Inner Goddess

When StencilGirl® gave the concept of "texture" for my July 2019 post, I decided to do what I like best--a portrait. I used some of my favorite products: white crackle paste, embossing powder, and acrylic paint along with some gorgeous stencils to give both a 3-dimensional texture and painted texture to the piece. 

Here's a short video (less than a minute!) that shows how the portrait developed:

To read all the details about my goddess, and see the step-by-step photos, here's the link to my post on StencilTalk®

Turning Marker Doodles into Stenciled Crackle Paste ATCs

 

The background for these ATCs started out as a random art therapy drawing one evening. As my husband watched TV, I sat next to him with a sketchbook full of thick white paper, my collection of TomBow brush tipped markers, a koi paintbrush and jar of water.

First, I made random doodles with some of my favorite shades of blue and green. Next I added a little more color and more doodles, and then added water with the koi brush to make the colors bleed together. 

 

 

Pretty, and if it were a silk scarf, I would surely have worn it. But since it was paper, what was I to do with it?

My new motto, learned from Kelly Kilmer, is “when in doubt, add a stencil or a stamp.” So I took a gorgeous Retro Café Art large flourish stencil and pushed white Crackle Paste through it. I was impatient, so I used some small Artistcellar stencils with crackle paste to fill in the empty spaces, being careful not to smear the flourish section—the mini virtue Tudor Rose hope pocket stencil worked with the flourish stencil perfectly.

 

 

When it dried and the solid white paste turned to a nice crackled design, I loved it, but still…what was I going to do with it?

 

The idea lightbulb went off inside my brain…ATCs, of course! So, using an Artiscellar pocket stencil as a template, I selected the areas I liked best, traced around the template, and made six colorful, textural ATCs. After I cut them out, I glued them to an ATC blank with rubber cement. The final touch was edging them with some purple Ranger Archival Ink.

 

 

 

Faux Raku Recycled Jar

Recycled Body Butter skin cream containers make great homes for little art supplies. The large size from the Body Shop made a great home for my teeny alphabet stamps—I had about four sets in various fonts that fit nicely into the beige plastic jar.

At first I just taped the stamp label to the top of the jar…but it looked sooo ugly on my art shelf. I recently decided the time had come to kick it up a notch. Using a generous amount of matte medium as an adhesive, I started by gluing a pretty beige and white  vintage paper—compliments of my friend Susan Morgan Hoth—onto the jar’s lid, side and bottom. Pretty, but once it dried—lumpy. Maybe I hurried, maybe I used too much matte medium, or maybe the paper was too thick and stiff.

 

Instead of ripping it off, I decided to try and camouflage it with Dina Wakely Crackle Paste. I selected the Garden Gate stencil, applied the paste, and waited a couple hours. It was worth the wait. When the paste dried on the jar, the effect reminded me of raku pottery. I rubbed on some antique linen Distress Stain and brown chalk ink to enhance the crackle.

 I wasn’t sure about the treatment of the side of the lid. It would have been awkward to stencil it with the crackle paste, and might have worn off over time from twisting and handling.

A light bulb went off in my head—washi tape would do the trick—and what could be more perfect than alphabet washi tape? I wouldn’t need a label because the alphabet tape would remind me of the alphabet blocks inside the jar. The tape was just the right width to fit on the lid's side, and should also be durable.

 

Love According to Rumi

The minute I opened my jar of Dina Wakely Crackle Paste, I knew wanted to use it for a Valentine’s Day project. Somehow I felt that it would work well in a heart shape with pink shades, and represent how the human heart stays whole and strong even though it may have cracks and scars from a lifetime of emotion.

I tested the paste on several kinds of paper—it worked great on cardboard, cardstock and heavy colored paper, especially black. On shiny surfaces, it cracked and peeled off. When I tried it on red tissue paper, it shriveled the paper too much. For this piece, I selected a small piece of heavy orange paper, and, after taping the corners down, pulled the crackle paste through a harlequin stencil using a big plastic flat-edged spatula.

Some of the paste leaked under the stencil…mostly due to the fact that I was hurrying. It wasn’t that I didn’t have enough time—I hurry because I am excited and impatient when I am in the “art zone.” Once the paste dried, it didn’t matter—the smears added to the textured effect. I decided to cut it into a heart shape.

 

For the background, I used Derwent blocks in shades of pink, red and orange on a white journal page. After smearing the color with a very wet paintbrush and mushing it around, I added some white Crayola slick stix to soften it in the center.

 

The paper I used was a little too thin—next time I would use a true watercolor paper so it didn’t buckle. I considered ironing the page, but was afraid that the I would lose the design and it would bleed off like when you iron the wax out of batik. I did hurry the drying along with a blowdryer, which helped flatten it a bit.

Once the background was dry, I added a variety of stenciled images with a Faber-Castell white PITT pen. The effect was soft and watery, which was just what I wanted. I used the chakra pocket stencils, mini damask, the edge of the Balzer deco doily stencil and sections of the garden gate.

 

Next, I “auditioned” the orange crackle heart on the page to see if I liked it, and to see where I wanted to glue it. After deciding on placement, I added some brown chalk ink to the heart edges to age it, and smeared a bit lightly over the stencil to add to the aging and enhance the crackle. I also tore the background page out of the spiral journal, trimmed the torn edge away and added a strip of solid orange paper on the side.

A favorite Rumi quote seemed to be just the right words for the page.  After I selected the types sizes and fonts I wanted, I printed the Rumi quote out on Avery clear mailing labels and applied them to my page.

My thought for Valentine’s Day is that everyone should celebrate self-love, and not be afraid to chase their dream, go after what they love, and follow the little voice in their head that is whispering the way.