Creative Expressions DT call challenge.... Texture

Creative Expressions has a design team call out, they've given us a challenge to make something with stamping and texture. What a great excuse to get my mini art journal out and get messy....hang on...do I need an excuse??

 The ship has 3D sails

          I love the texture of the tissue with the highlights of gesso and paint from Adirondack dabbers.
              You can just see the perfect pearls mica powders on the letters shining in the lamp light too.

Before I coloured the page I pushed some gesso through a stencil with small circles and allowed it to dry. I then sprayed some blue Cosmic Shimmer and Adirondack colour wash on the page. I squirted some water and allowed it to run off leaving streaks. I scrunched up some blue tissue and stuck it down with pva glue to make the 3D waves. 

I used the quote, ship, ships wheel, telescope and the birds from the Weigh Anchor stamp set by Creative Expressions on the pages. The quote reads "If my ship sails from sight it doesn't mean my journey ends, it simply means the river bends"

                                                   I used a charcoal pencil around the quote.

I'm also entering this into Try it on Tuesday's Travel theme.

Oh how I'd like to sail away to somewhere warm,......but not on my rough waves!

Till next time x

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Oh I nearly forgot a Felix update.

He's decided to join neighbourhood watch!

 Any noise and he's straight up on the windowsill, shoving his head through the blinds.

He's growing so fast...(it's all that sleep). He went for his second set of vaccines today, 

so he'll be able to go out soon and start a new adventure of discovery.

Beautiful Reasons to Bee Happy

I've been looking for a reason to get my Inktense blocks out, and this was one beautiful reason. I'm out of my journal again and onto my canvas, Dina Wakely's Out of the Journal is making my craft room very colourful, I love hanging them all around the room.

I started a canvas with masking tape and made a gorgeous teal & phthalo turquoise background. 

I just started to draw flowers with my Inktense blocks and then painted them in with a little water and gesso. The colours were bright, but not bright enough so I went in there with my oil pastels to make the flowers more vivid. I really like the intense colours. I used interference violet Golden Paint on the bee's wings, it looks cool close up. The Bee stamp is from Spring Tinchies which you can get from Its Crafting Time.

Little Felix is still growing bones fast asleep with his paws in the air!

Happy Moments

I'm enjoying my long weekend, I hope you are too?   I've been moving furniture and I'm aching now, so I feel like I've done a workout, therefore I think I've earned a day in the craft room. 

I'm going to start a big canvas which will probably take me a few weeks to complete (lots of gluing and drying sessions). I'm really excited to get it started because I've been thinking about it for a while now. Its going to have lots and lots of layers.  All will be revealed...I can't say soon.....it may be weeks and weeks....so all will be revealed maybe October time perhaps.

Here is my second design team piece for It's Crafting Time based on a fab sketch shown below.

The picture in the middle of my scrapbook page is of my son and me taken in 2006. He was 15 at the time hence the 15 in the corner. I love seeing white gesso on kraft paper. Sometimes just those two combinations are enough for me, it always looks really arty. This time I added some colour, Vibrant Turquoise Dylusions and a mixture in a Mini Mister of Pure Sunshine, Walnut Stain re-inker and yellow Chalk Mist to get my rusty orange. 

I sprayed my colours onto the scrapbook page and got some drippage going in a very Donna Downey kind of way. I love Donna's work, and she makes me laugh loads! Check her out on You Tube, her Inspiration Wednesday video's are particularly funny...and inspiring too! 

I've used some Beadazles in some of the wet paint and gesso. I really like doing this, they are totally underused. I also really like the turquoise thread I've used in the sewing machine too.

Here is the fab sketch

Anyhoo time to get covered in paint, tara for now.

Michelle xx

Dylusion card and WOYWW 168

I thought I would sneak in a card I made for a friend at work before my Workdesk Wednesday.

I went all out Dylusional for a 30th birthday card instead of the cute stamped images I used to do for commissioned cards. My tastes have changed so much in 6 months. I wonder what I'll be doing in another 6 months time. 

It's very BLUE and I love it! I used Dylusions inks and stencils and The Octopode Factory stamps.

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WOYWW 168

Err Excuse me I'm working here!

Seconds later!

My new rescued kitten Felix is top hampering most of the time, then claiming the workdesk as his!

