I've been reading some stress management self help books recently to try and get some hints and tips on how to manage my time and workload and still enjoy life. One of the hints was to use your senses to distract you, to focus on something more calming, I suppose to find your happy place.
Making, seeing and touching art is one of my happy places, as is making and eating food and the quiet of early morning with just the birdsong.
Recently I've been using fabric and stitching again in my art along with texture paste, in this case Grunge Paste. To create different layers and textures, smooth and rough, light and shade (there is probably some art therapy tick box I've just ticked there in that sentence in terms of the frenzied state of mind).
I love the fact that texture / grunge paste is so smooth and silky looking in the tub, yet when you apply to something you can really rough it up to create a completely different look. As I said in a tweet a couple of weeks ago I wasn't aiming to pass smooth icing class 101!
I wanted to see if you could use embossing powder on dried texture / grunge paste to highlight the roughness so you could see the texture more, to pick out the lines I'd created with my palette knife . It did and I also got the addition of a molten glass like look as well where there were large areas of embossing powder.
I really like what I've created here, it is such a tactile piece. I love the neutral brown base layer (Chocolate Pudding and French Roast and a smidge of Squid Ink in the corners) over the texture paste but I love even more the coppery tones created by the gold stitching, embossing powder, paint and twisted wire.
What I really want to do now is work on a much bigger canvas to create similar kinds of work in different colour schemes, um how big can I go?
Right another happy place for this morning - rugby. It's the Lions Second Test, it could be noisy!
hugs
jo
xx
It's been a while I know.
I made this "recently" some time in May (see I can't actually be sure when I did make start it or indeed finish it) and I've been meaning to show it all week, but ...
Anyhow, what did I do?
Well the base is mount board that has loads of layers of Paper Artsy Fresco paints in Butternut, Pumpkin Soup, Haystack and Old Gold. You know the drill, add paint, wipe off, dry, add paint, wipe off, dry and repeat.
I then added some text stamping using Monarch Orange Archival. The lovely medallion from Lynne Perrella 004 was stamped in Archival Blue Violet. I love this colour for background stamping, it's dark but not too dark.
Over this were layers of Smoked Paprika and Autumn Fire. these make the background stamping fade nicely so sometimes there is just a hint, just a shadow of an image. and then on top of this layer I stamped the postage stamp from Lynne Perrella 009 in Blue Violet in a grid pattern, some of the images are the second and third stamp to continue the faded look.
For the pale lady I carefully painted a page torn from an old Brewers Phrase and Fable* bought from a junk shop with Smoked Paprika. I then painted just the face from the beautiful large collage stamp from the Lynne Perrella 009 plate with Snowflake stamped this on the page, quickly cleaned the stamp and then added more layers of snowflake on the page to create a pale background for when I stamped the image again in Black Versamark. The edges of the page were torn and she was glued on using PaperArtsy Satin Gloss.
When it was dry I added some Treasure Gold in Renaissance, Ruby and Florentine around the edge of the stamped image. I also flicked some watered down Old Gold to give some splats.
In the corners of the mount board I sprinkled on some Fran-tage Aged Spice Embossing Enamel and melted it to give more texture. The edges then had more Treasure Gold on them to frame it.
This took me quite a while and there were a few mishaps and versions on the way with the pale lady but I got where I wanted to be and the journey was good!
Hugs
jo
*Brewers (as it's know in the trade) if you haven't heard of it is a reference work that is packed with definitions and explanations of
many famous phrases, allusions and figures - pick a page at random and learn loads of stuff both useful and useless.
.
Well second post today (see what you can achieve when you aren't at work).
Here is my take on the PaperArtsy keyring challenge. The pastel colours are way out of my comfort range but I found a pack of fibres whilst rummaging in my stash so though I'd use them up.
AND I used shrink plastic for the first time in ages!
Now what else could I do with that shrink plastic ....
hugs
jo
xx
I was so pleased to see France as the one of the guest designers for this semester PaperArtsy craft school (it sort of feels like craft school doesn't it, inspiration, new techniques etc). I have long admired France's work so it was a joy to see her take on using PaperArtsy products.
I loved how she used the crunchy waxed kraft paper for the cover of the notebook, so here is my take on it.
I found in the supermarket a nice kraft notebook with a good solid cover, it had a design on it but I used a mixture of Stone and Mocha Mousse Fresco paints to make a nice fawn colour and covered both the front and back.
I added some Brushed Corduroy and Vintage Photo distress inks on the edges, sanding and water flicking to get a distressed look. Stamped some numbers in Coffee Archival.
I had the piece of cotton already on my desk primed with Snowflake Fresco and it fitted perfectly on the front.
I took a piece of crunchy, stamped it and then scrunched it. Smoothed it out and then brayered it in Stone. Scrunched and smoothed again and added a little bit of French Roast with the brayer.
I couldn't find my tracing paper so used a piece of handmade paper that I had knocking around. I stamped it with Coffee Archival using Background Plate 3. In places I sprinkled some WOW embossing powder in Earthtone Pepper (loving some of the shades of the WOW embossing powders especially the Primary Bark and Earthtone Pomegranate, they aren't bright and quite shabby in tone), just to add a differing shade and of colour, it's quite subtle and probably won't pick up on the photo.
