Book Pages

It's Artsy Circle day today which means the Art and Soul Studio and the affiliated facebook group Soul Sisters have a new prompt.

The prompt for today is book pages. Now I know this can cause some people to shudder when they think about people ripping a book and if this is you please still play along but find a piece of cardstock that looks like a book page. I have an old text book that is filled with Shakespeare's plays that I brought from an op shop for $5, I am sure it will last me a life time.

I started with a piece of heavy watercolour paper that I cut with my metal circle die through my bigshot. The circle is 10.3cm in diameter which I have then put gesso on both sides.

I decided that I was going to cover the surface of my paper with the book page, at first I was going to run it through my bigshot but I vetoed that idea. I put glue on my watercolour paper and then put it straight down onto the book page. Once dry, well what I thought was dry I torn the rest of the page away from the edge of the circle. To make sure that the paper was well attached I used my brayer over the top and bottom.

I let it sit overnight because I had no idea where I was going with this. I thought about drawing on it and actually went ahead and started, that was a complete disaster. I tried to erase my light pencil marks but I torn the page. Once the page was torn I could actually remove the book page from the watercolour paper. The glue wasn't dry, I don't know if this was because I used a glue stick on gesso. So my background on my actual complete circle is different from this picture because I put a new piece book paper down. This time attaching it with matte medium. Using a paint brush I put the matte medium on to my circle then the circle straight on to my book page.

I wanted a garden on my book page. Why you ask? I have no idea its just what I wanted. Looking through my large stash of stamp I found one that I like and knew would work for the idea I had in my head. When stamping I didn't want a dark or perfect image, so I had sure that I stamped on a scrap piece of paper first. Also I had never used this particular stamp from the set so I seasoned it with my ink first.

Once I found the stamp I was going to use I knew that I had some rub-ons that went with this stamp and that is what I used for the middle flower image and dragonfly.

I am not really sure where I was going with the gesso but I went with the flow and ended up with a smaller image but you could still see some of the image underneath.

Using my inktense pencils I coloured my image but I wanted the middle flower to stand out from the rest. I didn't want to use gesso so I was at first a little bit stumped but then I had a brain wave of using my artisan powders from Prima to dull the image. I painted the powder over all of my circle and once I was happy with the colour I then recoloured the middle flower. I also used another colour of my artisan powders on the gesso. I like these powders as they have no shimmer. I didn't put them on very heavy so they are really hard to see but they are there.

products used that can be found in the shop
Prima Artisan Powder - vintage ivory and trianon patina
Derwent Inktense Pencils - beach green, burnt orange, deep violet and deep rose

Happy Creating

Be Open to Whatever Comes Next

Hello and welcome to 2017, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all. I sharing an art journal page on my poor neglected blog. Although it not just my blog that has suffered to has also been my art. Since November I have been away on a 10 day cruise, had my sons 7th birthday, created cards for the school fair, Christmas and New Year, that's a lot packed into 2 months. Hopefully things will get back to normal soon. My husband is going back to work tomorrow so we have had a lot of family time. My two children don't go back to school until the 2nd of February but I am hoping to squeeze in some me time.

I also haven't really wanted to create anything every time I came into my space all I ended up doing was looking at youtube videos, not that that is a bad thing in fact I should have lots of inspiration to choose from but still they did not motivate me either.

It was not until 2 days ago that I actually created something. I started playing with a card background that has been hanging around for awhile. I added 2 different colours of Golden Fluid Acrylics and stamping to it. Mind you it is still sitting unfinished, but that's ok.

products used: lindy's stamp gang magicals, texture paste, mixed media paper, the crafters workshop stencil, golden fluid acrylics - quinacridone nickel azo gold & green gold, heavy gesso, kaisercraft stamp - script, archival ink - jet black.

What I did end up creating and finishing was an art journal page.

The background had been created using up left overs, as I really don't like to waste my art supplies. After making the splatters on the card background I still had some fluid acrylic left. So I had to find something to use it on. I found this background and started making splatters and then while doing that I realised my fan brush would create an amazing print that would look like a flower.

I added the stems, added a little more shading to the flowers, scribbles in the background and the quote and a finished art journal page I have.

products used: gelly roll pen - white, golden fluid acrylics - quinacridone nickel azo gold, derwent inktense pencils - chinese ink, beech green, burnt orange and sun yellow, tim holtz idea-ology: small talk.

Happy Creating

Stay Strong

There are lots of things in my stash that just don't seem to get used and other things that get used a lot. The card that I created is a combination of both.

products used: ranger archival ink - jet black, gelly roll pen - white, stabilo - all, prima artextravagance texture paste - white crackle, uni pin fine line marker - black, derwent inktense blocks, tim holtz idea-ology - small talk, kaisercraft stamp - script, stampers anonymous stamp - halftone & rings, prima elementals stencil - grungy grid, bobunny stickable stencils - butterflies, mixed media paper, artbasics heavy gesso - white

Happy creating

Plume from IndigoBlu

I have had the stamp 'Plume' from IndigoBlu for a little while now, and I have been thinking of a design that I could use it on. I finally created a card.

The stamp reminded me of a peacock feather so I used the colours of a peacock as my starting point.

products used: inktense pencils - turquoise, deep violet & deep rose, posca paint pen - pink, memory box die - distress windham collage, studio calico - wood veneer heart, versamark, ranger embossing powder - seafoam, art basics heavy gesso - white, mixed media paper, book paper.

Happy Creating