I would really like to give Try it on a Tuesday a mention because I've just discovered that I was voted their monthly winner, Thank you TIOT gang.  xxxx

Look Inside You Canvas

Well this is my first design team piece for It's Crafting Time. It's Crafting Time is a bricks & mortar shop in Shepreth in Cambridgeshire cram packed full of the latest crafty stock, if you're in the area you should have a pop in. They also have an online shop as well, although everything in the shop isn't on the website don't be fooled into thinking they don't have it. Just ask they'll have it in, I got a webcam tour, trust me. Nina and Helen are more than happy to give you a virtual mooch.

I really like being given a task and making something with a theme. The theme for this piece was "Faces", I know there's only one on here, but it's a particularly nice face called Isobelle from Inkylicious. 

I'm heavily influenced by two artists at the moment Kasia Krzymińska & Anna Finnabair and I was thinking about their style when I created this. I like caking everything in gesso then adding colour over the top. It seems to pull everything together so well. like all the bits and pieces belong there. My next two projects seem to be following the same kind of style too. 

I started off painting the mini canvas 12.5 x12.5 cm square with gesso and left to dry, then spraying with Dylusions inks in mini misters for a smaller spray coverage.  I had 2 misters one with Bubblegum Pink Dylusions ink and the other has a mix of Pure Sunshine Dylusions ink, TH Walnut stain re-inker and the Pastel lemon chalk mist Cosmic Shimmer.  This gave me a nice chalky rusty orange colour that I can spray.

  

I stamped the Inkylicious  Isobelle & 7 Gypsies Venice stamp onto white tissue paper and stuck it to my inked canvas.  I added some embellishments and the Tim Holtz rosette with Pinflair and let it dry.

I painted all the embellishments with gesso and left it to dry.  

I then sprayed the gessoed embellishments with the rusty orange spray, when this was dry I randomly painted areas with Adirondack Lemonade and Watermelon dabbers over the rosette and the leaves.  Distress the edge of the canvas with the Pitch Black Adirondack dabber and used the Tim Holtz Eifel Tower stamp with Archival Espresso ink. I made the sentiment with Hampton Art mini alphabet stamps. 

I thought I would include this in Dina Wakely's "Out of the Journal" too.

Dina is a wondrous source of inspiration.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

This fortnight's Try it on a Tuesday (TIOT) challenge is a sketch to make whatever you want from. As soon as I saw this sketch I thought of my amazing Artistic Outpost Oz Collage stamps. I love these stamps. I couldn't wait to get cracking after seeing all the other cards on the TIOT blog. Besides which, my new kitten was asleep and I had a window of opportunity to get in the craft room.

Here is my interpretation of the sketch, I've missed making a card or two these days, but birthday season is coming up for me so I'll probably not feel the same way come November!

I used Kraft card 8x8", blue gingham to stamp on, TH brick wall embossing folder, Alla Prima paper on the inside and loads of Mustard Seed & Vintage Photo distress ink.

Don't Hide in the Shadows Let your Light Shine

Well it's been a few days since I blogged and that's because I've been babysitting my new kitten, who was called Sylvester, then he was Paco and now he's Felix. He nearly got Mo after Mo Farah but he's way too lazy to be Mo. Felix is the incredible sleeping cat!......growing bones is a tough job ya know!

Anyhooo...on with my journal page which is a bit on the deep and meaningful side. I think this is supposed to be representative of my shy side, if you knew me you would think... Michelle shy...Naaaa.....however I'm not a fan of being the centre of attention and tend to hide a little bit. I'm sure it's just the thought of having to do Power Point presentations, they just scare me to death!.....so I try to avoid doing them.

This page has been made with acrylic paints only and one stamp, the Tim Holtz sun burst stamp. I drew the face with the paints as I was going along.

I've used the Golden liquid acrylic interference blue paints on here too, they don't photograph well but they look amazing with the naked eye.

Righto back to playing with a mouse on the end of a stick!

Bye xxxx

Happy & Bright Dylusions Flowers

I've not been in the craft room much seeing as I'm babysitting my kitten. We did name him Sylvester but we've changed it to Felix, he looks more like a Felix to me.

I gave myself a little challenge of making a journal page with only using Dylusions inks in a waterbrush pen. So I made the flowers, the blue background and the grass. Then I used some gesso on a Dylusion flower stencil around the edge. I used the waterbrush pens again to colour some of the flowers around the edge.I also restricted the use of stamps, until I caved with the black dots, Tim's butterlies and the two mushrooms.  I did think if Dylusions were flowers the world would be a brighter place. So I wrote this with the black ink.

