It's not what you know.....

Ages ago me and Emma Blake were having a discussion about how popular girls and faces have become in art journaling.  I said I didn't 'do' that kind of thing - seriously, it's not my kind of thing at all!

She innocently said, well, you can't be good at everything.

Red rag to a bull!!!

So I painted this little lady in gouache on a small tag, never realising what would happen next.

Scroll forwards several months and my mate, Lou Withers was badgering poor Kay Halliwell- sutton (of IndigoBlu fame) to get me on her DT and she took some of my work down to show her.  By this time I'd done another girl with an owl but didn't think I'd do any more.

Next thing I know, I'm getting a phone call from Kay.  Would I like to be on the DT and oh, by the way, she'd like to make stamps out of the girls with animals.  Talk about shocked!!!

The long and the short of it is, two friends I already had, and a new one I gained, were instrumental in me having my artwork made into a range of stamps.  How cool is that??

Thank you so much Emma Blake, Lou Withers and Kay Halliwell-sutton.

The set of three stamps can be purchased from the IndigoBlu website HERE

Father's Day Blog Hop with IndigoBlu

The IndigoBlu DT are having a Father's Day Blog Hop and you can save 20% off the main stamp sets used until 17th June! These stamps are great for all masculine cards, whatever the occasion. The details and links to the other blogs can be found at the bottom of this post.

I don't have much in the way of masculine stamps but I did have the Travelling Home stamp set from IndigoBlu so I picked out a few words and images and stamped them in sepia Versafine on Kraft card.


You can stamp the whole thing and then cut out what you want but I just inked the bits I wanted and wiped away any excess ink from the stamp before stamping.

 Next I drew out the word DAD onto Kraft - you can print off the word and trace down, use die cuts or a laser cutter if you don't want to go free-hand.

Then I painted in the letters with Burning Bonfire acrylic paint mixed with a little Gesso and overstamped in Sepia Versafine using the Circle Dots Collectors Edition #6 stamp.

I outlined with a black pitt pen and then a white posca and finally cut the word out.  I also cut out the words I'd stamped earlier.

Working directly onto a DL Kraft card blank I randomly stamped in sepia with the Circle Dots and the cogs from the Take the Time stamp set.  I used Burning Bonfire and white Gesso to spatter the background.  I didn't have an 'are' on the stamp set so I used a calligraphy pen and wrote it myself.

I messed about with the layout of the words until I was happy and then glued them down.  To make everything pop (and match the DAD) I highlighted the letters in white and went round the cut outs with white and black pens and a little of the Burning bonfire applied with a brush.

Finally I edged the card with white and black pens, and added some cogs from my stash.

The following stamp sets have a 20% discount until 17/06/18

Travelling Home 

Steampunkesque 

Grand Tour II

Grand Tour III

The Draughtsman

Fly High 

Drive Hard

Circus Alphabet

Use discount code FD20

at the checkout

Why not 'hop' on over to the other Design Team's blogs for more inspiration? 

Kay

Sue

Emma

Linda

Julie

Carolyn

Lou, Let Loose

Yes they've let Lou Withers loose on Hochanda again, this time with IndigoBlu, and she's launching three new colours in the Artists Acrylic range.

Here are some of the samples I did for the show using the lovely new colours

Indigo Blue

Is a deep rich transparent blue/purple that works so well with the existing range, shown here with Burning Bonfire and 

White Gesso

Duck Egg

This incredibly subtle transparent green/blue has been used in the background of this piece, layered over white gesso.  Two coats of the Duck Egg were used but you could keep on going.  The flowers were painted with Mulberry Bush and our final new colour....

Ugly Duckling

There's nothing ugly about this warm sepia brown which can be mixed with other colours or used on it's own as shown here on the poppies.  Great for all your vintage and shabby projects.

Finally here's a piece that uses all three new colours together.

