Adventures in texture

So, you know me, I like to create stuff that has a lot of texture and and it quite toned possibly muted in its colour scheme.

Well here is another one!

Crackle does fill me with delight, all that texture and shabbiness.  I'm a great fan of PaperArtsy Crackle Glaze but at Ally Pally Leandra showed me two new products she was selling: Golden Gel Medium Crackle Paste and Dreamweaver Crackle Embossing Paste.   they are very different to Crackle Glaze as you don't need paint as a bottom layer to see the cracks (I called it the jam sandwich, paint, crackle, paint at Ally Pally). You get the cracks and then put colour on the top and the colour (ink or paint) sinks into the cracks and makes them darker. Think tonal rather than contrast. Both need thicker layers than you would with Crackle Glaze and the Golden takes an age to dry, but the effects are quite stunning and I like. 

So this one, I first of all created the central panel with the Dreamweaver on a thick piece of Kraft card. Once dry (about an hour but you can speed it up a bit with a heat gun but you may get large pieces of cracked rather than fine lines of crack). Colour wise I think its its Squid Ink, Archival ink in Maroon and Magenta Hue, plus some Glimmer Mists in Bronze and Purple.  Some stamping with the new Hot Picks 1301  in Maroon and some eyelets sanded and stained with Stream Alcohol Ink. Some Spanish Topaz Treasure Gold sanding and stitching.

If you zoom in on the photo you should be able to see the cracks. It ended up quite leathery especially as the Kraft card was so thick so that sort of dictated what I'd do with, a bit industrial.

The 12x12" card was cut down to 11x11" to fit in my happy scrapbook. and was brayered with Cinnamon, Chocolate Pudding and Toffee Fresco paints, just randomly. French Roast and Chocolate Pudding were used over the metal plate stencil in the corners and then over that Mushroom through the Tim Holtz ruler stencil. A bit of sanding to knock it all back.

Stamping using Potting Soil Archival and the number stamp from Vintage ID09 and then the cogs from Hot Picks 1107 were stamped and embossed using Bark WOW embossing powder. 

The final top layer of the tag (made ages ago) and the heart were another experiment.  I recently bought a felting pad and needle to use wool roving's.  So I'd punched some roving onto felt and cut out a PaperArtsy heart.  It looked good, but "too clean" as I'd used pale roving. It need to be aged and distressed, would rusting powder work? Well lets give it a go and see!  So dabbed Versamark over the heart put the rusting powder on and liberally soaked it with vinegar and left it to react and dry.  It took ages as I'd really soaked it! It didn't give the rusting as I'd expected as it had sunk into e felt but it did make it dirty which I liked! On top is a scrap of linen, a safety pin stained with Alcohol Ink and a bit of the rusted paper the heart felt had been sitting on. 

Finally I stamped the live, work, create stamp from Hot Picks 1301 in the bottom left corner.  I first stamped in Blush fresco but I didn't press hard enough and the stamp wasn't crisp, so added a bit more blush in the area (repeated it in the other corners to make it look deliberate!) and stamped in Aquamarine Archival. the blue echos the Stream Alcohol ink used on the eyelets and the staples, but it may be a bit too bright and draw your eye to it rather than the whole thing, what do you think?

 

I'm really enjoying working in this 11x11" size and putting in my happy scrapbook (or is it a journal???), cuts down the amount of canvas lying around the house!

Right for once it is a glorious bank holiday here in The Shires and I think yet again I need to do something in the garden rather than just willing it to happen! If I do some strenuous digging and weeding it can replace a tortuous session in the gym today. 

Hugs

Jo

xx

  

Gelli delight!

Well inspired by Pam over on the PaperArtsy blog this week I thought I'd get my Gelli plate out and give it a go. Goodness me it's addictive! I also wanted to do some more scrap booking and this lovely photo of beach huts taken at Southwold very early as the sun was rising last summer (or it could have been the summer before actually)  was the one I wanted to use for my happy moments scrapbook (the happy moment is Southwold and the seaside).

I picked a whole range of blue fresco's and just starting putting paint on taking prints, adding more paint and stencils, taking another print etc, etc, etc! The spare paint on the brayer I just brayered on more paper to give more stuff to play with, told you it was addictive!

I then took my Ellen Vargo Eclectica stamps and followed Pam's instructions for adding the circles. I also embossed the fine scribble circle to make it stand out more as I'd gone very tonal with the mono printing and it was all very subtle.

I've fiddled and faffed around with scraps of paper, fabric, embellishments and finally came up with this layout which I'm happy with.

I added some extra stamping using Jofy seaside stamps of beach huts and some of the Hotpicks sea themed stamps.

You can't see much of the Gelli print under it all, but hey ho! 

Hugs
jo
xx

Faded rose

Texture, mixed media, tactile, monotone, these words when combined with art make me happy and when I can create art that uses all these elements it makes me really happy.

