Art Journal: Thoughts and Dreams with AALL&CREATE

Today I am sharing a project for AALL&CREATE as part of their guest design team for the coming months. I'm super excited & honored to be part of the amazing team and to be creating with their wonderful stamps designs. You'll see weekly projects from me on the weekend and to kick it off I'm sharing an art journal page in my moleskine pocket water color sketchook. 

After a long day I like to relax with my sketchbook and watercolors. Having stamps that inspire me to color is very valuable to me because I don't need to worry about a sketch that I need to make myself & get right to the coloring.

When I saw the designs of Tracy Evans and Katy Paltridge I knew they would go well together! In this project I have stamped a female figure of set #129 in combination with the flower of #123 in my Moleskine watercolor sketchbook. A few work in progress pictures: 

I am using Jane Davenport Glitz Sea  mixed with some of the Neutrals set. 

I like using stamps in different ways than designed, so I used the flower petals as Faerie wings & the stems as water waves.

I did color the  petal wings with a flower color because I love the contrast of the warm red pink with the blues and lime greens. 

It's very fun to see how the stem is quite effective as water waves! And I love the many blues in the glitz sea palette to give the body of water some color nuances. 

Looking at her serene face, I think she is enjoying the stillness in nature, lost in her thoughts and dreams. So I decided to stamp those words in the scene. 

I also used the grungy flower to create a bit more texture in the background by partially stamping it randomly over the page with lighter colored stamp pads. Some more close up shots of the finished piece. 

I have used a sakura While Gelly roll to add the highlights for finishing touches.

The stamps sets I used are the following:

123 by Tracy Evans and 129 by Katy Paltridge

Hope you liked seeing this project with watercolors & gorgeous AALL & Create stamps. Please visit their boutique to shop online or to see where you can get these stamps from their many stockists world wide. 

Thanks for stopping by and have an awesome weekend!

WIP: Texture play layer building

Today I wanted to show you a little something different, which I have done before with the poppy flowers a while back, and that is to show you how I create some textured backgrounds and layer building process with paints and other media. I've used AALL and Create stencil #18 and stamps from their latest release for this.

First I start off with a base of gesso on mixed media paper. Then applied the modeling paste through the stencil, heat dry to the touch then stamp in the paste to get the texture imprint. Once that was fully dry, I gave it another coat of gesso and when that dried I did the glazing technique with black paint to get the shadows/low light effect. You can see DeeDee Catron do that HERE for Donna Downey Art Gang.

Now to add some color: I used cosmic shimmer pixie powder for the first layer. Used different colors of greens and pewter to get a bit of an ombre effect. Looks fun so far, but the pixie powder stays too water reactive and I wanted something more permanent and brighter. So in with the paints!

So I've taken my mini foam brayer and paints in blue hues by paper artsy and finnabair blue metallic paint & Opal Magic Rose Gold and just brayered on some layers of paint. I made sure to use a combination that blends well together and added lighter and darker aria's for depth. I also brayered paint over the textured aria and it had lost some shading so I tried to bring it back with a stabilo all pencil.

So the shadow parts make the texture stand out a lot more! I then stamped around the modeling paste texture for some other texture to break up the pattern.

To finish it off I added some white and gold splatters, outlined some circles with a white gel pen and added touches of the rose gold paint over it for a bit of shimmer. And I called the background done! 

Stay tuned for the art journal page I created with this background coming up soon!

Thanks for stopping by and have an awesome day!

WIP: no crying over spilled ink!

It's wednesday and bit of a hump day indeed, but pushing through the work today so I can enjoy a long bank holiday weekend. Looking forward to enjoy the sunshine and finish some works in progress. This is what my desk looked like this morning - left it like this as I was in a hurry to get out the door. Yesterday I started to work on the above art journal tip in page, did a bit collage and stencil work, some gesso over it and wanted to use my DecoArt Media Spray - got the turquoise shimmer spray and twisted the spray nozzle off to apply a little bit on the edges and as I put the bottle down, was not looking where, it tipped all over my card and the glass matt!!

I learned a couple of things here: don't open bottles right over your work, always look where you are putting your bottle away, having a glass matt is super duper handy (clean up was easy and managed to save some spilled ink with a pipette) and baby wipes and gesso are life savers for sure!

So after the clean up, I dried the piece thoroughly, gesso over it until desired muted effect and started again. No crying over spilled ink or "mistakes" because you can just always start over! 

By the way, stamps are from AALL and CREATE  (very popular new brand of clear stamps and stencils) actually it is one LARGE A4 size stamp which I cut in two - the imagery was not hurt because they can actually be used separately. This is #57 and designed by Olga Heldwein - I actually met her and Autour at Art Specially earlier this April and they are just delightful!

