Distress Paint, Gelatos, Glitter Paste and Stencil Fun

Hello Everyone! Ruby Craft here and welcome to my 3rd week as guest designer on the eclectic Paperie blog. I wanted to share a card today. I started with my favorite of Tim Holtz newest stamps from Stampers Anonymous Botanical Sketch CMS216. One thing I love about this stamp is it is a beautiful 5"x6" stamp that is a line drawing of flowers with an open space in the middle allowing room for a sentiment and this stamp set includes several. The image is beautiful to water color but I wanted to use Cracked Pistachio Distress Paint to give me a delicate green and white background to compliment but not compete with my butterflies.

Distress Paint is very fluid and this stamp has very fine lines and intricate details. First I shook up the Distress Paint until I could hear the ball inside rattle to make sure it was well mixed. Then I used the dauber top to add the paint to my non-stick craft mat and a brayer to apply the paint to the stamp. If I used the dauber to apply the paint directly to the stamp, it would quickly fill in the stamp, but by using the brayer, I only applied paint to the raised stamping lines. Working quickly I rolled and lifted the brayer on the craft sheet to spread out the paint and "ink up" the brayer then roll the paint onto the stamp. I had to do this several times to cover the whole stamp. Immediately I stamped the watercolor paper and then cleaned the paint off of all my tools before the paint could dry on them. I put my stamped background aside to dry.

The next step was to create some butterfly embellishments. I wanted to be able to color and shape my butterflies so I used Wendy Vecchi Studio 490 Clearly For Art Clear Modeling Film, mixed media paper and Faber-Castell Gelatos along with the Butterfly stencils from the "Love" set of BoBunny Stickable Stencils and BoBunny Glitter Paste. First, I cut a rectangle from the film large enough for the Butterfly stencils I wanted to use. I used the applicator brush in the Glue N Seal to cover the entire piece of film and laid a piece of mixed media paper on top. To smooth it out I used a straight edge tool to make sure there were no air bubbles and the paper was flat against the film and then set it aside to let dry.

Once the paper and Glue N Seal was dry I applied the stickable stencils to the side of the film that was covered with the paper. With  a blending foam I applied the gelatos, starting in the center with Chocolate for the body, then added Butterscotch, Cotton Candy and finally Blueberry. I gave the Gelatos a little time to set then used a spatula to apply BoBunny Glitter Paste to the stencil.  Glitter Paste is available in different colors, but I used Sugar which dries clear. My colors showed through and the iridescent glitter shimmers beautifully. As soon as I finished applying the glitter paste I gently removed the stencils and applied them to an acrylic block long enough to clean them. Then gently lifted them and moved them back to their acetate backing sheet and thoroughly cleaned my acrylic block.

I made sure the glitter paste was completely dry before cutting out my butterflies with scissors. I cut the butterflies out loosely at first and then trimmed them leaving a white border around the stenciled areas. Next I used a heat tool to heat and mold my butterflies working in small areas at a time until I had the look I wanted. Wendy's modeling film is fun to work with.

The Botanical Sketch stamp comes with several greetings.  I choose Hello and Friend and lined them up on a grid block, inked them up with Jet Black Archival Ink and stamped my greeting in the open space in the center of my background. Since the Botanical Sketch stamped image is larger than a standard size 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 card, when I then trimmed my background down to size I was able to repositioned the open space up 1/2", giving me an additional 1/2" at the bottom of the card to allow for the larger butterfly. Then I mounted the background on a piece of yellow cardstock to pick up the yellow in the butterflies and then mounted both to a white card base. Finally to complete my card I added the butterflies using foam adhesive.

If you click on the small pictures they should pop up bigger. Hope you enjoy the card. If you have any questions or just want to let me know what you think please leave a comment.

Inspired by.....

Hello, it's Sue Lelli here today to show you how I was inspired by none other than Donna Downey!  I took a class from her not knowing we would be working with faces ~ NOT my thing!  I spent most of the class frustrated because I couldn't even do the first step which was a new technique (for me) called image transferring.  So what did I do?  I followed all of the rest of her steps, learned as much about technique as I could, ended up with something I was sort of pleased with - but only honestly because Donna was kind enough to help me plus give me encouragement.  That might have been the end of the story but I was determined to try it again.  My artist friend, Maria, drew a face for me to keep and use and I tried the image transfer again.

 

Tah!  Dah!  Here is my canvas ~ inspired by Donna Downey!

Isn't she Pretty?!

 

I used words from the TCW mini Art is stencil to create my message.  Wendy Vecchi's black embossing paste did the trick.  "Art is just color and shape, feelings and experiences"

 

 

At the bottom I added "release and surrender" to remind myself to just let go and try new things with my art, even if it's uncomfortable!

