Today’s Artful Adventure is exploring a technique using stamps and tissue paper. This is great for getting crisp images onto areas where using traditional stamping methods may not give you the desired look. Be sure to see below the video for some additional information.
Since this provides a translucent look, any color of tissue can give you some great layering possibilities.
I used Ranger’s Glue N’ Seal to adhere the tissue, you can use any product you like for this collage-type method. Products like Mod-Podge, liquid matte medium from Liquitex, Golden’s Gel Medium, or anything you prefer will work for this method.
If you like the stamp set I used, it is the ‘Treasured Friendship‘ set from Close to My Heart, and is available in the current 2015-21016 catalog.
I hope you’ll try this method and feel free to share with us over on the FaceBook group!
Now, since it is Make It Monday, let’s move on to see what is next this week. Be sure and visit Karen at PhotosKeptAlive.com to see how she was inspired by a sketch!
In today’s Wednesday Wonder, I’d like to introduce you to Denise Alloca from My Art Adventures. Since I seem to love all things small, I loved her featured video on Donna Downey’s Artist Gang this week. She created a little art journal and shows how she made it from one sheet of paper, and the cover from an empty cereal box. This is a fantastic way to create the backgrounds for a journal, and then have it ready for anything else you’d like to do to complete each page. This basic technique idea will allow you to use supplies you already have on-hand! I have posted two of Denise’s videos below. Enjoy!
If you’re ready for spring, as so many of us are, you’ll love this next video, too. See how she uses pieces of cardboard for some of her mark making, especially the petals of the flowers.
You can see Denise’s entire post with closeups of these little canvases on her blog.
You are welcome to share photos of your own Artful Adventures in our Facebook Group!
Have you noticed how much of our art has words these days? So many of us are creating one thing or another and adding words, quotes, and phrases to our pieces. Sometimes we make something and feel it isn’t quite complete until we add words to it.
We often see people looking at paintings or other works of art and trying to determine what the artist was feeling while creating the piece, their vision, or what they want us to feel when we see it. The works that we add words to are no different, but it seems to give us at least a hint into the piece. Sometimes the words are the major focus, with artfully drawn letters and added embellishments.
Many times I make something and feel like it’s missing something, until I find the words I want to add. Then it feels just right to me.
If you’d like to learn some great tips on adding words to your work, Mark you calendar for November 3!Stephanie Ackerman from Homegrown Hospitality is going to be the guest on Lain Ehmann’s November scrapinar and will be showing us how she turns ordinary text into inspiring, faith-filled works of “Heart!” I loved spending time with Stephanie at a workshop in Phoenix this summer, and I’m sure you’ll love to watch this free video class! (Here is my Artful Adventure post about our Phoenix experience with Stephanie.) But don’t forget, you’ll need to go sign up for free, to get the viewing info, and to have a chance to watch the replay if you can’t catch it live!
Welcome to this week’s Make It Monday blog hop! If you arrived by way of Karen Fitting’s website at Photos Kept Alive, welcome! I don’t want you to miss her post because she always has such great ideas, so I’ll tell you how to get back to it at the end of this post.
Today’s theme is Fall/Halloween for the hop. I have had this idea for a little while, and so I saved it for today. Since so many people want to know how to create the mixed media projects they are seeing, I decided to create something with a limited set of products. I chose the Scaredy Cat paper pack and Scaredy Cat Complements pack from Close to My Heart because I felt it offered such a great collection for what I wanted to create.
Halloween Mixed Media Decor Item
This project was done on a 12″x12″x1″ canvas. By painting the edges, it doesn’t need to be framed. If you wanted to, you could use a canvas panel so that it would be thin enough to place in a regular picture frame.
First off, select what you’ll use for the background. I chose the Slate paper for the top or sky, and the black for the ground bottom. I cut a strip off the bottom of the Slate paper and then tore a tiny bit along the edge. That way, the layers ease together nicely. Now, use an adhesive medium to coat the back side of your paper. Turn it over onto the canvas add a layer of your medium over the top to seal it.
