King Spook Hanging

In typical Andy Skinner style these new stamps are fabulous to work with and I used them to create a little hanging to share on Andy's blog today.

I've used the little fella in the bottom left and called him King Spook.
Click on the photo for the links.

Roughly seal the substrate (I used one of my Tando media boards) with gesso, leave some of the outer edges exposed.

 Using the dip and dry technique and watery washes start with raw umber - dry. Add a little cobalt blue to it, dip and dry. Add a little more cobalt blue and some titan buff, dip and dry. Add some titanium white to the mix and repeat.

Stamp text using Spooks and Tech Trauma with watering can, give it a blast of the heatgun and then take a little white gesso with a palette knife - flatten it on your paper/foil palette and the keeping the knife flat to the surface of the board drag small amounts over the background so you get a distressed look.

Stamp the skulls onto tissue paper - I wanted a good clean image over the  rough background. Adhere to the background and give the whole board a covering with matte medium.

Mix a very watery wash of quin gold, paynes grey and quin red and apply to the surface spritzing with water if necessary to keep in light in colour tone - just like watercolours.

I chose those colours so it would tone in with the frame as well.

Cut the TH cameo frame with an oval cut out centre from thin greyboard, run it through an embossing folder and seal with a coat of gesso.

Put a little drops of decoart media acrylics silver, quinacridone red, quinacridone gold and titan buff on a flat palette and take them randomly on a brush and mix and blend them on the frame.

Paint over watery washes of raw umber and paynes grey allowing them to seep into the crevices and dry - repeat several times.

When dry sand the high spots on the surface back to the silvery colour and some raw greyboard and then blend a dark brow distress ink over the whole background and with a babywipe wipe it off again leaving the greyboard areas taking the ink and making the frame look much older,

Don't forget to sand the edges inside and out and blend with vintage photo DI.

Take a piece of media card and dip in watery cobalt blue, dry, and then mix a watery rose colour from the quin gold, quin red and titan buff and dip again.

Using the a stencil apply titanium white through it and stamp some text and numbers from the brand new 'Spook' set of stamps by Andy for Illusionary Artists.

Follow up with a wash of quin gold and paynes grey and dips of those colours with titanium white to get an etheral layered effect.

I stamped the image using aterng can archival ink but because of the stencilling and layers it didn't come out as sharply as i thought it would.

But I knew I was going to paint it in and with some paynes grey and a very fine brush I was able to add the detail in.

Stick King Spook to the back of the cameo frame and adhere it to a second one to give it some substance and dimension .... 

.... and assemble the hanging.

Thanks for stopping by and a especially to those of you who leave me such lovely comments - I really appreciate each and every one.

Don't forget to stay tuned to Andy's blog to see all the wonderful inspiration that gets posted.

hugs Brenda xx

Spring is in the Air at AVJ

This month the lovely Sandy has chosen our theme over at A Vintage Journey . It's been fabulous looking at the new growth peeking through in the garden. I so love this time of year and I hope we will begin to get a bit more sunshine now the clocks have changed.

Sandy describes the new challenge -

Leave those winter blues behind. Make anything that says SPRING using pastel colours. It is your choice, a card, canvas, 3D or a tag, etc. but remember it should be in one of the vintage; shabby; mixed media; art journalling; industrial or steampunk styles that we favour.

Thank you for all the lovely comments on my hangings last month, I enjoyed making them and knowing that you liked them too has spurred me on to create another with a new technique using the DecoArt media range of acrylic paints. Following on from the weathered boards last time I have created some scratched board and added elements that definitely give me the feel that Spring is in the air.

I haven't gone very pastel with my project as it is the emergence of the first green buds and leaves that get me excited, so I have tried to echo that in this piece. Firstly I mixed green gold and the most tiniest amount of Prussian blue with white tinting base and painted the card, then heat dried it.

Next I stippled and spritzed paynes grey and burnt umber around the edges, keeping it a watery mix and quite light in colour.

I used Andy Skinner's scratch stamp with watering can archival ink all over it ......

I created some real scratches with a wire scratch brush and added a few remnant rubs.