Another piece I am working on is the following:

I finally used the Elegance writer pen by speedball over a stencil and watercolor paper. I just wet the outlines with a water brush to create this effect. And I am not sure to add more color or just a little color or just leave it like this with a quote... well, it has been on my desk for a while (thankfully no blue spillage on there!) so I hope to finish it this weekend. 

This stencil I used is from StencilGirl® and is called Thanks a Lotus designed by Andrea Matus deMeng. It's new in my stash and I absolutely LOVE it! By the way, if you missed the news, I am super thrilled to be on the design team for SG this term! So you'll be seeing me using their stencils a lot more frequently in my coming work :) 

Sharing the desk shots over at Julia's WOYWW #466 this week. Hope you all have been doing well and looking forward to catch up with you! 

Thanks for stopping by and have an awesome day!

Art Journal: There is a universe inside you

It's been a little quiet on my blog, due to some things happening on the personal front. My dad has been in the hospital for a week and the fact is he's not going to recover, this time, from the heart attack he had. He's getting palliative nursing care at his home so he's being well taken care of until that moment arises that he is no longer with us. Acceptance is the only way to move forward, things are settling down and there is some peace and calm again, within and around me.

So last weekend I finally sat down in my art room and started to create again. It felt SOOOO GOOD! What a relief it was for me to pour it all out on blank pages. Creation is definitely good for the soul. There is like this whole universe inside you that wants to be seen and heard and can be awakened if you let yourself be immersed in it. I finished the journal pages over the last few days.

This is the end result of the art journal pages and creating this page really was very soothing and freeing. I used some of my fave products from my fave companies:

Liquitex gesso, paints and gel medium  specimen stencil from TCW, Succulents stencil from StencilGirl, Alice (by Janet Klein) stamp from Stampotique Originals, The large rose stamp from Octopode Factory and several mixed media stamps from VLVS! as well as "dreamer's only" and "there is a universe inside you" stamps by Cat Kerr. I also used paint over pens, wink of luna metallic brushes, distress crayons and pearl rubs. 

Let us all find that universe inside us and pour it out on blank pages. 

Sharing the above desk shot with WOYWW #460 at Julia's wonderful blog. Sorry I've been a bit out of touch, now you know why, but hope to connect with you all again this week. 

I also would like to add this journal page to the following challenges: 

Try it on Tuesday: Call for Spring

The mood board was wonderful and I am absolutely longing for spring to arrive. 

The sky blue, magenta/pink colors and flowers inspired me with this page.

Spring theme at Art Journal Journey 

Mixed Media Monthly Challenge #46

I used a couple of stencils, liquitex paints, gesso and gel medium as well as alcohol markers, staz on ink, paint over markers, distress crayons and more. 

Ans lastly Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge with "Inside the box" theme.

I interpreted this as I myself being the "box" in which there is a whole other universe inside to discover. As we all do, I believe :) 

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

WIP: Left Over Art Collage clean up session

Today I wanted to share a little bit what happens behind the scenes at my creative station. Usually when I create something the left over scraps bits, trims and pieces gets piled up to the left hand side. And when it gets a little out of control (like migrating to the middle of the desk) I take my Junk Mail Art Journal and have what I like to call a "Left-Over Art Collage clean up session" and take my jar of Modge Podge, a brush and use my scraps to create some fun collage style journal pages. And yes, mostly they are supervised by my kitty Meesha :)

Usually I just continue to fill pages until I feel like the left over pile is manageable again, like so. And when I'm done with a session like this, I'm always glad that I just didn't chuck all the scraps into the bin like I am always tempted to do when that mess just gets out of control. It's a peaceful and meditative process and oh yeah, I totally get distracted by looking at the utter adorableness sleeping in that basket :) 

Close up of a spread from this session. Just randomly slapped together pages, but I do try to look for composition and color. Not sure if they are "done" I might just come back to a page, gesso all over it and completely transform the look of it. I have dome that with a few which I will share at a later time. 

What do you do with your left over scraps? Bin them right away or are you also hoarding them to use later? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. 

Sharing this post with the fellow deskers at Julia's WOYWW454 - glad to be playing along again, hope you all are doing well and will say hi to you all shortly :) 

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

WIP: You Tube channel overhaul!

Hey all, hope you have had a wonderful holiday celebration with your loved ones filled with laughter and joy! I certainly had a wonderful relaxing time and took a little time off to enjoy the festivities. Now I'm doing a bunch of work behind the scenes and did a little overhaul on my YT channel. I have also uploaded a couple of video's which I have made for VLVS! earlier this year, so if you have missed them, feel free to check them out. My goal for next year is to make and upload more process video's of my work. The tricky part is to find the time to do the editing because I rather be in my art room creating than behind the computer in my spare time, you know? The goal is to have bi weekly video's on my channel and thankfully I have a few lined up. Hopefully I can get a better sort of handle on editing time that as I go on with it. If you have any tips on that it would be much appreciated!  Anyhow, I've also tried to make the thumbnails more unified and personally like the look of it. Would love feedback on it and if you are interested in seeing more of my process video's in the future, please make sure to subscribe to my channel. 

