Spray (and paint and stamp and draw) AND Paste

The Mad Scientist, Part II

I just couldn't stop....wondering how Wendy's metallic embossing pastes would look over some more of my favorite coloring media.  And of course the wondering led to the experimenting, which led to a whole lot of colorful sample pages.

Row 1:  Portfolio Water Soluble Oil Pastels, applied dry.
Row 2:  Portfolio Water Soluble Oil Pastels, applied wet.
Row 3:  Ranger Distress Markers.
Row 4:  Ranger Distress Ink (applied with ink pad direct to the paper).
Row 5:  Ranger Distress Stains.

Stencil:  Michelle Ward for Stencil Girl.

 

 

Then I decided to use Ranger's Color Wash sprays again, but this time stick to some deeper, darker colors.  I didn't expect to be wowed by the results, but I was.

 

 

Stencil:  Circle Explosion, The Crafter's Workshop

 

 

I had a few misters full of homemade sprays.  These were made with Distress Reinkers and Perfect Pearls.  Don't ask me which colors, because I didn't label them and made them ages ago.

 

 

Stencil:  Stencil Girl (one of the the March stencils from the Stencil Girl monthly club)

 

Before hanging up my lab coat I decided to see how the pastes would react when applied over paint.  And I do have an awful lot of paint.  I narrowed my sampling down to the ones I tend to use the most.

 

 

 

Rows 1 and 2:  Ranger Distress Paints

Row 3:  Ranger Claudine Hellmuth Acrylics

Rows 4 and 5:  Golden Fluid Acrylics

Row 6:  Your garden variety store brand acrylic, the kind you find under the Dick Blick, Utrecht, or Cheap Joe's brand, to name a few.

 

 

Stencils:  I have no clue.  They are very pretty border stencils, but the manufacturer is not printed on them and the original packaging is long gone.

I thought I was finished, but went back and filled a page with Derwent's Inktense Color Blocks.  These are highly pigmented inks in stick form, and when water is added they produce intense yet translucent colors.  And when they dry, the color is permanent.

 

Stencil:  Daisy Cluster, The Crafter's Workshop

 

I just had to try the pastes over alcohol inks.  First I coated the page in my journal with Ranger's glossy glue n seal to create the nonporous surface the inks work best on.  Then I applied a variety of inks the usual way, pouncing them on with the felt covered tool.

 

 

 

Stencil:  Diamonds by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer for The Crafter's Workshop







Have I come to any conclusions?  Well, in my opinion, these metallic pastes look great over everything I've applied them to.  My personal preference is the gold....most of the time.  I just think the underlying color comes through a little better with it than the silver.  Also, a lighter coat of paste (usually) reveals more color than a thicker coat.  I've noticed exceptions to all these observations, so bottom line:  just go for it, have fun playing, and honestly, I doubt you'll be disappointed in any of your results.















New Journal Pages

As two collaborative journal groups approach the finish line, another begins its journey.  The Asian themed journal and the artistic evolution journal are just about done, so we launched our latest project, Vintage Ancestors.  We each created books and started things off with a cabinet card (real, copied, or invented) and a story.  While we could use actual family photos and stories, what's the fun in that?  So, most of us went online, began collecting images and thinking up some juicy family secrets.

Last week I received Elena's book.  It is already amazing.  She found an actual cabinet card scrapbook and took it apart and reworked it.  Her story began with a group photo and the tale of a family separated by politics and circumstance, and leaving their native Spain for the United States and Cuba.  The year was 1899.  The family consisted of the two parents and their nine children.

I thought that was a great way to begin.  While we're free to do as we please, there are enough family members for each of us to choose one and continue their story.

I chose Miriam, aged 19, and here are the pages I did about her. (You can click on the photo for a better view).

 

 

Along with this book, Elena also sent me Sarah's artistic evolution journal to work in.  This is the book where the pages go up and down in size and each artist evolves in some way from the artist that came before.  Elena and I have very different styles.  Her page that is partially visible when looking at mine has lots of circles, so I took that as my inspiration.  My pages have embossed circle stamps, circle stencils, etc.  Oh, and Sarah requested purple, yellow and green as our primary color palette.

