Why worry...

Orange is a great colour and it's hard to be unhappy when you are looking at such a cheery colour.  This is the challenge at Take A Word this week.
I have made a simple piece with orange as the primary colour

I sprayed the card stock with sunshine yellow Dylusions spray ink.  Next I stamped the background motif with Versamark and rubbed over with Perfect Pearls Blue Patina and Perfect Copper before spraying with hair spray.
Next I stamped the lady (who reminds me of Maid Marion in the old Robin Hood series) in black StayzOn Ink.  Next came some doodle string hearts and some rub on lettering.

Thanks for taking a look.

Gothic Delights

When SPA announced their challenge as Gothic Valentine, I was a little lost for a while but then ideas began to tumble from somewhere and I couldn't wait to make it.  I don't usually do 'dark' art and don't much like Halloween  but have to say I have enjoyed this so much.

Love Eternal

 Starting out with 300gsm paper I cut a heart freehand and then used it as a template to draw a heart on the 6x4 postcard.  I applied Decoart texture sand using a paintbrush radiating out from the heart drawn on the postcard and left it to dry while I worked on the overlay heart.  I glued some white lace to the heart and pressed it firmly and once it was dry I applied 3 coats of Americana True Red.

Painting the whole of the card with two coats of Traditions Carbon black I began dry brushing from the outer edge to the inner edge working with ever lightening shades of gray until I finished using white at the very centre.  It looked like I had dusted it with baby powder!
Once I had finished with the white I began to cover the whole of the white dry brushing with Traditions Quinacridone Violet.  This was the only way I could think to achieve the subtle shading I wanted to achieve.

I mixed some of the True Red and a little black to apply some dry brush shading to the heart and then sprayed it with High Gloss sealer.  The bow at the top was originally white organza that I swiped with StayzOn black.  (it now has a fantastic metallic sheen, love it).

All in all this has been a lot of fun and I've learned a couple of new techniques.  Thanks so much for taking the time to look.

It's halloween!

The challenge at Sunday Postcard Art this week is Retro Halloween.  I'm not really a fan of Halloween and always struggle with art for this holiday.  However, it wouldn't be called a challenge if it was easy, would it :)

I'm such a lonely pumpkin!

I coloured white card stock with both yellow and orange water soluble crayons and then wiped it with a baby wipe to spread the colour.  Next came some quickly hand drawn buildings on a hill.  For some reason I painted them with Mars black rather than colour them with a marker, which would have been much quicker.

Next came stamping across everything in Archival Sap Green ink and a cobweb stamp.  Then stamping again with the same stamp but with Monarch Orange Ink.  I notice it looks silver on the photo where it overlaps the Mars Black paint.  (Might have to play with this as a technique)

I drew a pumpkin and coloured him with Inktensils in orange, yellow, dark brown and light brown, then applied a little water to spread the colour and blend.  I drew around the outside of the pumpkin with a deep blue inktensil and applied water to give a soft outline.  The moon was hand drawn on white printer paper and painted with silver paint.

Finally I stamped around the bottom edges with a leaf stamp, first in StayzOn Black and then my favourite London Fog.

Broken glass?

This morning I have a day off work and I'm letting my muse have full reign.  I started the Take A Word challenge quite late this week (this morning actually) and decided to do an underwater piece with a mermaid, but my muse had other ideas!

I was playing with UTEE and discovered (for me it was a discovery) that I could make it look like glass, and that if I did things to the faux glass, it looked like stained glass.

Broken dragonfly

The piece is postcard size and sprayed with London Blue and Vibrant Turqoise (ready for the underwater scene I didn't make).   I wiped some of the ink off through letter stencils and a border stencil.  I stamped the Tim Holtz dragonfly in StayzOn ink black.

I then spent a ridiculous amount of time melting layer after layer of UTEE with my heat gun.  Once it was thick enough to look like glass I had a flash of inspiration and lay some fairy film over the top and heated again.
Once cool I removed the 'faux glass' from my craft mat and stamped it in StayzOn metallic gold.  After another blast from the heat gun I started to roughly cut it as though it were being cut from glass.  Then to make the colours 'pop' I painted the back in Mars black.  Voila - stained glass!

The strip of copper down the right hand side (it's from the garden centre to deter snails) is embossed and then distressed with paint.

I'll have to do the underwater scene another time :)