I added random washes of quinacridone gold before heat drying and repeated with watery paynes grey, dried again .......

and finished with some hansa yellow light to bring some additional spring colour into it.

The die-cut flowers were dipped in sap green and orange to create colour contrasts, then dipped in yellow iron oxide and distress blended and dipped with abandoned coral .

The postage stamp frame was cut in black mount board and given a stippled finish using black gesso. When it was dry I lightly blended some iced espresso metallic lustre over it then spritzed with primary yellow media mister and again when dry spritzed with the back media mister. I finished with a light rub of champagne ice metallic lustre and this gave me the dark green, textured metallic look for the frame.

The circular disk (again cut from mountboard to give it some sturdiness) was given two coats of sap green media paint and then I used a palette knife to spread white crackle paste over it. This created some fine crackles and when it was fully dry I gave it a coat of transparent yellow iron oxide and quinacridone gold washes. Finally I sanded the edges and blended ground espresso DI round.

The little butterflies were diecut from a piece of painted card stamped with text using tiger lily archival ink and also edged with ground espresso. But if you look at the finished piece you will see how they changed as I added more paints to them.

Once I had put this altogether I decided to add the Spring banner, it needed something else to finish it off.

I hope you will be able to join us on this new leg of the journey and for those who enter there is a chance of winning a £20 voucher to Country View Crafts on-line store.

Enjoy April as the sun begins to warm the land in the northern hemisphere.

I shall be back again in a few hours with my DT sample for Country View Challenges, hope you can join me again, but in the meantime please visit the new AVJ challenge to see all the wonderful inspiration from the other Creative Guides.

hugs Brenda 

“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.” 

― Pablo Neruda

Be inspird by bottles #2

HI Everyone. I hope you've had a lovely weekend. Today I am sharing a mixed media board as my second make for my 'be inspired by bottles' challenge at Country View Challenges. 

I really got into the background layers starting with my 'Layered Shapes' technique that I taught at the CVC workshop a week or so ago.

This is how the board looked after I had glued on the die-cuts and then covered it all with gesso.......

 ..... and this is how it looked when I thought I had finished it (if you take a look at the finished photo you will see some changes). Using mainly DecoArt media fluid acrylic paints I added layers of colours and a spritz of the white media shimmer mister.......

......  finishing with some distress inks and then another shimmer mister spritz. 

The bottles were die-cut from chipboard (greyboard) and given a coat of white gesso. From there I used mask and peel, black modelling paste with a stencil, paints and metallic lustre to get these final effects

I also found photos I could use on the blocks and punched them out.

I had fun putting it all together adding some rusted elements and ribbon and also practising my asemic writing. I have collected examples and written a description of what it is on my Pinterest page.

 

I continued to add little splashes of colour with a brush a tiny amount of titanium white on a brayer and shading with both paint and distress markers until I was happy with it. I really didn't know when to finish on this one, I could have gone on forever I think.

 

If you haven't yet visited the challenge do pop over and see all the inspirational ways the team have come up to show you how to have a go at this theme.

Do pop back Friday when I will be sharing some photos from my Journalling day at Pickwell farm on Saturday - what a great day we had with some fabulous results.

Enjoy your week.

hugs Brenda xxx

Secret Santa for AVJ

Gosh I can't believe it is a year since the wonderfully talented Creative Guides did a Secret Santa gift exchange and here we are again. This year my 'picked out of the hat' recipient is the lovely Alison (Butterfly) and I had several ideas of things to make but in the end decided on a canvas board on which I hope I have included some of her favourite things - grungy vintage embellishments, texture and the colours blue and brown together. Mmmm do I know her well enough?

I made notes on this post as I was designing and making and you can probably see from the way they are random and with no cohesion to them how my mind works.

On the chipboard heart I used my rusted paint technique using gesso, sand paste and rusty brown media fluid acrylic paints and when dry I applied a layer of transparent crackle glaze and when that layer was dry I rubbed in a little broken china distress ink. You can just see the tinted blue veins. The letter B was ine of my finds in a bits box and the perfect colour. It looks to me as if I used Tim's rusted enamel technique.

