That's a jazzy kite!

Ever since I saw Three Muses challenge of Fly a Kite, I've had this idea floating around in my head.  I just couldn't let go of it, so eventually had to create it in my journal.

Welcome to my jazzy kite!

Let's go fly a kite....  

The journal page already had some ink on it from mopping up some previous spills.  I sprayed the whole page with water and then the lower part with Lime Crush followed by Cut Grass in patches.  The top part of the page was sprayed with Vibrant Turquoise.  Once it was dry I lay stencils over the top (flowers, Letters and a clock) and sprayed through them with water and let them sit until the ink re-dissolved before I mopped them with paper towel.  Next I applied some Gesso through a harlequin stencil and left it all to dry while I worked on the saxophone.

I sketched the saxophone shape onto a vintage text page, cut it out then painted it in Golden Translucent Primary Yellow.  I stamped on it with music stamp in Pumice Stone Distress ink and at the same time I stamped on the background across the grass.

Next came a little colouring of the sax with some cheap oil pastels and a charcoal pencil before I glued it to the background.  Finally I drew the music coming from the sax and going into the sky with kite being represented by the treble clef.

A totally bonkers bit of work, but my muse is happy now.  Thanks so much for looking, it is always appreciated.

Was that a fairy I saw?

The challenge at Sunday postcard art this week is Mushrooms / Toadstools.  I wanted to do something closely aligned with the brief, since my muse went on a tangent for the last challenge I entered!

I think I'm in auto-experimentation mode at the moment... today's experiment :-

Are those lights in the forest or eyes?

Using 300sgm card stock I sprayed through a stencil with Dylusions Vibrant Turquoise and then removing the stencil I sprayed again with cut grass.  After all of the other layers the stencil is almost invisible.  Using Archival ink in Sap Green I stamped leaves around both the left and right hand sides (also impossible to see now).  Next I placed drops of Daler Rowney liquid acrylic in Pearlescent white and sprayed it with an airbrush.
The toadstool stamp is from Dyan Reavely and is stamped on 300gsm card stock and coloured with Inktensils. After adhering the toadstools to the background I outlined them with nautical blue charcoal and then smooshed that with a paper stump.

I applied some Dew Drops in 'Mint Chocolate' to the background and then stamped over everything with a small script stamp and a cross hatch stamp using Archival French Ultramarine.  The piece was finished using a 'dream' stamp using StayzOn ink

Ravishing in Red

The Three Muses set a challenge to use red in our art today.  I have no idea where this came from but sometime during the night it came :)

What do you mean I look a mess?

This is clearly a double spread in my journal, staring out with quinacridone magenta and lemonade and sour apple paint being roughly applied.  Next came some stamping in Archival blue, yellow and orange.  I found the cute picture of a pig on the Internet and cut her out then hand drew the fabulous over stuffed chair.  The chair is sprayed with Dylusions ink in Pillar Box red.  The chandeliers across the top are stamped in StayzOn ink and the font is done on my computer.
I added a crown and some ear rings and some lovely lipstick to Miss Piggy :)  Around the edges is some doodling and the chandeliers and ear rings have some Black Diamond Stickles

I have strayed from my path again!

I was well underway for my entry to the Three Muses challenge this week.  I had the background made and the primary image worked out, then my Craft Stamper magazine arrived and the front cover showed a lovely Gothic image, I thought it would be fun to try.  I not sooner began the technique than I started to change it and do it differently.  This is now absolutely nothing like the example in the magazine, but I'm happy because it's now 'my technique'.

A different technique than originally intended

The background is Dylusions spray inks in Lemon and Lime.  Then over stamped with Archival monarch orange (I found some children's texture stamps in HobbyCraft and bought a pack - did the small and mediums dots brilliantly)
Then I over stamped the background again with London Fog and a wallpaper background stamp.  I over stamped again with London fog and a pattered heart stamp.

The Gothic Arch window is an Invoke Art stamp that I stamped in black on white card stock and then cut it out.  Next I covered it with Versamark embossing ink and Tim Holtz Black embossing powder (first deviation from the magazine instructions).  Then I applied pearlex powder in copper around the edges and a mint colour in the centre.

Next came more Versamark and this time clear embossing powder (next deviation from magazine) Then I decided it makes it look like old distressed copper and at this point I completely ignored the magazine :)
Applying another 2 layers of clear embossing I let it cool and then over stamped it with Moonlight White ink using a 2nd impression (stamped once off the image to remove ink) and then a second stamp on the image.

I mounted it to gold Miri board and then attached it to the substrate.  The red heart is punched from a magazine picture and glued to the window.

This is a technique I will definitely continue to play with but my deviation from the magazine directions made me think of the Albert Einstein quote - which I printed from my computer and then attached.

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.

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 :)