Art Journal Page: In Neutral (+ Process Video)

This weekend I finally had the urge to make a collage work again and I also filmed the process. This piece is made with vintage ephemera and neutral colors, as inspired by Our Mixed Media Moods mood board of January 2018, put together by DeeDee Catron and Jenn Engle.

Isn't this mood board just amazing?! I absolutely love the color scheme and I have collected a lot of vintage ephemera over the years that fits wonderfully in this theme. I also love all the layering and adding transparencies into the piece. I was mostly inspired by the bottom two right images with layering and color tone, so that is what I used as a inspiration start up point for my project.

At a thrift market I also found an envelope full with slides and negatives and I used one of them in this project. I've sandwiched a piece of type written paper in it so that you can see that through the negative. I also used Tim Holtz silhouette flower dies cut in tracing paper to add some interest.

Of course I also had to add some vintage postage stamps to the piece! You can see the whole process below in the video.

By the way the lyrics I scribbled down are from a song from the new album of PINK, which I am continuously listening to these days. 

Items used: 

distress stains in colors: vintage photo, tea dye, wild honey, antique linen, 

Metallic copper and brass. 

Script stamp from Joy Crafts

face stamp from Carabelle Studio's

Staz-on Stone Grey ink

Memento mocha 

Silhouette flowers die cut 

matte medium 

uhu glue stick 

black embroidery floss 

crafter's companion tape roller 

LOTS of vintage emphemera

I'm also entering this piece in the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Layer it up

Thanks so much for stopping by and watching the video. As always your support is hugely appreciated, so if you liked the video, please let me know by pressing like on YT and perhaps subscribe to my channel if you want to stay updated on my process video's. 

Thanks again and have a wonderful day!

Cascading butterflies

I have been so inspired by the February mood board at Our Mixed Media Moods I created another piece based on the lovely butterfly imagery and color on the top right. I created the ATC you see above.

I created the base of the ATC using gesso and modeling paste from The Crafter's Workshop. The butterflies are from a mixed stencil set created by Joanne Fink (Zenspirations)  for TCW) I used some ATC nesting dies from Marianne's Creations to cut them to size.

The color on the ATC I created with these gorgeous Liquitex Muted Collection paints. I used the muted grey, rose and violet. And also the corresponding INKS! in the same line.

Added a bit of shimmering spatters on the work with Ranger perfect pearls kiwi and corn poppy and added tarnished brass distress stain on the edges before I matted it on the black card stock. I really love how this turned out and am going to make a few of these in different colors.

I am also entering this in the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - use your fave tool which in the past months have been modeling paste & stencils for sure!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Art Journal: Live Like Tomorrow Doesn't Exist

Yesterday I showed you the process of the poppies and now it's time to show you the journal spread I made with them.

This journal page is inspired by this month's Our Mixed Media Mood board created by Dee Dee Catron and Jenn Engle. Glad to be participating in the challenge this month.

 

This is the mood board. So many beautiful imagery to get inspired from, but what inspired me most is the red/orange color on the top left, the flowers and cascading rectangles. In the journal page I also added the element of wings by choosing the Dragonfly designed  by Jo Capper-Sandon for Stampotique. It's one of my absolute faves of Stampotique Originals, so I'm also entering this in the #SCD265 Your fave stamp challenge as well. On a holiday in Sweden I had two dragonfly friends that came by and they were just pure magic to watch. I tried to capture a bit of the magic in this journal spread.

To accentuate the poppies I used a muji brush pen and a water brush to create some shading. I spattered some Liquitex Inks! in black, white and gold over the overall image.

The Dragonfly was stamped on light weight tracing paper, Embossed with black and violet interference WOW embossing powder and adhered with Art Basics soft matte gel medium. I then accentuated it with wink of stella yellow. There is a bit of crackle due to the fold in the journal. Which kind of also works for the crackle image on the top right in the mood board :) 

The sentiment "live like tomorrow doesn't exist" is from visible image and stamped on black card stock and embossed with white WOW embossing powder. I thought it would be fitting to the page as I tried to convey a Mayfly, because for them, tomorrow doesn't exist. So enjoy life and smell the roses (poppies) when you can :)

I'm also entering this journal spread in The Craft Stamper's February "take it, make it" Challenge. 

Materials used: 

Basic Grey Scrap book paper 

Crafter's Workshop Gold Gesso; modeling paste 

Finnabair Soft matte Gel medium

Amsterdam heavy matte Gel Medium; red paint 

Crafter's workshop Oblong stencil 

Donna Doney Poppy Forest Stencil 

Distress stains: fired brick, worn lipstick, barn door, twisted citrus, mowed lawn 

Liquitex INKS! white, black, gold 

Aileen's Paper glaze

WOW embossing powder black, interference violet, white

Dragonfly stamp by Stampotique Originals

Wink of stella yellow 

Muji black brush pen 

Water brush 

Stamper Anonymous Tim Holtz numbers reflections stamps 

Visible image Live like tomorrow doesn't exist sentiment stamp

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend!

WIP: Processing Poppies

Recently I have joined this amazing facebook group, Our Mixed Media Moods, to get inspired for doing some more mixed media work. The group is run by these talented ladies Dee Dee Catron & Jenn Engle and they share a mood board every 20th of each month to inspire people to create/dabble more in Mixed Media. The current mood board really inspired me to try and participate. The gorgeous wine color, flowers and cascading squares/rectangles inspired me most. I made a journal page for it, but before I share that, I wanted to share the process up to that page with you first. It's mostly picture heavy to show you the evolution of the process of these wonderful poppies which I made using Donna Downey's Poppy Forest stencil.

I started off with a piece of scrap book paper prepped with gold gesso. It already had some cascading rectangles on it so it was a perfect place to start on. I brayered on a couple of different paints (fresco and distress paints) and wiped/rubbed places with a wet wipe. Then got my poppy stencil, mixed some modeling paste with a dab of red paint and stamped into the paste when it was semi dry.

I wanted the numbers from the Tim Holtz stamp stand out more and I saw this video by Dee Dee in how she made the black glaze and I gave it a go myself. I used liquitex INK! in black and paper glaze.

Wanted to add more color to the poppies and finger painted the flowers with red distress stains.

Added color to the stems the same way with green distress inks.

Then added some color on the background with pearl rubs in pink and green. But the more I did this the more I started to hate it. The black accents were also gone and the colors were just too bright. So I got a wet wipe and started to wipe some background color away.

Then I got more black glaze and dry brushed it in the stamped parts of the stencil to get the darker accents back. It was still too bright so I wanted to tone the colors down a bit.

I poured the black glaze fluid over the piece and wiped it out. Now this was getting to where I wanted it to go, finally...

Trimmed a piece for my pocket journal, stamped on it with a script stamp and some open rounds and it was ready for the next stage in my art journal.

A couple of detail shots of the poppies in this end stage. Stamping in modeling paste is so much fun and I will definitely do this technique again. 

Tomorrow I will share the finished journal page, hope you will stop by to see the final stage. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!