#20 - Triptychs for Paperartsy

We are closing in on the end of the Paperartsy Triptych challenge - another couple of hours - and I have decided to enter this journal page I did yesterday, even though it's not a traditional triptych in the sort of icon style you normally associate with them; I do like the use of trios in art.  There were some fabulous posts over the fortnight starting here

I started with torn book page under a coat of Beach Hut Fresco, and some blue Bistre which I spritzed so much several of my pages fell out of my journal... some sticky tape and glue later the journal was back intact and I could carry on.. I stencilled grunge paste through part of a Crafters Workshop stencil and stamped the Dina Wakley hearts on white card, before deciding on the direction they should take over the pages.. "follow your heart" is from an Invoke Art words set.. I then dripped some Ecoline ink along the top edge of the journal and spritzed it again as it dripped down my pages.

Happy Chickens

Happy Easter everyone, hope you're being good and staggering the chocolate....

I have been playing with some of Lin Brown's chickens in my A6 tiny journal today.

 the left page had some spare blue Fresco paints on, from another project and I used the new Memory Box circles stencil with Blueberry Fresco - just used it straight onto the right page.  I then gave the right page a wash with diluted Beach Hut and stamped some criss-crosses (Sara Naumann) in black.

 Wanted some more circles, took a Crafters Workshop stencil and Bougainvillea  Added a wash with diluted gesso and then stamped parts of the HotPick HP1304 script in Snowflake randomly - it barely shows up on the right page.

 Next, I stencilled 'love' and 'peace' (another Crafters Workshop stencil) in Grunge Paste - now for the chickens!

I wanted two, but not both facing the same way, so stamped on on card and one on tissue, and painted the "wrong" side - in fact, I painted both sides, to emphasise the colours - Banana, Bougainvillea and a little Tangerine Twist before cutting them out. I painted the reverse of the tissue with Snowflake and glued them to the page.

 added some of the light Prima paste, with a fingertip, to the tummies of the chickens, but it barely shows once it's dried, as it picks up the underneath colours

so I dabbed a little texture sand paste over the top
Finally, I added some Silver and Sapphire Treasure Gold round the edges of the pages and down the spine.

Had a lot of fun with this one!

Paperartsy Challenge - Theme 6 - Grunge Paste

The new topic on Paperartsy, is Grunge Paste (or other texture pastes)  - love love love Grunge Paste! There have been some amazing projects so far, from Wanda Hentges's Garden Hanging, to  Lou Collins Wood Grain effect  and Liz Borer's Decorated Hand. 

I loved the wood grain effect, but had an idea to alter a little papier mache bird house - which doesn't have must room to give it the full treatment like Lou... However...

 I bought this little bird house (and 2 others) at the Port Sunlight show last October.. finally been able to use one!

No early stage photos, got a bit carried away... started by painting the whole thing with Snowflake, then started adding colours.. used Brown Shed (too red) Chutney (too dark) Haystack.. ok. Added some little leafy flowery stamps from the new ELB20 on the front,in Library Green archival and on some scraps of tissue for the sides
the little resin bird was painted with French Roast and then covered with Sapphire Treasure Gold and fixed to the perch with Heavy Structure Gel.

 added some dots of red for the flowers, using a Liquitex paint pen before adding the tissue to the side.
The roof was made by mixing GP with London Night Fresco and adding a reasonably thick layer to the roof of the bird house.
I think the roofer must be very inexperienced, because the roof spacing isn't very even (on the other side particularly!)  - used a coffee stirrer to draw the lines.
Once the paste was thoroughly dry (overnight) I added a thin slightly watered down layer of Dusty Teal to give it a bit of colour.

 the back was where I wanted to try the wood grain effect used so beautifully on the Paperartsy blog  - mixed the GP with Chocolate Pudding and slathered it on - I just drew lines down with the coffee stirrer again, and let dry. Added a thin wash of French Roast and sanded back lightly.

 I really had fun with this one (not so with the photographs, it's damp and dull this morning!!) and entering the Paperartsy challenge here 

a Teeny Tiny journal page..

I was expecting a new Craft Barn Challenge today, as traditionally they've been launched on a Sunday, however the new year's challenges are apparently due tomorrow. So, I should be making some January birthday cards...

But here's a journal page I've been playing with instead! Even this started as a base for something else which I can't share yet but morphed away from that...

the page is Turquoise Fresco, the stencil is the 12x12 Art Is stencil I got in one of my splurges before Christmas, and I used grunge paste which once it was dry I largely sanded back.  The stamp is one of the large flowers from Ellen Vargo and I coloured it with Portfolio pastels, heating each colour in turn before adding more.  I stamped the text (Lin Brown) on a piece of tissue and lightly painted it with Beach Hut Fresco before gluing it to the page with matte medium and blending it over the top with paint.
As the text says, Take a moment to embrace today!