 

 

Believe it or not, I started with black paper, over which I samped my variety of circles with clear embossing powder.  Then came many layers of watered down perfect pearls, followed by paint, ink, and more stencils.  The shimmer of the perfect pearls makes it hard to photograph the pages without a lot of glare.

 

I outlined my text and the stenciled figures with white to 1) make them pop and 2) make them relate better to Elena's pages, as she used quite a bit of white outlining.

 

Here's what it looks like with Elena's page visible behind mine.

 

 

 

I think it looks like the girl is peeking out, trying to get a look at my pages.  Well, that's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

 

In December we're starting another round robin called Vintage Lace.  It's going to be a fabric journal.  I am hardly queen of the needle workers, so that should be interesting.  You ever notice how people use the word interesting to replace some other, usually negative word?  Just asking.



 

 





 



 





Chunky ATC, Wendified

NOTE: I thought I had found a way to insert the photos after each description, but it seems that mobile blogger has outwitted me again. Sigh. Sorry to give you another Sunday puzzle.

I signed up for another chunky ATC swap, this one in the Wendy Vecchi yahoo group. (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/everythingwendyvecchi)
I was assigned the very talented Anita Houston to receive mine, so I went over to her blog to get some inspiration. I was intrigued by her tutorial for perfect pearls faux leather and used it for the backgrounds on the two largest surfaces. It's wonderful!

Check out the tutorial: http://theartfulmaven.blogspot.com/2012/07/faux-leather-video-tutorial.html

Here are those two sides. Lots of Wendy's art parts, all inked with the spring and summer distress inks, and each stamped with a different Wendy background stamp.

Next, the two sides, covered with embossed copper.

The top (Wendy's flowers and leaves on grungepaper), the bottom, showing half pearls for feet, and some close ups.

Two Projects, Three Challenges, and a Cool Technique

I know I said no more challenges or swaps until I finished some old projects, but I couldn't resist this month's tag in Tim's 12 Tags of 2012.  It features the beautiful faux porcelain technique, and it found me in the mood to haul out the melt pot.

I don't like copying Tim's tags exactly, so I just concentrate on the techniques, and my tag includes the faux porcelain flowers (I also used Primas, plus some others found in my stash), as well as the tissue paper background.  Instead of a spool, I placed my bouquet in one of Wendy Vecchi's art parts....the flower pot, which was gessoed, inked with the new peacock feathers distress ink, dusty concord and (also new) shaded lilac.  It was then stamped with one of Wendy's fab backgrounds with berry purple archival ink.

The sentiment is a Wendy stamp.  Next, a close up of the flowers.  The small ones started out purple, but the others were white, and I tinted them with two of the new distress inks.....shaded lilac and squeezed lemonade (which is a great yellow) before dipping them in the melted UTEE.  Please click on the link to Tim's blog (above) to see the step by step details for this technique.

Since digging out the melt pot and actually using it is not an everyday event around here, I wound up making way more flowers than I needed, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to participate in the current challenge over at the Wendy yahoo group.  The theme is ATCs and the only rule, other than sticking to the theme is to use at least one of Wendy's stamps.  I did that, and more, and also included more art parts than you'd think would fit on a 2 1/2 x 3 1/2" piece.

The scallops, leaves and vase are all art parts.  Actually the vase started out in life as the base for a lamp, but I easily sliced off the lampshade.  I used pretty much the same colors on it as I did on the flower pot and added a dusting of lemon sparkle perfect pearls (which goes so well with the touches of squeezed lemonade distress ink I used throughout the ATC. 

I tried faux porcelain flowers once before with less success.  The difference this time, I think, is that I really filled the melt pot with UTEE.  It works much better if you can actually submerge the flowers into the UTEE.  It still requires a little finesse, and Tim's blog has some helpful hints,.

As luck would have it, this week's challenge at Simon Says Stamp and Show is "anything goes."  So, I'm submitting the ATC there as well.

And now, back to working on some of my unfinished "masterpieces," LOL.

