Some Finished WIPS...

so, following on from my WOYWW post, a couple of the pieces are now finished.  (well the arch canvas was finished already but I am sharing some details of how it was done)

Sadly I only took one photo of the beginning stages , and had already added the black modelling paste through the stencil by then.

the canvas is about 9 1/2 by 11/12 inches and is one of those flat canvas boards (from The Works)

I had added various brown Fresco chalk paints - all kinds of colours, to get some shading  I can't remember what colours though now...

 once the stencilled windows were in place and thoroughly dry, I added some die-cut bats on black card


I took a Paperartsy stencil for some grassy effects at the bottom. I wanted more texture, so mixed a couple of green Frescos (Wintergreen and something else!) with some matt 3d gel

 I used a heavy gel glue to fix the bats and left the wings of the larger ones proud of the canvas for more dimension - though you can't really tell from the angle of the photos, sorry!

closer look at the greenery

at the top, I mixed some art stones into some 3d gel coloured with French Roast fresco paint



Now need to find something to fix it to hang up somewhere...












the other project I finished, is the big A4 journal page.

 I don't have any pictures (other than the one I shared on Wednesday) of the starting point of this page...



Lots of blue Frescos, stamps (Seth Apter circle-y ones) texture stencilling (originally with heavy gesso, top right, middle left and bottom right) under the Frescos  In some of the stencilled circles I have stamped some Prima circle-y stamps and some more stencilled dots


I stamped the Prima girl on some tissue paper and coloured her from behind with Frescos and some butterflies, (also Prima) on white card stock and fussy cut them and painted them

 added some splatters in black and white

the sentiments are from Prima too.

 I used slightly brighter, translucent shades for the butterflies (Southern Skies and Glass Blue)

I also added some more stencilled circles in a couple of places, using Finnabair's Light Paste, which picks up the colours underneath so it blends in again.

Hope you like these, I had lots of fun with both of these projects.
Edit.  as prompted by Alison, I am sharing with A Vintage Journey "going round in circles"

Life Needs Balance

A final post for 2016, a bit of play in my journal for what seems the first time in ages...I have been making birthday cards for my January birthdays (I seem to have lots of them; but I can't share those yet - or at all in several cases as they've been despatched without photographs...)

But, play time in my A5 journal... the background started as ever, with leftover paint from this or that (Christmas cards probably)

 I added some black modelling paste through a Dylusions stencil to make a staggered brick wall

 and stamped several of Elenazinski monsters (Paperartsy) on tissue paper, before painting them with Fresco paints
As I was placing them around the page, I decided that they would need something to ground some of them... or, more precisely, hang them - from...
the border stamp is from ZA01






I scribbled a border round the top of the page and was searching around for some words to add to the page...    









                                                                               
till the way the monsters were swinging from the "ropes"  struck a chord..                                                                

 Life Needs Balance... Hoping 2017 will bring balance to your lives - time for work, rest and play, time for family and friends, time for - whatever you want!  Happy New Year!!

Paperartsy Mail Art Challenge

Scraping in with a challenge for the last time this year at Paperartsy, "mailart" 

as luck would have it, like many of us, I have some envelopes to create for some monetary gifts for Christmas.. which was probably the reason behind the timing of the challenge.   There have been some fabulous posts during the week to get us inspired.

Here goes!
I took took two A5 plain white envelopes and brayered Frescos

 For my niece I used Bougainvillea and Tango Frescos, and a little bit of Bubblegum, brayered

stencilled in Snowflake, (not sure what this stencil is called but I was channelling the mistletoe look... kind of

used the Seth stencil to create a label, did some Snowflake and Little Black Dress bumping

stamped the Tracy Scott large circles "believe" stamp in Cactus Flower archival ink, but it's so dark both last night and this morning, I can't get a very good photo..

 repeated on the back - you can see the stamp better on this side!











did some doodling round the stencilling

for my nephew, similar idea but in blues (how stereotypical of me!)  I used Glass Blue, Beach Hut and Southern Skies and stencilled again, this time I bumped Snowflake on top of Little Black Dress






and the same frame in Snowflake with some doodling





















Entering the Paperartsy challenge here...

wishing you all a very happy Christmas!