Tear along the bottom edge to create less bulk when adding the next layer.
Next, I tore an edge on my Black paper to create the ground. Again, coat the back of the paper with your adhesive medium, turn it over onto the canvas and add another layer of the medium.
Black paper turn to give curves for the ground portion of the project.
Next, you can either add some texture to background or you could just continue to the next step. I like to add a lot of different textures, so I used black StazOn as well as some white paint and a bit of Thistle ink. In the end I was sorry I had added too much of the white, so I grabbed some black paint and gave a squirt into my white paint to make a nice gray. I then brushed this over the sky portion of my background and restamped my texture in StazOn.
After my night sky became too light, I ended up creating gray with my paint and toned it back down.
Now it was time to really start having some fun. Between the paper pack and some stickers from its coordinating set, there was a lot to play with. Since these were the only products I wanted to use, I did a lot of cutting. One of the decorative sheets has a lot to choose from, and the parts that didn’t get cut up from that sheet will still be used to make some other things — cards, treat bag toppers, etc. You can get a lot of mileage from that one piece of paper! Here is what it looked like
Major pieces placed and doors and windows added.
Next I added details with a fine line marker, placed more stickers, and then used a black Pitt Pen to smudge around the edges of everything to give it more definition. A bit more black was smudged into the sky to add a little more darkness. NOTE: You MUST have sealed everything with your medium over the top, even the stickers. The Pitt Pen will smear for a second as soon as you put it on, but it will not smudge if it is on unsealed paper. You have to act quickly, and you may need to dampen your finger, as well.
The last thing I did was use a white gel pen to add some final definition to a few areas. You’ll notice that I didn’t try to make perfectly straight lines. That’s it. Complete! Here are some close ups.
White Gel Pen used to add some details.
Black Pitt Pen smudged around edges.
Night sky with more black smudged in over the Slate background.
Here is the final piece. I may go back in and use my fine tip black pen to outline the witch and broom over the moon. What do you think?
Halloween Mixed Media Decor Item
Here is the FINAL piece. I went back in and outlined the witch!
While creating the Art Journaling Basics series, it seemed like there was not much time for much art journaling. Ironic, right? There are several backgrounds ready to go from the video on creating backgrounds, so I decided to grab one and use one of the vintage images from yesterday’s post.
Here’s how it this art journal page was created:
Applied gesso to a book page
Applied a light watercolor wash to page
Printed vintage image and did image transfer using a gel medium. You could easily just print it, cut it out and use it as is.
Stamped sea shells in the corner of image
Spritzed a bit of ink from markers to make specks of color
Printed quote; cut out; used matte medium to adhere
Used matte medium over image to seal and brushed a bit over the stamped shells
Used waterproof, black fine-point pen to do rough, sketchy line under quote sections
Randomly dabbed a bit of white on the page
As the vintage image was getting a light layer of matte medium to seal it, I noticed that the first sea shell it touched was beginning to bleed. I liked the way it softened the edges of the stamped images, and I continued to lightly brush the medium over the other stamped shells. Then I realized it was causing the ink to look totally different. You could see more of the red in the brown! If I had wanted to make sure the water based ink did not begin to bleed with other layers added, I would have needed to use a workable fixative before using any other waterbased products in layering.
Grab your art journal and make a page before the Artful Adventures’ train leaves this station! Then come over and share it on the Facebook Group page!
Now, since it is Make It Monday, let’s move on to see what is next this week. Be sure and visit Karen at PhotosKeptAlive.com to see how she was inspired by a sketch!
Welcome to this week’s Make It Monday blog hop! If you arrived by way of Karen Fitting’s website at Photos Kept Alive, welcome! I don’t want you to miss her post because she always has such great ideas, so I’ll tell you how to get back to it at the end of this post.