Creative Chemistry 101, Day 9

Embracing the Perfection of Perfect Pearls

Yes, yes, if Tim Holtz has a mantra it's probably "embrace imperfection," and believe me, I have plenty of that to embrace.  But as he says in today's lesson, Perfect Pearls is an aptly named product.  So easy to use, and such an uncomplicated way to add some glitz to a project.  Here are my tags for the three techniques we did today in Creative Chemistry 101:

The techniques are, perfect distress mist, perfect distress, and perfect splatter distress, and honestly, they are best appreciated in person, where you can hold the tags, turn them to hit the light in different areas, and really see the sparkle of Perfect Pearls.

I even have a bonus tag today.  It was created by sopping up the leftovers on my craft sheet after each technique.  Pretty cool, huh?

Remember, you can sign up for this class ANYTIME, and will have access to the content FOREVER!  The only difference between taking the classes now or later on, is that the forums and galleries can't be added to later, although you will be able to read all comments and view all the pictures.  I know I've said it before, but I'm saying it again:  take this class and you will not be disappointed.

My distress markers are supposed to be delivered today, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to play with them just yet.  Busy day today.....taking mom for a haircut, and then getting ready for a weekend getaway with some of my bestest local artsy pals.  We're trying out a new place this year, and I have to gather my supplies for the project I'll be teaching.  Yes, I know I'm lucky.  I have friends I can make art with from all over the world, even my own backyard.





Perfectly Distressed

This week's Grungy Monday challenge takes us to a cool video Tim did some time ago on what he calls perfect distress......the wonderful pairing of distress inks and perfect pearls.....click HERE to check it out; it's an oldie but goodie, and well worth re-visiting.  I think this technique will add great sparkle to your holiday projects.  Speaking of which, I'm still meeting my own personal challenge, and my entry for GM is also a Christmas card.

I originally thought I'd just use the technique as an accent, but got totally carried away, and used it EVERYWHERE.  I know that the sparkle of mica powders does not show up well in (my) photographs, so I also took some angle shots.

You can see the effect of the perfect pearls a little better there.  And here's a closeup of Santa.

I stamped Santa (from Tim's Letter to Santa set) on white cardstock with black soot distress ink, and then used several perfect pearls on him:  green patina on the holly, perfect pearl on the hair, biscotti on the face, and raspberry sparkle on the hat and coat.

The Happy Holidays stamp is from Tim's Holiday Wishes set, and I used pine needles distress ink and green patina perfect pearls.  

The last thing I did with this technique was to add both peeled paint and forest moss distress inks all around the card, using a blending tool.  This too, got the perfect pearls treatment; this time I used heirloom gold.

The piece was mounted on a red card base, and at the last minute I decided to add a bit more bling, covering the holly with forest moss distress stickles and adding some barn door distress stickles berries.

So, here it is, still October, and I've already gotten three holiday cards under my belt.  Bring on the next challenge!







OMG, A Non-Cruise Post!!

Grungy Monday #22 - A Tim Inspired Halloween

and

Simon Says Stamp and Show Something With Wings

I was so happy to see Grungy Monday reappear, and lucky for me, I was able to create something that also works for the Simon Says challenge this week.

I'm not much of a Halloween person, but I know plenty of people who are, so this tag will be headin' out sometime soon.

The base is a black Ranger tag which was embossed with Cuttlebug's spiderweb folder.  Embossing ink was swiped over the raised parts and then brushed with copper and grape Perfect Pearls.  The top of the tag (where there was no embossing, is covered with some of Tim's Halloween tissue tape.

The bird is from Tim's Raven/Scaredy Cat die.  It was cut from grungeboard, inked with black embossing ink and covered with black embossing powder.  Then it got a coat of rock candy crackle paint.  When I went to finish drying it with my heat tool it did some crazy bubbling, but I'm going to say it was deliberate because I like the texture.  (But it really was a happy accident).

Behind the bird are both sizes of the mini rosette die. They were cut from some Cosmo Cricket Halloween paper that I've had for about two years.  The Happy Halloween ticket is hanging from a bit of ribbon behind the raven.

OK, I think I'm done with spiders and black cats and ravens and witches.  Bring on Santa!