Creative Chemistry And A Simon Says Challenge

It seems like every other person I bump into online is taking and loving Tim Holtz's online class, Creative Chemistry 101.  Me too!  As experienced as I think I am in all things ink and paint, I learn something new every day.  Anyway, I decided to put some of these techniques into practice, and used a few on the tag I did for this week's Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge.  What did Simon say this week?   Show me......a tag! 



I started with the marbled stain technique from day 5 of the class, added some masking and stenciling, and also the flick technique from day 1.  BTW, the stenciling technique is one I learned from Lynne Perrella.  First I dabbed black paint through the sequin waste on the right.  Then I moved the waste ever so slightly and dabbed gold paint.  One more move, and some metallic orange paint was added.  The two layers soften the black and add a lot of texture (which means adding interest).

Although I knew I wanted to use the fish stamps from Wendy Vecchi's Art For Men set, I didn't have a plan for where the tag was headed, but once those images were down (BTW, I did stamp them before adding the stenciling), the tag started to feel asian to me.  I added the Chinese lettering at that point.

Next step, another technique from Tim's class, watercoloring with stains.  I used that on the two fish stamped directly onto the tag.  Looking at the tag, I thought a focal image was missing, so I stamped one of the fish onto watercolor paper with archival black ink, and after heat setting it, colored it with distress stains and cut it out.  I attached it with pop dots, and as a final touch wrapped the poor guy with some twine.  Guess he was caught.

I'm very happy with the way this tag turned out.  I'm in an asian journal group, and I suspect this tag will eventually find its way into someone's book.

Now for some Creative Chemistry tags I haven't posted yet.  Here are my three from day 4:  watercoloring with re-inkers, layered misting, and custom stamp pad.

I cheated on the third tag.  I didn't have any more of the felt pad needed for it, so I just used the custom pad I made during the last 12 Tags of Christmas, so I'd have it for reference.

Today's class was all about embossing powders, everyone's favorite "magical" technique.

The three techniques are:  nostalgic batik, rusted enamel, and distress powder resist.

If you heard a shout of happiness coming from the east coast this morning, that might have been me.  Patti from Absolutely Everything wrote to let me know that my distress markers are going out today.  And that means I'll soon be able to try out the techniques from day 6.  Color me thrilled.