The stars were die-cut using greyboard, lightly painted with white gesso so that not all of the surface is covered and when dry ground espresso distress ink is rubbed over. When the ink has soaked into the exposed chipboard I used a babywipe to take some of the ink off the gessoed areas. When that was dry I pushed each star into the faded jeans distress ink pad and lightly dabbed off some of the ink wit a babywipe. Later I again covered these with a layer of transparent crackle paste, inked them and flicked them over with white gesso. 

The largest star has been bound with rusty wire and used to hang the 'altered' disc. The rosette has been die-cut using one of Tim's strip dies and inked with walnut stain. Note also the rusty Eiffel Tower and Paris postage stamp, these just appeared  in front of me when looking through one of my 'bits' boxes, they seemed a poignant reminder to me of how strong and courageous the people in Paris were as the recent awful terrorist bombings were unfolding, I couldn't help but add them to the canvas.

The background of the shrine is a piece of card on which I had applied layers of black texture paste through a stencil and applied layers and drips of fluid media acrylics. (Textured chippy paint).  The pediment was gessoed, dipped in faded jeans, broken china and gathered twigs distress inks before being given a coat of transparent crackle paste, When dry I sanded bits of the edges and blended in walnut stain.

To create the texture on the frame I covered it with tissue paper using matte medium allowing it to crinkle and left it to dry. I sanded the edges and painted with cobalt blue hue, phthalo blue, prussian blue and paynes grey. When that was dry I ribbed in some raw umber around the edges and finished with some dry brushing  using titanium white and titan buff and a coat of gloss varnish. The scalloped art part was given a coat of texture paste and whilst still wet pressed into the craft mat and lifted to create a veined look. When dry it was lightly painted with white gesso and again when dry was rubbed over with some faded jeans distress ink and then blended with vintage photo. I just kept adding more inks until I was happy with it and tied it with rusty wire.

The backing board is a piece of watercolour board which has been stamped with black archival and one of Tim's ledger stamps then DecoArt white crackle paste applied through the gothic stencil and left to crackle on it's own. Once fully dried I dipped in blue and brown distress inks. 

The metal pieces were painted with picket fence distress paint, left to dry slightly then rubbed over with my finger to remove the paint leaving it in the depressed letters. To grunge then up a bit I added prussian blue, acrylic, indigo treasure gold and some sail boat blue and espresso alcohol inks. I found a small rusted metal star and added it to a rusty disc, the number two was left over when I made my antique French number plates 

The arrow was painted with prussian blue, rubbed over some indigo and pewter treasure gold and then more raw umber and paynes grey paint added to it. The piece of film strip seemed to be the perfect layering piece for it. The girls are from Tim's found relatives, I cut them out, inked the edges and added a little broken china and faded jeans distress markers to bring them in more with the blue tones. 

You can also see a couple of my rusty wooden cogs made for an AVJ DI post ages ago, look at the photo below to see how I was able to add them to the layering.

By adding the scalloped art part to the centre of the shrine it meant that the ledge had a gap left either end, perfect for those cogs.

I hope I've given you an insight to the techniques and products used to make the canvas. At the time of drafting this post I am also wrapping this carefully to get it in the post to Alison - now I just hope she likes it.

As part of this fabulous gift exchange experience with the Creative Guides the amazing Tracy was unfortunate lucky enough (lol) to pull my name out of the hat and inside the well wrapped parcel that arrived in the post was this gorgeous Christmas shrine.

It is the most gorgeous little bit of altered art although I don't know that I can really call it that because Tracy made it all from scratch using wood for the base and Tim dies for the shrine. I just love all the additions and snowy effects, it really is beautiful Tracy, thank you so much, it has been displayed in my dining room since I received it a couple of weeks ago and will look wonderful with all my other Christmas décor when I get it out. To see Tracy's post pop over to her blog, I'm sure there will be more photos from her and probably a description of how she put it together.

Thanks for stopping by today to take a look at my secret santa presents and if you would like to see ALL of them on display then click here on A Vintage Journey to be transported over and see what amazing projects the team came up with. You will not be disappointed as I am the lucky one who has seen them already.

Enjoy the rest of the run up to Christmas and the wonderful atmosphere of the festive season.

hugs Brenda xxx