Spooky Happenings

A little bit of Halloween fun here today......

Two ATC's created by blending distress inks on to the background.

Added a bit of stencilling and some white paint pen splatters.

Stamped out the Halloween images from a Stampendous stamp set I've had for eons and coloured using distress markers, cut out and layered up onto the ATC's using foam pads or cosmic shimmer glue.

Added some shadows with a Pitt pen and edged them with black ink.

I'm entering my ATC's over at The Craft Barn blog where the theme is 'Halloween' click HERE for all the details and also over at the That's Crafty Challenge Blog where the challenge is Haunted Halloween, click  HEREfor all the info. 

Thanks for looking,

Claire xx

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Faces - Willowing Style!

Hi Everyone,

So I couldn't sleep last night so decided to have a go at another face as I'd enjoyed creating yesterday's face so much. So another person Leandra mentioned in her intro blog post HERE was Tam aka Willowing. I've long admired Tam's work and style of faces so was extremely pleased to see she has one of her 2015 Lifebook lessons open for free for four weeks as a little taster for Lifebook 2016.

So I watched all of the videos and there is also a very detailed PDF that accompanies the videos too.

The reason I wanted to try this technique was because I try to draw faces all the time but somehow - no matter how hard I try - they always seem to end up looking very similar!

So this technique involves using magazines to collage a background and uses a face from a magazine as a starting point for your page.

I didn't do a whole collaged background as I was working on a journal page that already had a pretty busy background - this is how it started out:

I cut up a picture from a magazine, added it to my page with gel medium, added random washi tape here and there then covered the page with clear gesso:

So there she is - the starting point......I spent a long time faffing with her skintone, adding highlights and lowlights to her. I used Paperartsy Frescos in Buff, Blush, Vintage Lace, Little Black Dress, Snowflake and Mocha Mousse.

And here is how she looks now:

Her eyes are Sky Fresco and her lips are Prawn. Originally I had planned red hair for her but when I blocked out the area in Snowflake to make her hair pop I decided I quite liked her with grey hair so she stayed Snowflake and Elephant coloured.

Her clothes were painted using Merlin and stencilled with a TCW stencil and Proffesor Plum, Granny Smith and Captain Peacock.

All the black fineline detail was added using a Faber Castell Pitt pen.

I'm quite happy with how she turned out - and I'm so pleased she looks completely different to the original magazine girl.

I'm entering her over at the Paperartsy blog HERE.

If you'd like to see Tam's free taster Lifebook 2015 video then you can check it out HERE.

Thanks for visiting today,

Claire xx

 

 

 

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My Green Eyed Girl

Hi Everyone,

The challenge over at Paperartsy this fortnight is 'faces' I usually would have been straight to this kind of challenge but I've been away on my hols so just scraping in last minute!

So I looked at all the inspiration Leandra had lined up for us on the introduction blog post HERE and watched the video of Dina Wakley drawing a face - I'd never seen her doing faces before and decided to give her style of face drawing a try :-)

So I started out with a page that already had some background journalling on as she suggested - this is a page from my Birgit Koopsen workshop journal from a couple of months back:

I didn't take any 'in progress' photos but here's how it turned out:

I thought the background looked a bit boring but didn't want to overwhelm my girl so just added a little bit of stamping:

So there she is - my first Dina style, scribbly face. She's been drawn with a black Stabilo all pencil, painted using Paperartsy Fresco paints in Buff, Snowflake, Little Black Dress, Blush, Prawn and Jade. Her hair was painted with Tikka, Chutney and Snowflake. And the additional stamping was from Paperartsy hot picks plates 1501 and 1506.

I'd also like the link my girl over at Show Your Face on Kim Dellow's blog HERE

Thanks for looking,

Claire xx

 

 

 

 

 

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Brushos and New Stamps

Hello,

Last night I had a little play with my brushos and some of the new stamps I bought at Ally Pally at the weekend.

Here are the two cards I made:

I wanted to try out a couple of different ways to use the brushos as there have been loads of different techniques showcased over on the Paperartsy blog over the past week or so.

The first card was made by stamping the images from Lin Brown's plate ELB22 in black archival then using the brushos as a paint to colour the images. The card was then spritzed with water and brushos sprinkled on and then more water added.

The second card was made by rubbing the brushos dry onto the card. I then spritzed the stamps with water before stamping onto the card - the effect was very subtle, too subtle for me it seems as I then went over the stamping with black archival!

I did try to offset the black stamping a little bit so the nice watercolour effect was still visible - all the stamping is from the same Lin Brown plate ELB22 except the sentiment which is from a JOFY plate.

I splattered it with a white posca paint pen which reacted with the brushos underneath to create a very subtle look.

I am linking my cards up to the current challenge over on the Paperarty blog HERE which is all about pigment powders.

Thanks for looking,

Claire x

 

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Colourful Leaves

I had a play in my new Strathmore journal which I got as part of my workshop with Birgit Koopsen - the background had been created as part of the class using Liquitex inks and a Carabelle Studio stencil.

This is my background:

Next I added stamping in black archival using Birgits leaf stamp plate by Carabelle Studio. I also stamped the leaves onto some master board deli paper, cut out and then added them to the journal.

I added some white stencilling with DecoArt paint and a TCW stencil.

Then stamped the phrase from Birgits Bloom stamp plate onto white card, mounted and added to the page.

I added some shading around the leaves using a grey Pitt pen.

I'm entering my page over at That's Crafty where the challenge is 'lovely leaves'

And also over at We Love to Create - the challenge is 'anything mixed media/creative goes'

Thanks for looking,

Claire x

 

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Birthday Flowers

Today I'm sharing a birthday card created with Paperartsy stamps.

The current theme over on the Paperartsy blog is 'circles' and there has been some fantastic inspiration over on their blog HERE

Jo Firth Young showed us some wonderful card samples the other night which I loved and have created a card based on one she shared with us - it's pretty obvious which one I liked best as I've stuck to her design quite a lot lol!

I used JOFY stamp sets JOFY22, 23 and 26. All stamping was done with black archival ink.

Last weekend with Birgit Koopsen we created some master board type deli paper for our projects - I had these pieces left over:

I stamped the circular flower heads, the leaves and the happy sentiment onto the master board deli paper and fussy cut them out.

Added them to the card with cosmic shimmer glue.

I added some white sharpie pen to the circles on the little spikey flowers and then layered the piece onto a 7x7 card blank with foam pads.

Thanks for looking,

Claire x

 

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Wonderful Weekend Workshop

Last weekend I spent a lovely two whole days with the very talented Birgit Koopen at Wynyard - the workshop was hosted by the super organised Sue Tucker.

So on the Saturday we created two different sized canvasses. We started out decorating a few sheets of deli paper to use as a collage:

Then we used these on our canvassess along with some Carrabelle studio stamps and Liquitex paints and inks (this first canvas my fave make from the weekend!):

Loved some of these Carrabelle studio stamps - had to buy myself a few lol!

Then we were back again on the Sunday to learn various art journalling techniques and how to use up any left over paints and ink and wotnot to stop wasting our supplies!!

So we did a huge number of backgrounds - again we used the Liquitex products and Carrabelle Studio stamps and stencils.

We did complete a few pages:

And here are just a few of the backgrounds I have in my journal to work on another time but I really do have a whole ton of them!!

Overall it was a fab weekend and I'm really pleased with everything I created and all the new techniques I learnt :)

Thanks for looking,

Claire xx

 

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