Time for the movies!

The word at Take a Word Monday is Poster, to represent a crime move poster.  I wasn't sure what I would do with this until a thought struck me.

This is the first time I've ever done a mono-chromatic piece and I have to say I did enjoy it once I got started.

I'd love to see this movie 

I started out by making a mask for the door and then used tape to mask the lighted area through the door.  I mixed Mars Black and titanium white and painted the walls and floor.  A quick search on the internet found me the silhouette of the man, that I tweaked in Photoshop to get him the right size.
Removing the masking I attached the man in the doorway, painted the light shining through the door with a little, black, white and some silver.  The shadow is black and white with a touch of red.

The words were always going to be a challenge, so I fussy cut the word WHO? and added some red to represent blood.

No texture on this piece, which is rare for me but I do like the starkness of it.

Stone the crows!

The challenge this week on Sunday Postcard Art is Crows, which is part of the 4 weeks of Halloween.  I know that the crows should probably be in a Halloween context but I'm taking a tangent.

Welcome to my crazy crow.

The crow who wouldn't quiet down.

 I sprayed the postcard with Bubble Gum pink and sunshine yellow Dylusions sprays before stamping a small script stamp in Archival Orange and a cross hatch stamp in Archival Magenta.  Across the bottom I stamped a small checker pattern in Memento London Fog.  This is an amazing shade of ink because it always looks to be layers below everything else, even if it's not.

Next came some white gesso through a stencil and the pink dye has fed through and given it a pearly sheen.  I used black gesso through a stencil at the bottom and then painted the black squares with interference red, the interference gold on the white gesso.

Mr crow was found on a search on the internet and the crown I cut from a scrap of paper.  To give it some texture I applied perfect pearls to the crown and the white circles

Horsing around with the clowns

This page was inspired by the Three Muses Challenge today - under the sea.  I started the piece a few days ago and decided to make a video, but I was not too happy about how it was going so stopped making the video and left it on my desk for a day or so.  Then suddenly my muse woke up and I quickly knew what I wanted to do, and now I love it.

Don't those anemone tickle?

The page is sprayed with Dylusions turquoise spray ink at the bottom and London Blue at the top.  I then stamped swirls in Archival French Ultramarine at the top and sap green at the bottom (you can barely see that now.  Next came some glass beads texture gel along the bottom to represent the sea bed.

I then applied high solids medium through a stencil because I thought they look like bubbles once they dry clear.  Over the top of all of that I sprayed some Cosmic Shimmer Vintage Mist in French Navy.  For the next layer I painted over the glass beads with iridescent water colours in several shades of blue and green.

Having painted the background I started on the foreground and drew a seahorse, a couple of clown fish and some anemones. The fish, seahorse and anemones were painted with iridescent paints in various colours before I glued them to the background and attached some tiny shells.

I found the perfect mermaid on the internet somewhere and painted her tail also with iridescent green / gold paint.

All in all I love the way it turned out despite the slight bump on the journey.

By the light of the silvery moon...

The challenge at Sunday Postcard Art today is moonlight, and anything about Halloween is always a challenge for me.  It was late last night, the darkness all around and rain hitting the window pane when I was overcome by madness and my creation was born.....

Step away from the cleaning fluids now!

I didn't know if the idea would work but gave it a try.  I have a Paper Artsy stamp of a ruined monastery with a ghostly figure and I decided to try to stamp it with bleach on midnight blue card stock.  Yes, that's right - bleach!

I made the stamp pad from folded kitchen towel and applied bleach to the pad.  The first couple of attempts were a shambles with either the image being too soaked with bleach or not enough.  I realised it was impossible to get a clean image so I chose one that was under 'done' and used a paintbrush to finish up the monastery, and the moon.

The leaves around the sides and base are stamped in London Fog Gray and StayzOn black.  The moon was enhanced with some very translucent Golden Fluid medium in Zinc White.  The bats are actually swallows from a sea scene but I pressed extra hard on the stamp to make them fatter, voila bats!

