MailArt Monday: Pigtales Grew Wings

When I was cleaning my art room over my Christmas break, I found a stack of white standard C6 envelopes and I thought it would be fun to show you some more arted up envelopes in my weekly MailART Monday posts.

I created the envie above with some of my fave Stampotique stamps and a new stencil by Brett Weldele. A colorful burst in cold winter times :) The whole thing is one layer and done with masking the main image and a part for the address off with some sticker paper.

You can see most of the materials I used here. The Dylusions mixed media palette has such lovely bright colors! I chose some according distress inks to layer over the stencil, which is "scribbles" from Brett Weldele. When I took the stencil away I stamped some texture on it with the fun Textures cube from Kate Crane. And added more color first with distress inks and blender tool.

Before I took the mask away I also sprayed some shimmer, Perfect pearl kiwi to be exact. Then I colored little miss Pigtales and the lovely wings design by Daniel Torrente in with alcohol makers. I was contemplating leaving the wings like that, but I wanted brighter colors, so I went over it again with promarkers and copics (alcohol based markers) to brighten things up.

She definitely looks a lot brighter here and to make her pop out even more I used a white gel pen (from pentel) for some accents. 

It's the second week of the Anything Goes challenge at Stampotique, which I am entering this envelope in. You can play along until Wednesday when the new challenge theme is announced :)

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Mailart Monday; It's just a Jester

This weekend I looked at the Viva Las Vegastamps novermber challenge board and the words like gold, warm, yellow, tans, browns, vintage, black and white, background stamps, doodles, harlequin, diamond, distressed, polka dots, swirls, circles, hearts, stripes  inspired to create the card above.  I used an array of VLVS but the focal point here is the Whimsical Jester for a fun and whimsical gesture card ;)

The base of the card is a piece of the scrapbook paper I prepped with Gold Gesso. The gesso is a really good base for the metallic rub ons and distress stains. Though the dovecrafts white opaque stamp ink needed a REALLY long time to dry... eventually I smudged them a bit so the stark white is muted in the end. I used an array of VLVstamps to create the background;

Harlequin diamond background

number strip

When witches go riding

row of chevrons 

When the background was done I colored the jester's background space with tan brown copic and matted that onto a black card stock on which I stamped the jester with white opaque stamping ink. The doodled edges of the stamp then combine to make it even more fun and whimsical :) I added some distress stains in bronze and white along the edges of both the jester and the background. Then adhered the pieced together and matted it on a black note card.

In the end I also used the "a drawing is simply a line going for a walk" stamp to add to the whimsical vibe of the card. Sometimes you just need a fun whimsy card to send out as a gesture.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

namasté

ART Snacks October 2016 Box

The above image of the super moon is made with the contents of the Artsnacks October Box (a subscription box I have joined last month after listening to the Art Supply Posse rave about it on their podcasts) and I am actually really happy with all of the products that were in this box. Yes, even after being a bit underwhelmed that the ink I got in the box was grey! But look at it, the grey has some amazing shades to it when you work with it! Let's take a closer look at all the items in the box of the month October:

My box arrived within 2 weeks after shipping, the same as last time, so not too shabby! Hopefully that means I can keep anticipating my boxes to arrive around the 14th of each month :) The star of this box, was the anticipated Liquitex Ink! from the muted collection line which was a hint from the teaser email earlier last month. I was really hoping to get a turquoise color in the box, which, as you might have guessed, is is my fave color. Alas! Would that it were so simple as you can't really know which color you are going to get and with the luck of the draw, I got the grey one instead. BUT it did suit the other items in the box quite nicely! These were the products from the October box (blurb on the products taken from the artsnacks website)

Special Release Muted Collection: Liquitex Professional INK!

Liquitex is only releasing a limited supply of its Special Release Muted Collection: Liquitex Professional INK!, and as an ArtSnacks subscriber, you’re one of the first to get it. This water-resistant ink is extremely fluid, so it’s easy to use with both brushes and dip pens. It’s also fast-drying, so it won’t slow you down when you want to try layering techniques. There are five colors in this exclusive collection. Which one did you get? 

Uni-Ball Signo White Gel Pen

The Uni-Ball Signo White Gel Pen provides a silky flow of highly opaque ink. This pen will perform especially well on tinted or black paper. Try layering it over other inks, once they have dried. You’ll find that this ink does not fade as it dries, so you won’t be drawing over and over on the same lines to get a strong white highlight. 

Copic Gasenfude Brush Pen

The Copic Gasenfude Brush Pen was created with Sumi-e (East Asian brush painting) artists in mind. It’s also great for calligraphy and cartooning. Filled with water-based pigment ink, this pen features a super-fine point that makes this tool even more flexible. If you have Copic markers in your collection, you can use this brush pen with them – the ink is compatible, so the colors will not bleed. 

Lauren Series 4350 Watercolor Brush by Princeton Brush

Princeton Brush is known for its quality and affordability. Their experts have developed a variety of high-performing synthetic fibers for use with specific types of paint. Your new Lauren Series 4350 Watercolor Brush was handmade from synthetic materials and is designed for use with watercolor paints. We think you’ll like the way this brush handles your new Liquitex Professional INK!

I honestly did LOVE how the Lauren brush worked with the Liquitex INK! It held the ink and water mixture (I watered down the ink a bit in a mixing tray) really well, bounced back into shape quickly and dispersed the liquid well on the page. I also like how the Copic Brush and Uniball white gel pen look so well together. I hand lettered the quote and then drew the moon over it with the liquitex ink. The water based pigment ink in the copic marker dries water resistant on the page. The gel pen however does fade a bit when you use a liquid ink over it though, so I did have to trace the outer white lining again. Maybe I didn't wait long enough for the gel pen to dry, but in my test, it did fade and I had to reapply to get the strong highlight. Hmm... maybe it means in the blurb that you just have to apply it once after you've done all your inking, then you get a solid white line which stands out. Because that is indeed true. I've worked with pentel and sakura white gel pens, but the uni ball has by far the strongest/brightest while line. See more on white gel pen comparison here on the Jet pens blog. Working with the Liquitex muted grey ink got me curious about the other colors in the series, so when I was in the neighborhood of Van Der Linde I picked them up.

Sigh... thanks for enabling Art Snacks! The Van Der Linde store still has a few of these in stock (not on their website unfortunately) and when your order is over 35€ in the store, you will get a 20% discount on your total which is basically a free INK! as they retail for 7,05€! Yeah, you're welcome - just paying the enabling game forward ;) Looking forward to play with these INKS! over the weekend. 

The october box is still available in the Artsnacks shop. Still no international shipping options at this time, sadly :( Though the subscription still has an international plan.
Hope this review was useful for you. Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend!

namasté