You can buy all three new colours as a set HERE from Hochanda

The Wonders of (IndigoBlu) Rice Paper

Thanks to Leonie Pujol, I've ditched the baby wipes in favour of cleaning up with rice paper, IndigoBlu Rice Paper to be precise. 

It covers a multitude of sins.....

This was part of a piece that I messed up with dodgy stamping so I stuck some rice paper over the mistake.

This was a mini canvas where the background had gone wrong.  I generally cover my canvases with watercolour or mixed media paper before painting - mostly because I'm too lazy to wait for gesso to dry and I can rip it off if it goes awry - but when I ripped the paper off this, most of it stayed stuck....bring on the rice paper!

Finally, and not a mistake, rice paper is brilliant for covering curved surfaces.

All of these samples were made for Louise Withers' IndigoBlu show on Hochanda on Friday 18th May at 12 and 4pm.  Be sure to watch, as she's showcasing new acrylic colours and you can see the stunning work from the IndigoBlu design team......and buy some rice paper!

Miss Dorothy Leng

This is what I call one of my temporary installations because I'm using valued bits of memorabilia that I can't bear to glue.

When I found this photograph of an unknown woman on the web, I just had to use her.  She's nothing to do with me or my family....but that face!

Most of us have or will have to clear out a loved one's home at some point and, if we're lucky, will come across small treasures of somebody else's memories.  Chances are that we'll never know what they meant or where they came from but they create a connection between us and the past that's both mysterious and beautiful.

Scraptastic

Like every crafter, I've always got loads of scraps of paper and 'bits' on my desk (with the stuff I can never find buried under) so I decided to make use of them.

This month's challenge to myself is to just use up what I already have - including half-finished stuff.

This was an Ecoline ink pick-up but on rubbish watercolour board and it's been drying by the radiator for about a month!

So I gathered all the scraps from my desk and started sticking.

I don't really think about what I'm doing, it's just to add texture.  Most of it won't be seen by the end but it does make a difference to the finished project.

I used Talens Pearl Medium through an Inkylicious stencil and let that dry.

Next I went in with the Brushos and water spray.  I was interested to see how they would react with the pearl medium.

It looked really vibrant whilst it was wet but sadly the colours faded as it dried.

I'd got a few sheets of rice paper that I've been cleaning up with so I stuck those over the right half of the piece then I treble stamped IndigoBlu's Big Butterfly 2, with Seedless Preserves then Spiced Marmalade oxides and white gesso in the middle and again with black Versafine above and below

Using a black Ecoline brush pen I shadowed the 'Dream' and the butterflies.

It still looked not quite right so I did a bit of random stamping, added a moth I'd previously stamped on acetate, the eye and the sun.


I've decided to have a go at the Creative Artiste challenge blog with this.  You can find it here.....

http://creativeartistemixedmedia.blogspot.co.uk

Wish me luck!

Year List (you'd have to be a birder)

In the (some might call sad) world of birding, we keep lists.  I won't bore you with the details but one is a year list.

New little note book and a piece of copper led to this.  It's a bit rustic but as I'm the only one using it, I won't mind the wonky edges.

I cut the copper sheet slightly smaller than the cover of the book, then traced the outline of the copper before sketching out my design.

The birds at the top and the 'list' were taken from a Clarity stencil.  I printed the 'year' off the computer and traced them all through and drew the puffin and owl.

I placed the tracing over the copper and used a biro to go over the design.

Then working from the back and using an embossing tool, I went over everything I wanted raised on the front.  There's a lot of too-ing and fro-ing with this to get the detail and definition.

I (stupidly, it turns out) decided that I wanted to make the area around the birds look like beaten copper, so used the pen to stab the dots - note to self, this hurts your fingers so don't do it again!  Looks nice though!

When I was happy(ish) with it, I filled the back with modelling paste, let it dry, then went over the front indented areas with a black Promarker, rubbing off the excess.  Finally I used heavy gel medium to glue the copper to the front of the notebook