Mixed Media Academy Open Studio Challenge 1

I first discovered Finnabair & her work a couple of years back, love her work! And now she's just started a new Facebook group - Finnabair & Friends - Open Studio, so many talented crafters out there... just amazed by everyone's stunning offerings!  And we now have a challenge, for a background inspired by one of her creative team's examples (on her blog).  So I had a play on several tags, & decided in the end to go with my take on Rebecca's textured background,.

Using a 5" x 7" canvas, I added strips of papers, hessian rectangles, lace trim, finishing off with texture paste through 2 different stencils.

 Then I covered with a coat of white gesso.

Then for the colour ... What to do?  I wanted to get away from my current bright pastel turquoise/teal/green/purple palette, so I decided on a fairly dark & gold 'grungy' theme...

After several false starts... sprays (the red was too red), shimmering mica powders (again too red!), it looked a real mess!

So, I still liked the texture, & it's only a canvas (!), and as I'd decided to go dark, I covered the whole thing with a coat of black gesso ... that was better, & because I'd used the shimmering powders, it ended up looking quite metallic.

Eventually, I used gold paint on the lace and stencil stripes, and most of the small stencil dots & added a coppery paint to the remaining dots.  A few days ago, I found some micro beads I'd bought years ago... the black, gold & light brown were just the thing to add a little more colour texture - background done!

After trying out several brass/gold toned embellishments, which weren't quite working, I wondered whether it would work better 'landscape'... yes, everything went together quickly after this, and so I finished my canvas...

I enjoyed this, even despite the many re-colourings!

A couple of detailed photos...

 

great news!!!

Hi again, some news to share with you...

Joan, one of my friends from the Queens Road Summer Market here in Watford is opening up a shop in Watford (Rebel Pebble, 98 The Parade) on Saturday for local artists & craftspeople to show & sell their work, & I'm renting a couple of shelves for my cards, canvases & more!!!

Thought I'd share a few of the things I've made recently for the shop ...

First some canvases:

Japanese cotton & lace

crackled canvas, wooden butterflies

textures with die cuts & embossing paste, heat-embossed butterflies

And then some hearts (which still need ribbon to hang!)

& lots more ideas, just need time to make!!!

Back soon!     Kay

New beginnings #2

I joined Christy Tomlinson's online Art Society Video Club back in January ... monthly inspiration for mixed media canvases. Very different, but I'm loving it! Videos come mid-month, so here's my January canvas ...




 

I added a layer of tissue wrap to the canvas, then painted over; added die cut patterned paper leaves which I painted over, and a couple of die cut embossed butterflies I'd done a while back & added the text.  It looked quite disjointed, so I finally sprayed over the whole canvas!

 

For the second one for January, I went 'off track' a bit!  A dark background, & for Christmas I'd got the Steeleye Span album "Wintersmith" (inspired by Terry Pratchett's tales of Tiffany Aching).  One of the songs on the album was called 'I shall wear Midnight'. I'd already done the black/grey background for my canvas.  I also had some tiny patterned leaves left over.  So I decided to create my canvas around these ...

 

 

And here's a couple for February ...

The patchwork is made of rectangles of the top layer of paper napkins (I've gathered quite a collection over the years!); faux 'stitching' added with pen.

 

For this one, I used Tim Holtz fabric for the patchwork.  As the edges of the material were already 'pinked', I cut the rectangles with pinking shears & I added a little stamping using various border stamps, with a little distress ink on the edges (back to my favourite 'muted' colours!!).

 

Back soon!     Kay

New beginnings!

After an unproductive few months last year, I'm finally getting back into crafting!

Our Facebook group has a challenge each month - for February it's "New Beginnings", using new (or not used) products and/or a new technique.

Just over a week ago, I went up to Leicester with a friend from the group to Neil's Studio in Leicester to a workshop run by Hels Sheridan. (Neil is also a member of the group; I first met him last year at his newly opened studio in his back garden - a great creative space - Neil is also now on several craft Creative Teams - well worth checking our his blog here).  Anyway, had a great time & managed to complete a 9" x 12" canvas...

 

 

I loved doing this! 

A couple of days later I found out from my friend that Sizzix UK had cut the prices of lots of Tim Holtz dies... Now Hels provided a piece of the Harlequin border to use in class; loved this one, so versatile, & yes, it was on sale!  And as I checked the website, I saw several more reduced that were on my 'wish list'!  So, an order to Sizzix, and a couple of days later, these arrived!

