A study in grey (but not that "Grey")

I made this a little while ago and just haven't got round to sharing.  It's a return to some of my favourite things, paint, layers, distress and image transfer all in a monochrome palette with just a hint of pink pulled out from the image transfer. 

Lots of layers of paint and washes, candle resit work, scratching, sanding more layers of paint washes, stencilling and stamping. to get a really subtle background of layers and contrast, nothing too jarring on the eye.

The tulip image transfer was on top of some book text which you cant see but I wanted there just in case the image didn't take and I wanted the contrast of the text peeping through the image.  Once the backing was removed, some sanding to distress and then stencilled the circles, these has pencil on them s well in green and grey just to give some shadow and contrast.  White pencil round the edge (still loving this shabby rough framing) and a lot of layers of Gloss glaze to seal and brighten the image.  

I didn't want the image transfer to sit too proud of the work and be the final top layer, so hence the stencilling over it and the text stamp in grey embossing powder.  Just to bring the colour from the tulip out I ran over the text embossing in a pink water colour pencil and just "washed it" to spread the colour gently.

Sometimes its nice to just work in your comfort zone of techniques and colour and create in "your style".

Hugs
Jo
xx

Washed up on the shore.

Its been so lovely here in the UK over the past week or so that I've taken every opportunity to be out in the garden, either just soaking it up, painting or in this case painting.  One Saturday morning I just chose some brights (Cheesecake, Tango, Blood Orange) , some A4 Kraft card, an old credit card and started slapping some paint down.  didn't know where it was going, but that was OK because I was just enjoying "doing"

Added some stamping (dots text and numbers)and my oh my the two pieces of Kraft card started to turned out rather well.

I added some stencilling and cut the card into quarters.

In-between drying I nipped up to the craft room to start thinking about what to put on this base card.  I'd printed out a load of photos and one of a scallop shell fitted the colour scheme rather well.

I wanted something in-between to lift the photo from the background so it needed to be something "neutral" to act as a contrast.

Fabric. A different texture but I wanted it to be "stiff" not "soft" a bit flotsam and jetsam washed up on the shore as the scallop shell.  What if I thought I soaked some muslin in thinned out Grunge Paste to act like plaster and let it dry? 

It worked, in fact it worked a treat.  I added some thinned Toffee, glued on a paper scrap and stapled the whole piece to the background with my rusty staples.  Stuck the scallop shell image and edged in red pencil.  Which I also added to the background along with yellow pencil scribbles as well.

I left it like this for a while, but I thought it need to be lifted some more.  So took some of my scrunched up and Distress Inked Kraft card, ironing it flat and scraped some Snowflake over the top adding in some lines here and there for texture.  I was so tempted to stamp over this but said NO LEAVE IT ALONE! 

Distressed the edges bit of Snowflake and some Black Soot Distressing ink and done. 

Messy, grungy, distressed and textured. Just how I like it!

Hugs

Jo

xx

I have many hearts.

The heart is a wonderful thing, it keeps us alive, it leads us rightly or wrongly, it hurts, it holds many open and locked compartments of wishes, hopes, regrets, loss, happiness, sadness and longing.

 

Now this 12x12" canvas started out as something very different, a very red grunge paste scratched canvas (check out my Instagram to see the stages). Quite a difference eh?  

There are many layers on this of PaperArtsy: Vintage Lace, Tikka, Blood Orange  and Sherbet.  Some book text very much hidden under all that paint, more scratches and water colour pencils to define and fill in the lines.

The hearts were cut from some A4 Kraft card I'd painted and stencilled earlier with Cheesecake, Blood Orange and Tango. I used an old credit card to scrape the the paints and then added some subtle stamping with a favourite Ellen Vargo dot background stamp.I added some stencilling in South Pacific and Red Bus and some doodling in black and white pens around the circles. 

Finally some random stamping of some mini PaperArtsy stamps in black Archival and then cut out using the large PaperArtsy die.   Each heart was edged in Black Soot Distress Ink and stuck on the canvas. I edged each heart with black watercolour pen to give depth and shadows. 

Now sometimes you want to explore an idea further and I was working on this there were many times when I felt I should have stopped adding layers.  For example I can't see the book text or the stencilled lettering in blood Orange with the Tikka highlights any more which looked really good.  Equally what would the same arrangement look like with a much darker background and lighter highlights?  

Umm, the delight of art mean you can try  those ideas and see, paint and paper and boundless ideas.

Hugs

Jo

xx