 

Some process photos:

This shows the image transfer with the face my friend drew.  You will probably be seeing this face again!

 

Next I used gelatos in several colors and sprayed it with water from a mini Mister, and then mixed it around with my fingers.    I used gelatos to color her face, neck and hair.  I then added definition with Prisma watercolor pencils.  Thanks, Donna, for literally showing me how to on my class piece!  I colored the eyes and lips with the Prisma pencils as well.

 

Next I made a background using my FAV TCW confetti stencil and Tim Holtz Distress paints in shades of pink, orange and yellow.

 

Then I used the Dina Wakely plastic canvas stencil ~ LOVE ~ to add some more color to the background.  I pounced  Tim Holtz distress ink in mustard seed with the mini ink blending tool.

I rubbed golden paint around the outside edges, added a Prima resin butterfly, a little lace, and considered it done!

I hope you like her!

 



The Face

Hello folks!  Micki here to share another fun (I think) art journal spread.  

It's been a long while since I've sketched a face or full figure person.  So with an idea in my head, I grabbed my Dylusions Journal, opened to a blank page and applied a light coat of gesso with Ranger's Craft Scrapper.  Next I grabbed a pencil and attempted to sketch a walking figure which didn't turn out so well.  I could definitely tell that it's been a while since I had sketched.  I couldn't get the walking legs right.  So instead I grabbed some stencils and Dylusions Ink Sprays.  

I started by randomly spritzing London Blue, Polished Jade, Calypso Teal and Pure Sunshine Dylusion Ink Sprays through a stencil from Stencil Girl.  This was followed by a couple of spritzes of the White Linen spray.  At this point I still had no idea what I was going for and delighted in just playing with the spray inks.

I decided to add some drips using some old Glimmer Glaze which I poured directly onto the pages.

After this was dry, I decided I didn't really like it.  Not enough contrast and I could still see my previously sketched figure through the inks.  Out came Dina Wakley's Heavy Bodied Paints and my Brayer.  Seriously, you can not go wrong with brayer play!  I also did some stencil reduction using Prima's Elementals 12x12 stencil, laying it over the still wet paint and removing paint with a baby wipe.  Next... some more brayering. I added some contrast with Dina's Heavy Bodied White paint and TCW's Ledger stencil  followed by..... you guessed it, more brayered paint.

Now I was in love.  I loved the bold colors and all the contrast.  And the longer I looked at it, I thought I saw a face silhouette peeking out at me. 

I had taken my art journal with me to work when I decided that I would try to paint a face where I saw the silhouette.  Since I had forgotten my bag of pens and pencils, I opted to use a fine point Presto Correction Pen from Pentel and loosely drew a face.  Once I got home, I created a flesh like color by mixing white, a little Magenta, Lemon and Umber.  To get the flesh color, I always start with white, then adding teeny amounts of Umber, Lemon and Magenta, as well as some water.  I keep adding and mixing until I think I have a close "flesh" color - there is no exact measurements, I just keep mixing!

Because I had watered the paint down, it took several coats. Once that was dry, I used my pencil to sketch over the features and face outline (ears).  Next I added Faber-Castell Gelatos which not only helped to provide more opacity but also gave the face some depth.  The gelatos were blended with a slightly wet brush, using the lighter neutral colors as well as the yellows, blending these with the white gelato.  For shading, I added the darker hues (from the neutral and yellow packs) along the outline of the face. On the cheeks and lips I used Faber-Castell Gelatos from the Red color pack.   And for additional shading, Big Brush Markers were used which were blended with my fingers.

The hair was filled in with Dina's Umber paint as well as some black Gelato.  The great thing about using the Correction Pen is that the lines still show through the paint and I love to incorporate the pencil lines because when water is added, the graphite tends to smear, which is perfect for shading.

I added the only word that had been stuck in my head, using my black Ohto Fude Liquid Ink Roller Ball pen.  After I made sure that the ink was completely dry, I filled in the letters with white paint, followed by touch ups with my white Big Brush Marker as well as the orange marker (for the outline).  Lastly, I added Chipped Sapphire Distress Stain around the edges.

It's not my best face.  Her face is a bit long but I do like how she turned out, long nose and all :-).  And if you ever need some therapy, you know the kind to take your mind off things, grab some paper, your brayer, paints, stencils and ink sprays and don't worry about the end result!  That my friends is indeed the best form of therapy I know!!!!

I hope you were inspired and I hope I made sense!  It's so easy to get "into" the moment when creating art, don't you think?    Thanks so much for stopping by!

xoxoxo

Supplies Used:

InLinkz.com