Today, I believe in the power of me

 

Over at Mixed Media Monthly Challenge this month we have been challenged to discover our super power or convey a super power you wish you would have. I have thought about it and while I am a fan of all the super heroes comics and movies (my faves being X-men and fave character would be Phoenix), I decided not to portrait a Sci-Fi wish like telekinesis or being able to fly with my own wings (of which either would be cool!) but rather something very human and real but sometimes quite a challenge to obtain, so much so that when you have it, it's a super power on its own. I am talking about confidence which leads to having the power of believing in yourself. And I made a 7x7 cotton art panel to help me remind myself of this fact.

 

I started off my gluing down left over pieces I have on my desk and in junk boxes (or as Lynn aptly calls then 'TOVERS - which in Dutch actually means 'to make something appear out of nothing- magic' so I really love the words she uses for her super power ability and will borrow her word for this post :) And when the 'tovers are all glued down, I put in a light wash of gesso over it to prime it for the next stage and dull out the back ground tones.

I then placed the stencil from Clarity over it, seedling pods, got some Liquitex muted acrylics in violet and turquoise and dabbed that through it with a make up sponge. When I took the stencil off I traced the lines with a white posca marker to get sharper edges and stamped Hera from Carabelle studio on it for placement.

I had stamped Hera on marker paper and colored her in with Letraset Promarkers, cut her out and adhered her to the piece with soft matte gel medium. Hera was chosen because of the style she is made, a comic book line drawing, also to give an hommage to the comic book artists out there, like Brett Weldele :)

The process after that was fairly organic, I drew in more hair lines with posca black marker and a home made liquitex gold marker (I used a Dahler and Rowney empty mixed media pen and filled it with liquitex gold ink) and black and white splatter with post posca pens.

You can see how the gold strands of hair a lot better here. Now the whole piece comes together with the following stamp from Vivs las VegaStamps! and is the title of this post.

 

Today I believe in the power of me stamp is designed by cat Kerr. Such a beautiful and inspiring sentiment that is! I did something bold and directly stamped this sentiment on the neck/shoulder of Hera (instead of using other papers and placing over what I usually do) and it succeeded in looking like a tattoo! I colored it in with some alcohol markers and left it like that.

This is how the final piece looks after I edged it with a black marker. 

And now it hangs in our hallway where I can look upon this reminder every time I walk past it. 

Thanks for the inspiration MMMC!

I would also like to enter this in the following challenges:

STAMPlorations April Mixed Media Challenge

Creative Artiste Mixed Media Challenge 25 Anything Mixed media goes

Moo Mania - Faces Challenge

Thank you for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

Shopping Highlight: Art Specially 2017

Well as I hinted last Friday, last weekend was spent at the wonderful Art Specially event in Nijkerk. My lovely husband came with me (both days) to share in the crazy fun and also to make sure I didn't spend too much. Well the latter spectacularly failed, haha! But we definitely had crazy fun!

There were a lot of workshops/make and takes were offered this year again but we only had time for a selection. Also there were lines for the very popular workshops, like the notebook decoration by Papillon Hobby. We sat in line for 1 1/2 hours for that one. It's good to have a buddy with you so you can take turns in waiting. It was well worth the wait and fun to use a new to me product; Cadence brands wax, stencils and media. We also had workshops with Dylusions paints (dress card), paper artsy and infusions powders on gelli plate (the Happy cards), Dina Wakley paints (the house tags), Distress ink layering (swirl tag) and dual emboss resist technique (the happy day card). 

On the left works I made and on the right the works my husband made. He got a lot of fun comments on being one of the few guys there attending the workshops :) I learned a lot these two days and I can't wait to implement some of these fun techniques in my own works. And I learned a great way to customize my Rhodia/Leuchtturm notebook!

The trends/pushed products on the event this year were: Distress Oxides, Cadence products (seriously almost every stand was pushing this new brand!), Pan Pastel, alcohol ink on yupo and gilding wax/faux metallic effects. I managed to resist buying a few of these pushed products, like the gilding wax, but also came home with a great deal of other things. 

Well... like I said, not spending too much has spectacularly failed this year! So happy this is just a yearly event! I had pre-ordered the Distress Oxides and saw Corrie Herriman live doing a demo with them at Hobby Compleet de Duif stand. I'm really excited to give them a whirl! I also pre-ordered the Lindy's magical shakers and am very happy to have found the Scribble Sticks. I'll to a comparison of both those products with similar products because I am curious on the differences between them. Will of course share my findings with you. All the paints and deco arts media were on sale and well since I love a good sale and wanted to have the dylusions paints for a while, so I went for it! A bit light on the stamps this year around, but that´s because I had my eye on different media to try out. You gotta make choices somewhere right? ;)

My husband also made some purchases and went for a set of ZIG's Clean color brush set

Got a set (and some extra) Zig Clean color real brushes at the Artspecially crafty market last weekend. To learn a bit more about blending, color and this whole, "coloring" business because they just seemed so accessible. My first real "attempt" at using them in the corner and little Meesha giving her (dis)aproval 😅.

Een bericht gedeeld door Blaze8t88 (@cornelius.grayl) op 5 Apr 2017 om 2:23 PDT

and I love that he is trying out this new to him medium :)

I am looking forward to use my goodies this weekend.
Have a great one you all and thanks for stopping by :)