Seth style journal pages

Been playing in my journal (A5,soft cover) since the class with Seth Apter on Saturday ( have I told you, yet, how much I LOVED it?!! lol)

 so as with all things in my journal, this started with the mop up from a birthday card I made earlier this week
Frescos in some bright translucents (I was colouring the new Tracy Scott stamps) - not sure exactly what colours I used now

 started with the stencilling, and decided to add some paint to the opposite side too, in a different colourway.

used the mask/stencils I got on Saturday - on the left, I used a mash up of 'now is the time' and 'you got this' as I didn't want the same thing on both sides,
i used Little Black Dress to stencil with here, for some impact

 nice, but time for the pen work!


















I nearly took the journal and my pens to work on Thursday but resisted (I'd have got carried away and been too long at lunch!)
Instead, carried on after dinner at home, the nice thing about this stage is I can do it on my lap on the sofa, not sitting on the floor like normal!

 lots of pen work... the white is my white sharpie, and the gelly roll white , the black is mainly a micron pen

love how this turned out - and loved putting into practice some of the things Seth taught us.





just realised I wrote this in such a rush yesterday morning I forgot to link it to the Paperartsy "making marks" challenge which is currently running,

Seth inspired play before the workshop

This time next week I will have been to the Paperartsy Seth Apter workshop in Brentwood.  Can't wait!!  So I have had a little play with some of Seth's products - stamps and stencils, not the dies yet - to get me in the mood.

I started with a journal page and some leftover Fresco paints as my starting point

colours were Bubblegum, Tango and Bougainvillea, and a bit of gesso to knock it back a bit.

 I used some of the new JoFY minis in the background with toning archival inks (vibrant fuschia, monarch orange, cactus flower) and then some of Seth's stamps from his Paperartsy release (fab, fab fab!) in the same, and watering can and black (text)

 I edged the page with Little Black Dress Fresco as I felt it needed some more black (the only black is from the text,
I used the little dotty pattern from Lin Brown's new set in the middle of the circles.

and some white splatters.












Next up, is a canvas, 9x12   I decided just to use shades of turquoise-greeny colours.

 I applied a layer of heavy gesso to the canvas with a palette knife, more or less smoothing it out but leaving some texture.
Whilst it was not quite dry, I added a few drips of Beach Hut Fresco and brayered it out into the gesso.  Did the same with Mermaid..

Once dry, added a light brushing of normal gesso,

 before going in with stencils - all by Seth for Stencil Girl... I used Beach Hut and South Pacific, and kept going and going..
using just the same colours makes it full but not too busy.

I decided not to add any die cuts, mainly because I was on a roll on the canvas and didn't want to switch to making backgrounds on card to cut, (next time!)  but I think it would be improved with some more layers of texture....

 I added some bright green stamping - vivid chartreuse - and the bubble wrap stamp on Seth's set.

Used Pea Coat with the starred circle, for a bit of a darker colour, and then South Pacific all round the edge to frame it...

 and finally, decided it needed some black, so got one of the stencils out again.

really happy with this - although who knows, I may yet add some more layers with some die cuts and more paint another day... for now, it's done!

Thanks for looking. Can't wait for the workshop next Saturday!

Another Wanderlust book prompt

With this one done, there is only one left to catch up on, but that was only launched this week so I'm sort of up to date with this part of the challenge...
Prompt 10 was "What do I have to let go of?"

Decided not to really try and interpret this as such but just have some fun in the Wanderlust journal (which feels very large for some of these prompts!)

I started by applying white gesso to the page, with an old credit card; then sprinkled Infusions into the still wet gesso, (Sunset Beach and Orange County) and scraped it around with the card and a brush, spritzed it with some water to dilute the infusions a bit more - titled the page to let the colours run, then dried them

 added some Prima Art Basics Soft Gloss Gel through a stencil randomly on the page

and let it dry

 took various bits and pieces from my stash (this is what I'm letting go of, maybe!) - a Prima atc, some lace which I painted with a Fresco mix of Coral and Rose paints; a piece of netting from a bag of fruit, old book page,

all kinds of bits. Used a mixture of glue and staples to fix it together

 stamped on the background in Tea Rose and Orange Blossom archival inks, Paperartsy stamps from the Art Everything sets and a Stampotique French script stamp, before placing my focal point..
stamped a Paperartsy butterfly to the atc and painted it with a mix of satin glaze and Eggplant

Wrote 'memories' in a micron pen, because I felt it needed a word or title or something, in the top part of the page...

these aren't really colours I use together much, but am quite pleased with the look...