Those part done journal pages..

these journal pages from WOYWW on Wednesday, have sat on my floor for days, for about a week and I got fed up looking at them, so decided to try and finish them off...

 it looked a bit like this for a while too!
Marlin Fresco with Chalk (probably, I started it so long ago)

Didn't take any more photos along the way... various stamps on the right, then the strips of paper on the right, are leftover from the masterboard I used for Julie Ann's birthday card in September.

I added some Grunge Paste through Lin's circle stencil on the left, and just with paint on the right page.

added some daubs of Plum Fresco over the grunge paste but it looks a bit odd in the photo - a bit better in real life! and stamped some of the words from the Clarity word chain sets Lin and I got at Ally Pally, trimmed and edged with Plum Fresco.

Not very happy with the page on the left, quite like the one on the right!  Glad these are done, and I did wonder about showing them, but there are some good bits amongst the bad!

Journal play - out of my comfort zone

I seem to have made this journal page in very neutral 'Jo Myhill'  colours, quite unlike me - it just developed!!

I started by using various light shades of Fresco - Hint of Mint, Concrete, something creamy, Vanilla maybe... I knew I should have made a note...

I used a piece of paper from the Prima Seashore pad, cut into pieces as shown, and cut a piece of hessian into pieces too (bought this way back at the Craft Barn in June with Lin, and only just used any of it!!)

Anyhow, I layered them up and stuck them down with matte medium.

 Added some grunge paste through a stencil and some Glass Beads texture gel , left it to dry overnight when it changed from clear...

 to this funny  brown where it overlapped the paper... hmmm not very fond of that!

so I decided to hide it - had some leftover die cut leaves from the same Seashore pad, in a blue/cream check pattern, stamped the Memory Box drift flowers on the papers using Potting Soil and orange Blossom archival, and dry brushed the grunge paste with hint of mint (over the background) and mushroom (over the paper) to lessen the white

found another little square of the check patterned paper, and stamped a drift flower on it, edged the border with walnut stain distress ink' and filled the space in the middle of the page.

Used one of the sentiments from Sara Nauman's ESN09 on some white Smoothy card, and edged it with Broken China and Walnut Stain distress ink..

Quite like this page, it's very restful, I can see why Jo likes neutrals so much!!

Thanks for looking.

cheep cheep....

Been playing in my new soft covered journal with this and that... and the new JoFY paints and Darcy stamps...

 my first page is my two gelatos, in  a sky blue and brightish green, over stencilled grunge paste.

 I stamped one of Dina's scribbly birds at the bottom,in forget-me-not archival ink (Wendy Vecchi's) and whilst the ink was still wet, I blended the edges a little with a damp brush.

Had a die cut leaf from the Tim Holtz die which I painted green and edged with a green Portfolio pencil, stamped words from the Scribbly Birds set.

and at the bottom, used some glass bead structure gel . (had this ages, never used it before!)

 the right page I started after the new Limited Edition JoFY paints and the Darcy EDY10 set arrived yesterday...
painted the page turquoise, stamped the flowers, painted the centre of the hearts with Chalk Fresco so I could the translucent Cherry Red over the top, and the stems I painted in Sage

 some not too careful painting caused me to re-outline the hearts with a black micro pen, added the birds and text from the same stamp set.

Darcy Journal - month 8 - The Tree of Knowledge

When I was away last weekend, Darcy posted her final page in her monthly journalling series with Paperartsy. The Tree of Knowledge - which involved a recap of some of the techniques we'd learnt over the last 7 months - and drawing... eek!!

However, I wasn't going to be undone by drawing a tree to join in the final challenge.  Here is my entry.

 I used a mixture of Fibralos (I have the 15 chunky set, so quite limited with colours) and water colour pencils (Inktense and WH Smith) for my background

loved re-visiting the torn paper as a mask border and the mini wall stamp is lovely.

 my tree - I sketched it roughly on paper first as recommended by Darcy, then on the journal but rather than fill in the lines, I kind of used it as a guide, and painted the branches.

