating.

Hugs
Jo
xx

 

Photo on Friday #2

So Spring, has it appeared in your neighbourhood yet or are you in a completely different hemisphere and facing Autumn and Winter.

Haven't really seen much evidence of Spring yet, the primroses and primula's are out in the garden and there are some tiny unfurled leaves on the roses and plum and apple tree.  The dawn chorus is starting at about 5.00am which I always love to hear. So Spring is on its way, but its a bit shy, just peeping out, just checking whether its safe to come out and play.

This was taken last year one frosty morning. You can see the water droplets on the flowers and the frost on the leaves.  Yellow is a colour I struggle with, but this soft pale lemon with just a touch of acid green stamen, the flush of purple on the stalk and the variegated greens of the leaves, well it makes me feel happy.

The filters I've added give a softness, but also a sharpness and an intensity that makes those colours sing and shout SPRING IS COMING!

So what to create inspired by this photo?  A scrapbook page for the photo, a textured background using the colours, fabric to present the furriness of the leaves? All possibilities.

What would you create?

I admit, I'm a messy crafter

OK, I've known for quite a while that I wasn't a clean and neat crafter who looked after her tools and kept in nice and clean and orderly fashion.

Now there is public evidence of my bad habits.

I completely and utterly destroyed Leandra's brayer at Stevenage and I made a scrapbook page with the photo she took.

Picking up the colour scheme from the photo I started off paint some blue card in Turquoise and Lavender.  Added some stamping using Hotpicks Xtra 8 Days and Months 3. in Aquamarine Archival.  I took the individual stamped and put on a large stamping block some horizontal and some vertical to make a grid arrangement.

Added some stencilling with Chalk and also fave it a wash with chalk to blend the colours.   I distressed the edges and added some Brown Shed to again echo the disgusting colour mess Id made of the brayer!

I drew around the photo on the page and then added some Lake Wanaka and Chalk and then used the little text circle from Emma Godfrey's Eclectica stamps No.2 to make a scallop border in Watering Can Archival. I went round the scallops with a black pen and also around the photo once it was stuck done.

I stamped a lot of the phrases from Emma's stamps in Sienna Archival, cut the appropriate ones out, edged in Black Soot Distress Ink and stuck on the page. 

The page is clipped onto my scrap board clipboard and I'm really pleased with the concept and how it looks.

And yes it really is too funny!

Hugs 

Jo

xx

Inspired by Photo on Friday #1

To try and get some discipline and routine into my crafting life (and justify taking all those photos) I've decided to post a photo on Friday and then over the weekend create something inspired from the photo.

Plus the design theme over at PaperArtsy is "Deconstruction"

I started with some corrugated card and ripped of some of the top layer.  Then put some Cheesecake and Tikka on the card. I stuck some book text scraps and Some Prima flowers on with Gel Medium, painted the Gel Medium in other places and then sprinkled rusting powder on the corrugated card and the flowers.  Sprayed liberally (and kept spraying with lemon juice and water to start activating the rusting. 

 

It takes some time but you do get rusting. I stamped the new Hotpicks Xtra 06 Days and Months  in Sienna Archival in places and then spirited some White Linen spray paint but Snowflake diluted would work just as well to soften the effect.  

The flowers were painted with Cherry Red and Tango and then I then started adding Turquoise and Cherry Red in areas especially the edges and let them drip. I also added some fish stamping from Hotpicks 1111 in Aquamarine Archival.

For the centre I used some off cuts of metal used in another project that I'd distressed and aged. Cut these into strips and stapled them together to echo the pile of metal in the photo. The ring of wire was twisted and sanded to reveal some of the copper beneath and some scraps of painted cotton knotted on.  Finally a scrap of card stamped with seaside fresh air from Hotpicks 1111.

 

On this occasion I've made the focal point in the centre, but I think it would have worked just as well bottom right and exposed more of the background.  Lots of juxtaposition of textures and the colours tone but with a couple of pops of complimentary colour to add to the contrast.

Hugs

Jo

xx

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Photo on Friday #1

I like taking photos, I like looking at what nature has created, what man has created, seeing shapes, decay, texture and colour.  Not only do my photos record the events in my life, but inspiration for my art. 

This was taken on the Quay in Peel on the Isle of Man in August 2014.  Bars and bars of rusty oxidised iron weathered by the air and salt.  It has had some filters added to give the Bokeh (spots of light) effect and to sharpen the tone.  My favourite filters site is Pixlr but there are many others out there.  

This photo inspires me to think about how I might replicate the colour and texture using paint and mediums.  Which oranges and reds and browns?  The pale yellow, possible hints of greens and how to get the grainy feel and look using gel mediums, texture paste, embossing powders? 

In itself it is a beautiful photograph and could be used on its on as a focal point in a composition.  But it also conjures up heart-warming, secret little smiles on my face, nostalgic memories of our walk along the Quay at Peel, heading towards the castle, listening to the gulls and the sea. 

Seeing, hearing, touching, feeling.

What inspires you?

Scrappy postcards

On most things I can be quite ruthless in chucking away, I hate to be surrounded by clutter I like space around me, order, it calms me.  but what I struggle to chuck out is bits of fabric, paper and card.because you know "it might be useful" that tiny less than an inch long piece of card. 

I store them in a box and coloured themed sandwich bahs ready to use and then I never use. 

Until now.  

Now I've started to make postcards 6x4" with all those little bits and its quite therapeutic, and now I have a stash of postcards.  But hey, they are nice to look at and I could send them as happy mail!

This one started as a 12x12" Kraft master board with tissue paper and Grunge Paste stencilling to add texture and then various green PaperArtsy chalk finish paints to add colour and further stencilling.  I then added one of photos that has had Rock Candy crackle medium added, edges distressed and inked and stapled to a tag. A scrap of linen to add more texture. The stamping is from Emma Godfrey's new range of stamps.

This postcard started as a scrap of a master board, i tor the right-hand edge and glued to a piece of Kraft card.  The purple flowers are  from this set of JoFY stamps.  I stamped and embossed and then coloured in with water colour pencils. Three mini tags to balance the composition.

Sometimes its just nice to create to just for the sake of creating, letting your mind wander without a fixed outcome.

Hugs

Jo

xx

Aiming to Create (ATC)

The miniature theme over at PaperArtsy sure makes you think.  Before Id even thought about doing a really mini book (Hidden Words) I wanted to work on a ATC (artist trading cards)  and I wanted to do it in fabric with a shrink plastic heart button.  Id got the idea all mapped out and even made the ATC by Bondawebbing (I now its not a word, but you know what I mean) some cotton to some felt and cut the ATC out.  And then that mini book idea hit and had to be done there and then.

So this morning I returned to the ATC.

 

I stitched round the edge and stamped and embossed in Primary Bark WOW powder the two alphabets.  I added some stencilled dots of Tinned Peas and smudged some Nougat over the text with my finger.

The brown tag was cut to fit the ATC, scrunched up to get creases and then those creased sanded to reveal the core. I used a white ink pad to stamp one of the alphabets on the tag as well.

The heart was black shrink plastic that I cut with the PaperArtsy full heart die.  Punched two holes (so that  could sew the heart to the tag) and then shrank with my heat tool.  I then painted it in Brown Shed and sprinkled some Distress Embossing powder in Barn Red  to give a rusty look. 

On the ATC I sewed some scraps of sari silk that had some red dots on it with embroidery cotton..  Sewed the button to the tag and then sewed the tag to the ATC.

I think I;ll add this to my small poetry art journal that I use to mop up spare paint, its getting quite full now with painted pages, I need to start adding other "stuff" like this ATC to complete the pages.

Hugs

Jo

xx