Yet again this is another one of my photos of one of the roses in my garden, it was taken last autumn and I couldn't believe the faded almost papery orange colour on the rose as it slowly died. I've used it before and I will continue to use it in my art as it is one of my most favourite images. 

For the image I took some card and painted it in soft creams and stamped some text in Watering Can Archival. I then image transferred it eh rose using PaperArtsy Satin Glaze.  One I'd rubbed off the backing paper, I put one coat of glaze on, dried it and then scrunched up the card and then added more layers of glaze.  Finally some Vintage Photo Distress Stain around the edges.  

Words cannot describe how pleased I was with this, the bits of image missing the hole on the side, the creases. It looks like an old photo that has been lying in the bottom of the box or drawer, lost and forgotten. Contented sigh.

I really wanted to make something with a lot of fabric so stuck some linen to felt using bondaweb and then hessian on top of the linen. I also used strips of different fabric to make the central fabric panel as well. 

The large panel had Grunge Paste scraped on and then through a stencil around the edges as I knew everything else would be be in the middle of the fabric so no point in stencilling there!.

I wanted to keep most of the canvas quite neutral but pick up some of the colours in the image transfer to tie it altogether.  Toffee and Irish Cream Fresco paint were added in places and a little bit of  London Bus watered down plus some Hey Pesto.

The book panel at the back used twinkling H2Os (another old collection lurking in the back of the cupboard) they gave a fantastic colour wash that I then sprayed over with watered down nougat to soften and a little bit of watered down Hey Pesto. 

Lots of stitching (once I got mum to sort my machine out, thanks mum) alcohol inked staples, eyelets, flowers, tags. tissue paperleather, felt and string (lots of texture!).

At the moment this is clipped to a large A4 clipboard, it might stay like that or I might (probably should) stick to a canvas in order to add the stairs gallery. 

I can see myself using this image quite a lot, I have three more of these cracked and distress transfers, perhaps I should make some smaller canvases and start and Etsy shop???

Hugs

jo

xx

Yellow ...well sort of

Well I brashly announced on Twitter this week that I was going to use yellow, it isn't in my top ten favourite colours list and I knew I had a lot (and I mean a LOT) of yellow Prima flowers in the hoard. So in the quest to use up stuff to justify buying new stuff (flawed logic I know, but it justifies the buying new, doesn't it???) plus a photo of the primroses in my garden that were yellow,  I set to looking for stash.

Yellow paint, as I'd expected not a lot. No Yellow Submarine from PaperArtsy, only Zesty Zing, Chartreuse, Cheesecake and Vanilla.  Bit more of a root around found some old Glimmer Mists in Lemon Meringue and Sunflower and ooh look a contrasting lemony lime green.

Paper, umm hard again. No bright yellows but some muted soft buttery yellows, plus some contrasting greeny blues. 

Years, years and years ago I dabbled in scrapbooking but came to a monumental halt as having no children I got stuck on what to scrapbook (if anyone is interested I have some old simple scrapbooking books waiting to go to a good home) and stopped.  

Recently though the world of scrapbooking appears to have moved on and is very much more about home decor as well as story telling an event or reflecting on an emotion, what makes you happy and content using a more shabby single photo style layout. 

Much more my style and the concept of capturing and recording what makes me happy appealed, as sometimes we get way too bogged down in the muddy quagmire drudge of life (I was going to insert a single swear word here but figured not everyone wants to read that single descriptive word, it works for me but I appreciate and understand it might not work for you) and we need reminding that on the whole we should be grateful and thankful for the experiences in life that make us smile, be happy and content.

I also figured that social media (Facebook ands Twitter) are sort of virtual scrapbooking tools, a photograph, a description and I use those a lot to connect with friends and family.  The photos I take and share on twitter and Facebook are going to form the backbone of my physical scrapbooking.

So I started with a sheet of 12x12" and cut it down to 11x11"to fit into my new Kraft scrapbooking album (its a justified purchase, had to buy in order to start didn't I?). Added some Chartreuse with a brayer (thank you Ellen Vargo) and then some Zesty Zing. Added some Grunge Paste to give some texture and stamping using one of the new Hotpicks from PaperArtsy (love those collage big text stamps) in Archival Monarch.  Sprayed some of the Glimmer Mists (I'd forgotten how sparkly they are) to get a "yellowish" base layer.

And then the rest of the layout is pretty much "me" style, ripped and distressed, felt (cut with one of the new Tim Holtz dies), fabric, stitching and some stamping using those lovely PaerArtsy Sarah Naumann stamps which I think I will be using a lot in this album.

I just need to add a title and I think the title of this post will work and I might do a second similar layout with the same paper and paint and add the journalling in as to why this photo makes me happy.

Happy Easter everyone.