As always thanks so much for stopping by and your continued support!

WIP: Nightly watercolor practice still going strong

Working in my moleskine pocket book at night ...

As you might have read on how Exhaustipated I get during winters (esp. when you're home sick with a strange type of flue which is going around it would seem!) I also wanted to share what helps me through these dark days. And that is color therapy in the form of doing water color practices at night. By now I have a little collection of different water colors tins filled with paint handmade by lovely artisans and the familiar brands like sennelier and schmincke. In the Black Friday Sale from a few weeks ago I've also purchased a few tins from Prima marketing series: Shimmering Lights and Decadent Pies.

Prima marketing Shimmering Lights color swabs

The Shimmering lights are beautiful golden/orangey tones with a slight shimmer. They also are quite strongly pigmented so they can be used for glazing over colors as well as being used on their own. They are labeld as artist grade paints and I'm very excited about this set. The Decadent Pies however, not as much...

Stamp by Stampotique Originals, first layer of color with Prima Marketing Decadent Pies

There are some fun colors in the decadent pie set, but even though it says "artist grade" on the wrapping labels (not on the tin like on the shimmering lights!) it behaves more like student grade watercolors. Like the KOI Water Color set I had before I ripped those out of the plastic pans and filled with sennelier colors. OK, to be fair these do behave better and are more saturated in color than those KOI ones but still did not like the set as much as all the other sets I have. The set also have 4 shimmering colored pans, but no doubles from Shimmering lights. Didn't mean for this post to turn out like a mini water color review, but there you have it.

Stamps by Carabelle Studio's, DaVinci detailler brush size "2/0"

At any rate, I'm really enjoying the self-created "water color Therapy at night" routine (next to my writing meditations) which help me through these days where I am in much of need of sunshine. It's like I said to a friend "Color is like Vitamin C and works like an energy boost in dark times" and wouldn't you agree?

Sharing these watercolory desk shots over at my desky friends at Julia's blog for WOW 444 (such a magic number!) 

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely week!

WIP: Watercolor Practice

The past weekend I have been working with my water colors again and sharing some work in progress today.  I took out my Jane Davenports Neutrals and Brights sets and went to work in my Watercoloringbook (A pocket moleskine I stamped some fun rubber stamp images in) This cute little fairy is from Sweetpea designs and I wanted her to have a fun autumnal look. I really loved working on the hair and stripey socks on this one :)

On a scrap piece I colored this fairy from VLVS! and used a lot of glittery watercolors from Cloves and Honey. You can see the finished art journal page HERE.

And another fun VLVS! design and she has an ATC format. A little sneak peek to a future post where I turn this into a little inspiration ATC card.

I absolutely LOVe working with my water colors and I have found that coloring my rubber stamped images with them really brings so much joy :) Sharing these desk shots over at Julia for WOYWW today. Looking forward to catch up with you all. 

Thanks for stopping by and hope you all are having a wonderful day. 

Back to work, but first... coffee!

Stickers illustrated by Nikki Smits

It's been a little quiet on my blog, as you might have noticed. That is because I took a much needed break from the virtual world and was on vacation in beautiful Sweden to visit my in-laws. I could have left some scheduled posts, but decided not to because I didn't want to worry about it... and it felt sooooo good not to worry about it :) I would highly recommend that to everyone, just to take a (little) online break. So I am getting back into the groove of things, taking it slow and steady with stuff to share on the blog. And I'm starting off by telling you a little about my time away.

This was my view and we walked in the forest almost daily... and I didn't want to leave it! See HERE for more pictures. Leaving was hard but it was good to come home to my Meesha cat, as she really missed us (and we her!)

While I was away, I did make some things with a huge stash of postage stamps found in a thrift store.

Made this journal for my MIL with French postage stamps.

The back has different portraits on it. 

My in laws have the most loveliest wooden desk, but I forgot to photograph it in its entirety. It was great to have a desk to work at while away. 

This is a small Muji notebook and made for the neighbor there. It's the size of a traveler's notebook.

The postage stamp art is inspired by my good friend Sue of TangleCrafts. She sells her gorgeous collage works HERE. BONUS her books are also fountain pen ink friendly :)

Fall came to greet us while we are there and in two more days, fall will arrive here too... according to the calendar. Cozy jumpers, scarves and beautiful autumn colored (falling) leaves... I feel like I am ready for it!

Sharing this over at Julia, for WOYWW this week - hope you all are doing well and are looking forward to embrace fall as well :) 

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!