There is no texture and I'm not sure this piece will survive very long since I didn't apply anything to prevent the action of the bleach continuing.  If you try this technique, it all depends on the type of paper what your results will be.  When I tried gray paper, the bleach removed the colour back to a pale gold.
Always wash your brushes and stamps quickly to avoid any damage.

Roll up, roll up, the circus is in town

A few weeks ago I created a couple of ATCs for a swap in the theme of Demented Circus.  I found it really difficult to do a circus theme and it took me longer than I expected to complete them.

That's Ms Clown to you!

The backgrounds were created on heavy weight white cardstock and sprayed with bubble gum pink Dylusions spray then stamped with Archival Magenta and a Tim Holtz stamp.  I applied some white paint in circles and lines before adding some small reflective elements to her hat.
The yellow circles were stamped with Archival Magenta on white cardstock sprayed with a lemon yellow spray.  I went over the lettering with a Sakura pen in clear to give it a bit of bling.

I am having lots of fun making and swapping ATCs and inchies, so you may see some more in the coming weeks.  If anyone would like to do a swap, please let me know.

Childhood happiness

Today on Three Muses we are asked to create a journal page to illustrate a favourite phrase or song.   I have created a page in my large journal based on a favourite quote - Happiness is where we find it, but rarely where we seek it!

Raw Journal Page

The background has more layers than an onion and began life with a gesso base, then spray inks, then several layers of paint, then several layers of stamping, then some stencil work.

When I thought of what makes me happy, I decided that today it's flowers and happy faces.  I stamped the flowers on white card stock and coloured them in with  markers, before giving each one a smiley face using Posca paints.

I painted the flower stems in green metallic paint (I don't know why) and did a white translucent halo for each flower.  The writing is very childlike completing the image.

I have to smile every time I look at this page.

Such a haunting melody

The challenge this week on Sunday Postcard Art is Haunted.  Being this close to Halloween my thoughts immediately turned to ghosts and ghouls but no inspiration came.  Then I considered that haunting could be taken in a broader sense.  This is my take on Haunted: haunted by sights, memories, smells, flavours and moments in time.

Such a haunting melody

The eagle eyed amongst you will spot that the music is upside down.  I worked with this piece for several hours today and didn't even notice until I saw the photo!

I painted the background with Golden Fluid paints and then stamped a very old piece of line art in blue across the sky area.  I then stamped the music (upside down).

To try and achieve an etherial look for the female image, I stamped it in Sepia Archival ink on white tissue paper before tearing it around the stamp.  I then glued it to the postcard using Soft Gel medium with a layer over the top.  This makes the image translucent.  Here you can see the music and vintage floral stamp through the face.

The heart was cut from cardstock and painted with Quinacridone Magenta mixed with High solids gels (gives peaks).  Once dry, I highlighted the top of the peaks with Iridescent Bronze.

I have no explanation for the heart, other than to say my muse is on a "We are making hearts" kick at the moment.  This the the fourth different heart I've made this weekend!

A little bird told me....

When I saw the topic from Three Muses for this week, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

There were so many different layers that I won't go into them all here.  The paper is standard card stock with a coat of gesso to stop it buckling and pilling with the water and glues.

The first layer of paint is Golden Liquid Acrylics in white, red and yellow (heavy blending and then stippled to give texture).  Then I attached some old paper and started to apply the various layers.  Finally spraying with a gold mica spray! phew...

Sing birdie sing!

 Once I finished the background, I cut the bird and cage from the same card stock as the background but the scroll to hold the cage is a Tim Holtz grunge paper element.

I gave the cage and the scroll a distress treatment to make them look like tarnished metal.

I coloured the bird with Shabby Shutters distress ink and then splashed him with water (you can't see the lovely colour variations well in the pics.  The eye of the bird is a dot of black enamel from Ranger.

You can see the tarnished metal effect better on the scroll work.  I also over heated it to make the under layer of paint bubble a little, this makes it look like the metal is corroding under the outer surface.

I've just noticed that the bird and cage is Tim Holtz and the quote is Lou Holtz - It's a Holtz collaboration :)

I made a video and for once loaded in time and can be found here.  Approx 10 mins long