Art Journaling day at Art from the Heart with Dyan

Oooo what a day I had yesterday! It was great seeing Dyan again, she's so funny and makes you feel like you can do anything! I love that. She was so generous to let us loose on her brand spankingly new Christmas stamps and stencils, and she brought Tim's along for good measure. Love these too. I didn't know where to start I was like a kid in a sweet shop. I basically did two of my calendar journal backgrounds, one for September and of course one for a Dylusional Christmas. Dyan's Christmas stamps are brilliant, I can think of loads of different ways to use them, the possibilities are endless! I'd say well worth buying them.

Here is my two UNFINISHED  calendar backgrounds.

September - using Dyan's bleaching technique. Look at Tim's new stamps, aren't they wonderful?

December - The background is Adirondack dabbers, and a gold dabber too. The outside edge and the snowflakes are from using Dyan's new Christmas Stencils, and the tree and baubles are from Dyan's new Christmas stamps. 

I'm looking forward to finishing them soon.

When I came home from Art from the Heart my neighbour knocked on my door.

I've been knocked sideways with this little fella. Found under a bush in the neighbours garden crying, another ginger kitten was found a few doors down. We put out messages to find out if anyone had lost 2 kittens. In the meantime I took him in, de-flea-ed the poor boy, frontlined him, fed and watered him, gave him a comfy bed to sleep in and he purred all night. My other two cats were a bit surprised.

Today the owner got in touch with my neighbour and said they didn't want him back. Well I'm pleased, because I wasn't going to let him go back to being neglected anyway. So he's been integrated into the family with his own collar, his own bed and his own food bowl...and now his very own name...meet Felix.

He has food all over his nose, but he's happy now!

And he'll have two little buddies to play with too.

Bye for now xx

Innocence Journal page

I started this face in Kate Crane's drawing class at Art from the Heart way back in May. I was thinking along the lines of an innocent baby face when I made it, but my family think it's like an alien. I don't want it to be like an alien, so it's still a baby face to me.

The outline was drawn with a paint brush using my non dominant hand, then I coloured in the face using Derwent Inktense blocks and gesso with my dominant hand (I'm not that good to do the middle with my non dominant hand!). 

I love the fact that we painted it on a Yellow Pages page, but also that it's upside down! These little touches are genius! I really love doing art classes because they make you think sideways away from your comfort zone.

On the journal page I've used Dylusions Inks, Tim Holtz stamps & Tissue Tape, Indigo Blu stamps, and an old brass sun burst stencil which I used a baby wipe to bleach some of the inks out with.

I'm off to Art from the Heart tomorrow, I'm looking forward to being surrounded by greatness once again.

Tara  xx

Rock Heart Art

I bought this slate heart years ago and I have it hung on my craft room wall. I looked at it today and thought why have I not done something with this. I didn't want to do too much to it I didn't want to cover the naturalness of the rock. I'm a geologist and like to see the beauty in rocks. I just wanted to give it a hint of crafting. So I used some gesso through a stencil, some blue aqua Frantage embossing powder and some Vibrant Turquoise Dylusions ink. I stamped a TH stamp with black Archival ink and I love this.

I think I may have just found a new love, and I have loads of rocks!

WOYWW 165

I have been out and about today, I'm not completely attached to my crafty workdesk while I'm off work, although I wouldn't need much arm bending to make me to stay there! I've been to a museum to see a Saxon archaeological collection. I love history it always inspires me, especially all the old distressed collectables on display. I bought some old postcards which will make their way on here at some point.

On my workdesk this week you can see I'm working on a couple of journal pages, all will be revealed later this week. I also have some art parts on the go too, quite excited about these.  I have 2 deep edge 5"x5" canvases which I might hinge together to make something with, but not quite sure yet what to do with them.

A few weeks ago I went to a preview day at Art from the Heart and bought some ex-display racks. When I got home I was hoping that the Dylusion inks would fit in them, but they didn't. However, all was not lost as they turned out to be very useful as they keep my distress stains, applicator tools, alcohol inks, liquid pearls, acrylic paints and re-inkers all tidy. I love how gorgeous they look like this.

If you're wondering what What's on your Workdesk Wednesday (WOYWW) is all about then hop over to Julia Dunnit's blog where all will be revealed.

See you tomorrow I hope xx