Hugs

Jo

xx

Shabby teasel

So I'm having some well deserved annual leave from work, not doing much just pottering around, doing some crafting, catching up on sleep and looking at the garden.  I should actually be doing something in the garden but I keep hoping that by just looking at it and thinking "those weeds need to come out" it will magically happen.  Postive thinking can only go so far. John is off from Friday and has a grand plan. 

Easter is always the start of the great gardening blitz in the UK, so it will rain of course.  If nothing else the potatoes have to go in on Good Friday.  I don't know why, folklore ancient tradition, something to do with the moon, it was always what Dad did and Pap did, so we do.  

Anyway enough of the rambling.

After the grand tidy up of the craft room the other week I found quite a bit of stuff started and not finished so I thought I'd try and finish some stuff and use some stuff (there is still a lot of stuff left and I haven't put away the Ally Pally haul).

As I've said and shown before I love taking photos and I love using my photos, so this is a mixed media piece using old stuff (the canvas) and new stuff: the Crafters Workshop stencil Specimen and the butterfly stamp from the new PaperArtsy hotpicks).

I did show some sneaky work in progress on Twitter and Instagram but here it is in its entirety.

I used a neutral palette of PaperArtsy Fresco paints of Chutney, Toffee and French Roast for a really dark base layer.  Crackle Glaze and then Mocha Mousse top layer to give really big crackles.  This was washed over with watered down Nougat and then watered down Elephant to give a slightly "dirty feel" to the canvas.  All very subtle and hardly seen, but adds to the distressed aged look.

A very thin layer of Grunge Paste with Taupe was added in the middle with a little bit of texture added with the palette knife.  I mixed some more Grunge Paste with Mud Splat and used through the stencil. 

Finally some embossing of text from a new Hotpicks using Birch WOW embossing powder to complete the canvas.

I decided to image transfer the teasel using PaperArtsy Satin Glaze on linen fabric that was "BondaWebbed"  to card and then had a layer of Grunge Paste to give a smooth base to adhere the image too.  I didn't mind the "hole" where it hadn't adhered just added to the shabby look.  

Added three eyelets, distressed the edges of the card and added some Pebble and Expresso alcohol ink around the edges and the eyelets to suggest rust and mineral staining.

The butterfly was stamped on brown card in Birch embossing powder and painted in Old Gold Fresco paint.  Some metal bits for its body and Raisin alcohol ink to stain.  Around the edge of the butterfly I added some Ruby Treasure Gold which I also added in places to the canvas.  

The meccano looking peice is actually a strip of Grunge Paper painted in Brown Shed and then rusting powder added. Really happy with how that came out.  The brown of the meccano piece was echoed in the leather scallop strip and finally a tag with a strip of linen and a button.

Really pleased with the composition of this, blank spaces to rest the eyes from the texture, the colours tone through the neutral palette and there is a repeat of butterflies and holes / circles  to make it all work together as a whole.

I also finished another heavily textured peice today, I'll blog that one at some time in between willing the garden to weed itself!

Hugs
jo
xx

 

Shabby chic mini art display

I quite like using small canvases (to be honest I quite like using large canvases as well) to make my art and I've amassed quite a few and I needed somehow to display them better.

So I came up with this idea.

I got a sheet of plywood and cut it into three roughly A3 size. Gave them all a coat of birch  Eco paint,just a rough layer. Sanded it and then added soft moss rubbed on with a baby wipe and stencilled in eggshell.

Sanded them all really well to get them really distressed and reveal some of the plywood (I'd chosen a really dark sheet from the DIY store). Placed the canvases on, knocked some  nails in and voila!

The shelves have been in situ quite a while and the plywood just fits! 

I really like it, I've got a couple of gaps and I can swap the canvases around as I make more or get bored of these ones!

Simple and effective, but boy do my knees hurt kneeling on the floor to work on these boards.

Hugs
Jo
xx

Ally Pally

Well it's Ally Pally weekend and yesterday I went down on the train (so nice not to have to drive) and  had a mooch around.  Didn't really have any "I must buy" requirements but still spent a small fortune mostly at PaperArtsy!

going to shows is great (apart from spending the money), because you get the opportunity to see the products being used, get ideas, meet old friends and make new friends who all like the same stuff you do!  But the best bit for me was having the opportunity to do some demoing on the  PaperArtsy stand. It was great to show new and old PaperArtsy fans the greatness (is that a word? I don't know but it should be, Oxford English Dictionary or OED for us librarians in the know, get it added in the list!) of these products and what they can do, answering questions and finding out from people what kind of art they like to make and how they use the paints, stamps and Treasure Gold. So thank you Leandra for the opportunity, loved it!

So if you spoke to me yesterday afternoon (Saturday) about Treasure Gold and it smelling like shoe polish, which pink paints to buy, how to use crackle glaze, what's journaling all about and are you a comment maker or a lurker it was great to meet you!

Here is one of the tags I made in a steam punky Finnabair style using Grunge Paste, going to try this again, now where are all those bits and bobs?

Hugs
Jo
xx