 I then had a panic about the leaves, as I didn't have the Urban Snapshot set Darcy used, but a twitter convo resulted in Darcy suggesting Sara Naumann's set 12- one of the new ones - for Paperartsy, as there is a splotchy stamp that was perfect!  3 colours of Fresco - Holly, Tinned Peas and Sage - give a lovely soft full in leaf tree look - thanks Darcy, thank goodness you were on twitter at the right time!

then on to the technique leaves - die cut as Darcy showed, (only had to staple one together, lol! ) and chose my techniques to fit on such a small space.. I chose - (left page) stencilling on tissue, crackle, blending opaques, torn stamped tissue; (right page ) masterboard (I had some of the one I used for Darcy's previous month where we did this, so die cut a leaf from it) blending Treasure Gold, stencilling resist with portfolios,  stamping into gesso.

and to show that the apples really do keep the leaves in place!

and of course the apples themselves! cool idea Darcy, they were fun to do (once I got a red I liked mixed)

thanks for months of fun with this Darcy and all your hard work getting these pages ready for us to try!
It's been great to play along.

Journal playtime

This page has been a few days in the developing, and a chance to play with some of the Stevenage Stash Splurge..

 so as usual it started with me wiping some leftover paint on the page.. Frescos. Blues.  and some random patches of Grunge Paste, just applied with a palette knife.














 I then used a wooden fork that I found on the ground at Kew last time I visited, to make some patterns in the GP.

 On Sunday I bought a pack of Fibralo pens and used some here, spritzing with water to allow it to drip and flow down the page - love how it's run through the patterns in the GP (you can see it better in the later photos)

Then I stamped the Sara Naumann hearts in black archival and shaded the edges with the same colour pens I used for my drips

 added some criss-cross stamping (also a Sara stamp) in archival ink (Wendy Vecchi's Forget-me-not)
and some script stamping - the finer script is in Watering Can archival, and I used black for the Marilyn Monroe quote (these are also from the Sara Naumann new stamps)

 and added some of the fabric Prima trim I bought too.

 love the Fibralos - you can see the drips running through the fork patterns here.

finally, I doodled round the black hearts, with a  fine nibbed drawing pen

Really had fun with this page, thanks almost entirely to Paperartsy!! only the pen came from somewhere else.

TIO 172 - P and cogs

The challenge this fortnight at Dragons Dream is set by my lovely teamie Gabrielle - and what a challenge she has set!  We're to use P and cogs... o-kaaaaaay!!

I don't seem to have ever got round to buying a cogs die... rummage, rummage - ah, Maya Road box of chipboard pieces labelled gears, but they'll do...  Now, the P bit...

 I covered a size 8 tag in Grunge Paste  and used one of the Catalyst tools to make a pattern in it.  Let it mostly dry and then painted it with watered down Peacoat (ooh, another P!) Fresco - the older, translucent one.

painted the cogs with Fresco - snowflake first, then sprayed it with some of the Snowflake/Beach Hut mix I used in the journal page the other day - was too similar to the background.. dried that, painted it white again, then French Roast, before adding Treasure Gold - Onyxite, Indigo and White Fire.

Stamped Dina Wakley's Lonely Girl on white Smoothy card, and water colour pencils to add some colour.
Glued the cogs to look like speech bubbles, and stamped a little "dream" onto a scrap of white card.

Hope you have fun with Gabrielle's challenge, we'd love to see what you come up with.

Dragons Dream - TIO - K and a heart

Welcome to another challenge from the Dragons - thank you for rising to the stencil/N theme last time, I know we all loved visiting your entries.  I'll be announcing my Dreamboat 3 soon.

This fortnight, it's the turn of Silvia to choose, and she wants us to work with "K" and to use a heart.  Don't forget you need to use at least one real stamp, on your tag.

I was still stuck in stencil mode, so my hearts are stencilled in tinted Grunge Paste over a Fresco'd background  My word is Kiss..

 I used the Limited Edition Jo Firth-Young paints in Dolly Mix (background) and Amethyst, mixed into the grunge paste.
The heart is from the mini gothic romance stencil (crafters workshop), it's the bigger of the two.

Once the grunge paste was dry, I stamped a Kaisercraft script stamp using black archival, through the stencil so I didn't stamp onto the background too.

 I also added some small bubbly type dots to the background, rolling the stamp (it's from the new Ellen Vargo set EEV06 for Paperartsy) in Magenta Hue archival, some purply ribbon and the Tim Holtz word stick  I coloured the letters with my white sharpie marker and wiped the stick to remove the white paint from the rest of the word stick so it just sits in the recessed letters.

 time for some more extras  - a bunch of paper flowers from my rather extensive collection - these are all by Prima , and some heart brads.

We're looking forward to seeing what you dream up for us this time - have fun!