These were sewed on to the cotton in toning thread.
The kraft tag had a thin layer of Stone scrapped on with a credit card and then a thin layer of Mudsplat. this was sanded to distress and then in coffee Archival I stamped Mini 62 all over. On top of the Mudsplat I stamped Mini 69 in Versamark and used Frantage Aged Ivory Embossing Enamel. Some eyelets, wire coloured with alcohol inks, a button and some string to finish it off.
And finally ribbon, yes a lot of ribbon. I've had these spools of ribbon knocking around for a log time in a box (found them whilst trying to find the tracing paper). I basically found the end of each spool, held the ends in one hand, yanked it all out and cut lengths which I tied on the wires. Once they were all on I gave them a haircut to shorten the length.
So thank you France for the inspiration, but don't aks me what I'm going to use it for!
hugs
jo
xx
Well Spring might just be on it's way here in the blustery Shires, I've managed to get two lots of washing out on the line dried and I think we can finally turn the heating off!
Yesterday was Ally Pally in London or "any excuse to buy load of not needed but truly wanted stash"! I knew I wanted the new PaperArtsy fresco colours (especially as some were "inspired" by my cat - Taupe will forever be Maise Moo colour in our house). These were indeed purchased along with some stamps, gilding flakes and Frantage embossing enamels.
You know me, I just love my monochrome neutral palette so I was dying to start using all the greys (with a bit of pansy) for contrast.
The canvas had a very dark grey (mixed Little Black Dress and Snowflake to get a charcoal) all over. there are lots of bumps and textures as it was another re-used canvas!. Then I just started adding thin layers of Elephant, Concrete and Snowflake in that order.
I added some grunge paste through a stencil at the edges. One that was dry (shock horror I went and did some housework) I added some stencilling and stamping in a darker mixed shade using Little Black Dress and Snowflake. It doesn't matter if it isn't a clean image I just wanted that "shabby distressed rubbed off look". In some places I rubbed back quite hard with a baby wipe to reveal a hint of the charcoal. The dried grunge had Pansy over the top and then some Treasure Gold in Classic, White Fire, Renaissance and Onyxite.
In the middle. I randomly used my Versamark pad over and added sticky embossing powder, heated and one it was tacky put loads of gilding flakes over. Patted them down and then rubbed off the excess. Over the top of his I added some Frantage embossing enamel in Aged Scarlet and Aged Taupe. It's a chunkier embossing powder that melts into blobs as well as a flat enamelled look. I just sort of sprinkle it on, hold the heat gun at quite a distance to start melting it. Over the top of this I added some more grunge paste through a stencil. One this had dried I pit the stencil back over the top and went over with some Treasure Gold, a bit like bumping it doesn't quite cover all the paste but I think it looks good.
Finally Madam Holbein (I think she looks a bit Tudory with that hat and ruff, hence Madam Holbein, Holbein the Younger not the older - look it up!). I painted a piece of mountboard in Elephant and Stone to give a neutral base. Stamped the lovely Lin Perrella in black ink and then started to paint her. Once I was happy with the colour I went over the top with a watered down wash of metallic glaze to give a subtle sheen. Around the edge I put some more Frantage embossing enamel and edged in black ink.
I'm really enjoying working with metallic textures at the moment, I know it's not everyones cup of tea and some of you might find it a bit too bright and blingy, but I have to admit - I'm lovin' it!
Hugs
jo
xx
Well I know it's been a little while since I blogged, but I have been making stuff just haven't been able to take any decent pictures because of lack of light seeing as we still appear to be in the grip of winter (I wonder if we'll look back at this time and go ah yes, now I can see that was the start of the ice age that sunk East Anglia, at the time we just grumbled about it being a bit cold and snowing for a long time).
I digress.
Anyway I made this recently using Lin's lovely flower from the Lin Eclectica No. 1 plate. I love the shape of the flowers and thought they would be great as 3D flowers.
I used Eggplant and Pearl Glaze to stamp the flowers on black card and then sprinkled clear matt embossing powder on them as well. Cut them out, curled the petals and added some buttons (from the old lady knitting shop - you know the type) which I dabbed with Indigo Treasure Gold. the leaves were painted in Tinned Peas and the Pearl Glaze.
The canvas is an old one that had something else on and I just RIPPED IT APART! I know how radical of me, but you know I didn't like it anymore so why keep it! I added a layer of texture paste in the middle of the canvas to cover up some of the old art work. It's so long ago since I actually made this that I can't remember what coloured paints I used but I suspect looking at it Inky Pool and Baltic Blue and possibly South Pacific. the centre panel had Indigo and Onyx Treasure Gold added through a stencil.
Various bits of stamping and some more foil (love using this) to add texture to the canvas and finally some fabric embellishment to add contrasting texture.
So, a short and hopefully sweet post today as a) I have to tidy up after our bathroom refit this week (very pleased with how it's turned out, just need to wait for the plaster to dry out before I paint) and b) I can't actually remember everything about how I made this!
hugs
jo
xx
I wanted to see if you could use embossing powder on dried texture / grunge paste to highlight the roughness so you could see the texture more, to pick out the lines I'd created with my palette knife . It did and I also got the addition of a molten glass like look as well where there were large areas of embossing powder. 