 

I also sent my first order from Fernli Designs, who produce wooden / MDF laser-cut embellishment & other pieces.  I was ready to produce a Hel's type canvas with Tim Holtz dies & some Fernli cogs!  And I also bought some Dreamweaver Embossing Paste that we used at the class - love this through stencils; it has an almost 'velvety' finish, rather than molding paste, which is more glossy.

Comparison of Dreamweaver embossing paste (diamonds) & molding paste heart

 

 

 

This canvas is much smaller, 6" x 4" & the canvas itself is 'chunkier', less fine-grained.  So I think it has a different feel to it.  (I think I prefer the 'original', has a much more 'open' feel to it - I think my next one will be on a larger canvas - more space to play with!).

 

I used the Harlequin & Washer Borders - both the die cuts themselves & the pieces that were left.  And I used the Old Jalopy Mover & Shaper. All the wooden bits are Fernli Designs, apart from the tiny hearts, which I picked up from ArtCuts at Alexandra Palace Stamping & Scrapbooking Show last year.  And the embossing paste is through Tim's Latticework stencil.

 

detail of the cogs

texture detail; die cuts, embossing paste etc

 

(hope this counts for the challenge!)

 

Back soon!     Kay



Creative JumpStart 2014 - homemade 'Gelli Plate'

A couple of the videos for Creative Jump Start 2014 (www.nathaliesstudio.com) used household items to create a gelli plate for mono-printing.

Inspired by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer and Louise Nelson, I decided to give it a go.

I actually made my 'gelli plate' from a piece of 'fun foam', which seems to be standing up well to its use!

home-made 'gelli plate'

Using turquoise and tapioca paint, & blue and green card, I started to play! On some I also used a stamp with the paint. 



    

I did several more!  The brighter green and blue are the colour of the card, as I used a mask of torn paper to create the background shape.

 

I decided to make a card from the one on the right.

 

 

 I had already stamped the 'flowers' in both paint colours. I sketched round the edge of the masked shape with an opaque white pen.  I stamped the butterfly and corners and embossed them with Stampendous Frantage aged silver embossing powder and finally added the ChitChat words and the raffia bow.

(Household objects - torn paper from notebook, raffia, (& home-made 'gelli plate') & I used Stampendous embossing powder as mentioned above.)

 

Back soon!     Kay

Creative Jumpstart 2014 Finnabair-style canvas

It's the last day of Creative JumpStart 2104 today; just realised I hadn't posted any of the bits I'd done!  The course is at www.nathaliesstudio.com. I haven't done all of them, but I have got so many ideas now, and we still have the videos available until November.  So here goes:

First project to show is a small mini canvas (only 7cm x 7cm) inspired by the video from Finnabair (Anna Dabrowska).  Her blog is here - take a look - she does such amazing pieces!  I would love to do a class with her - the CJS video was great!


In real life, it's a bit less 'yellowy'!

 

(Household items: teabag for making tea stain, old press studs, old necklaces).

I enjoyed finding the bits for this tiny project, painting white to hide colour, and then adding sprays to re-colour! The sprays were using mica powders with water - Perfect Pearls & Cosmic Shimmer. I also used a homemade tea stain, and watered down distress ink.  Quite a few of the bits were from my stash of craft bits, but there's also a few bits from broken necklaces & some old press studs (I've got a whole big box of those!).  I think if I did a similar project again, I would leave the glass in the lightbulb unpainted though...

 



Showing 3-D dimension

Back soon!     Kay

curious scrapbookers field guide (2) !

Another project I've completed...

A bit of a 'sidetrack' this one, May had given us the link to Anna's (Finnabair's) website - her work is a m a z i n g !!! I found a 1 1/2 hour 'video' where she created a layout & I was inspired to try similar (it took me much longer than 1 1/2 hours though!).  I had such fun doing this!!  I'm hoping to do one of my Dad as well, sometime!  (Photo is of Mum as a little girl).







And some other finished projects...

2nd scrapbook page - I roughly painted the background paper, which was a bit too vivid for the photos.

A tiny altered 'birdhouse'... the house itself is only about 2 1/2" high & the 'tree' is actually a small diecut leaf!

And finally ...

A simple card with faux stitching...

I'm now working on a canvas... I've got as far as this at the moment...

Basic texture & colours done, flowers etc to add (not sure how I'm going to do them yet though!) we should be getting more ideas from May in the next couple of weeks!

Loving this class!!

Back soon!  Kay

more mixed media

I've now caught up with the last two assignments for the Mixed Media Workshop - lucky they have Thanksgiving in the States, (and didn't post a lesson last week) otherwise I'd still be playing catch-up!

Anyway, the one for 2 weeks ago was to create an abstract collage using a shape - I decided on squares (although a couple of rectangles managed to creep in!).

And last week's was a beeswax collage - luckily Robin's mum had bought me a lump of natural beeswax years ago - I knew I would use it sometime!!  I didn't really have any of the other recommended tools (apart from a heat gun) but I at least managed to produce something!

This is smaller (5" x 7) than the other canvas. I knew what stamps I wanted to use & for it to have a vintage, grungy & distressed feel - I definitely had moments of distress when it wasn't going right! - it's the first time I've ever used beeswax, so it was a great 'learning curve' for me!  Very Tim Holtz, this one - I used his stamps, distress inks and alphabet die! (link to his blog).
I don't really know about this one - I like the design, but what I don't like is that the surface should be smooth & level (apart from the holly texture & the die cut letters), but it isn't - I shall have to practice some more! (and maybe get a different heat gun which isn't so 'blowy', which was one of my main problems - it moved the melted wax around too much, so some parts were hardly covered, and other parts were too thick!).

Talking about Tim Holtz, every year he produces 12 Tags for Christmas, doing one a day (starting 1 December) & posts them onto his blog - can't wait to see what he does this year - so looking forward to his inspiration!

And I'm hoping to do a "White Christmas" themed 'something' for the Chocolate Baroque challenge (see sidebar) - I've got a couple of weeks to get it done!
Back soon!     Kay

pink taffeta!

Here's my finished first project on the mixed media workshop course. I didn't change a lot since I posted, but I added some ric-rac instead of the silver trimming, and some 'flower' ribbon, a large flower made from mulberry paper, & the words 'pink taffeta' at the bottom.

On to the next one now, which is another collage, but this time it has to be abstract ... I think I'll be using squares ...

More soon!

pink taffeta dress!

I found the "pink taffeta dress" photo!  It was taken at a friend's birthday party in her garden with her dolls - we must have been about 7?

My favourite dress, so sad when I grew out of it!

So anyway, I decided to use part of this as a focal point of my first assignment for the Mixed Media Workshop course I've just started, a collage with a gel transfered, photo-edited photo.  I had a 'slight' problem in that we haven't got any photo editing software on the computer apart from that in Word and Paint!!!  Anyway, I selected just me, played around in Word with contrast and brightness, erased the background in Paint, and ended up with

 which I reversed for the transfer.

I had a "happy half-hour" looking through some of my old children's books to find some images for the collage background - The Children's Wonder Book (fairy, folk and classic children's stories) and The Baby's Opera (nursery rhymes illustrated by Walter Crane).

I've not finished the canvas yet, it needs a bit more, but here's what I've done so far;

& I think I shall add the words 'pink taffeta' somewhere...

Back soon!

Kay

At last, another blog post!

Well, its been a few weeks since I blogged last - I don't know where the time goes!

Firstly, piccie of my final Mixed Media course assignment - theme - corrugated cardboard & recycling:

So, I used the back of a washing tablet packet (tore most of the top layer off to expose the corrugated card), I stamped the gentlemen and butterflies on scraps of the cotton from the previous week, the pale green ribbon had become stained with ink, but the colours worked with this!  I printed the photo onto photo paper, and as the words on the gentlemen stamp didn't show up very well, I stamped these again onto the scrap from cutting out the photo - so I think I did what I could to recycle!  The photo is of my great grandfather (Dad's grandfather) who collected butterflies as a hobby.  I remember my grandma had a couple of his butterfly displays in her flat - I've no idea what happened to them.

(An aside: my family have now just about given up trying to persuade me to throw away scraps of paper, card and materials!)

The altered book course has also finished now, though I've still got to do the final assignments (altered book clock and altered board book!).  And I haven't finished the book itself yet; although I started out trying to "theme" it to the book itself (a copy of Homer's Illiad), I've ended up using it for trying out techniques - though I'm determined to do at least a couple of "themed" pages before I'm finished!

Anyway, here are a few of my pages;



pages with gesso, & gesso used with stencil, then coloured





beaded window




pop-up page, with large tags in pockets

I'm quite pleased with these, although I must admit I still have a little problem altering a book which then can't be read!!

Anyway, I'm onto another online course now, Mixed Media Workshop, so I'll be posting more very soon!

Back soon!

Kay

Time for some piccies, I think!

Here's some of the things I've been doing recently ...

Online course - Mixed Media (with My Creative Classroom)

Assignment 1 Fabric Collage

Assignment 2 Canvas collage





Assignment 3 Printing & painting on fabric

Assignment 4 still to be completed!