Mixed Media - A B C ...

Welcome back to Mixed Media Monday in the Korner.

The story behind today's piece from my large art journal: last week, a crafty friend posted a pic of one of her journal pages in progress, and I commented that her page put my unfinished circle page to shame. :)  She prompted me to post a pic of my page's progress so far - I was taking a little break from housecleaning, so I pulled out my camera and snapped a pic of my page and posted it into the thread.

Later that evening, my journal was still sitting there on my worksurface, and I couldn't sleep, so what better time than "now" to finally finish it? And that's how this page finally got done, many weeks after it was started. Without seeing my friend's post, and without her prompting after my comment, it might still be sitting there on the shelf, and still unfinished. :)

This page is one of the first in my large Dylusions art journal...

I don't have stepout photos for this page because - well honestly - I forgot to even think of it when I started playing with this. But I can give you some of the steps to the end product.

The paper in this journal is heavy mixed-media paper, and this time, I didn't put any gesso on the page first. I put a dab of different Dylusions acrylic paints around the page, and spread them with a combination of paintbrush, fingerpainting, and spreading with a damp baby wipe.

The larger black squares were made through a stencil using heavy black gesso - you can probably see that in the top right and lower left, I applied the gesso through the stencil in the usual manner to get the positive image. But for the lower right and upper left, I turned the stencil over and pressed the gessoed stencil down on the page to get the negative pattern.

I then used jar caps and black gesso to form the outlines for the circles down the page before adding the white speckled areas using Whipped Spackle through a Tim Holtz stencil.

After I had the circles laid out, I used molding paste through an alpha stencil in the lower corner and across the center.

Heavy white gesso was finger painted into the centers of the circles, so I could color them later...and that's as far as I got when I put the page away for another day...

You can see I didn't have far to go to finish this page, so it was well worth my time to get it finished and cross it off the list of the incomplete. :)

I used Gelatos to color inside the circles, blending black, purple and yellow. The little white dots were added with a white gel pen, and the smaller vertical black dots were made with black acrylic paint through a Tim Holtz stencil. 

The last bits were to add a few strips of washi tape here and there, and a trio of word stickers...and it's complete!

Here are a few closeups around the page...

Supplies:

Color Mediums:   Dylusions acrylic paints:  Crushed Grape,  Bubblegum Pink,  Lemon Zest,  Vibrant Turquoise,  Squeezed Orange

Liquitex heavy body acrylic paint - Mars Black;   Faber Castell Gelatos:  Grape, Buttercream, Black

Stencils:   Prima/Finnabair "Grungy Grid" and "Alpha";  Tim Holtz Idea-ology "Speckles" and "Dot Fade"

Word stickers:   Tim Holtz Idea-ology "Big Chat"          

Art mediums:   Faber Castell Whipped Spackle,  Art Basics black heavy gesso,  Liquitex white heavy gesso,  Golden molding paste

Miscellaneous:   washi tape,  Zig Mangaka black pen,  Uniball Signo white gel pen,  Prismacolor white pencil 

Thanks for visiting today...I hope your week is starting with a smile!

Mixed Media - Double the Fun...

It's Mixed Media Monday on the blog, and I've got two projects to share with you today, so I hope you have a few minutes to sit back and enjoy the picture show. :)

First up, an all-occasion card made with one of my "smoosh papers" - a piece of mixed media paper literally "smooshed" onto a craft sheet covered with leftover colors from another project. In this case, it's Lindy's Stamp Gang sprays.

The piece was the perfect size for an A2 card, and I liked the way the colors distributed so much that I wanted a lot of it still showing after embellishing. I added only a bit of modeling paste through a Prima stencil in a random pattern, and a bright floral cluster. Instead of using leaves in the flower cluster, I pulled out an old fern punch for a fun change of pace...

Here are some closeups of the floral cluster...

The only rose in the cluster is the large one in the center...all the rest are pretty little sweetheart blossoms...

Supplies:

Color Mediums:   Lindy's Stamp Gang Sprays  - Pop Rock Purple,  Tea Pot Purple,  Hydrangea Blue

Stencil:   Prima "Circular Lattice"            Dies:   Memory Box "Quinn Flourish"

Punch:   Punch Bunch "Large Fern"             Flowers:   Wild Orchid Crafts             

Stamen cluster:   ChocolateLetters on Etsy             Pearls:   Recollections

Last Monday when I shared the butterfly through the brick wall journal page, I mentioned this art journal page layout. It was purely a "work of wonder" as in "I wonder if this will work!" 

It's an experimental blending of different types of mediums (more than an artful design). To my pleasant surprise, since I had never combined some of them before, they all worked together beautifully. (There was one experiment that didn't work out exactly as planned, though, which you might spot right away.)

I wanted to play with using die cuts for texture instead of art mediums and stencils...and I wanted to try to blend wax based color background mediums (Gelatos and Neocolor II watercolor crayons) with water-based spray colors (Lindy's Stamp Gang Flat Fabio spray) and various pens (Ranger Fudeball, Uni Posca, Uniball Signo)...

Here are some progress stepout photos, starting with the die cuts gessoed after gluing onto the pages (a bit hard to see since everything is white)...

You'll notice there are some white splatters on the finished page. Instead of splashing white ink onto the finished pages, I wanted to see if liquid frisket would stand up to all the different product layers, and then come off smoothly when it was finished...and it did! The orange dots are the liquid frisket...

The next step was base color. I used Gelatos inside the circle diecuts on each page (I applied them in a circular design then used a wet watercolor brush to spread them through the circle), and the rest of the background is Neocolor II pencils applied much the same way - scribbled on, then spread with a larger wet watercolor brush.

There was a method to my madness with the butterflies. I added two colors inside the white diecuts on the background, and as you can see in the finished page, when I applied a second black diecut with raised wings over them, I ended up with dimensional butterflies with the colors under the black outline diecut - a fun technique...  

Here are a few closeups showing the finished butterflies and a few other details. You'll see in the closeups how perfectly the liquid frisket came off after the pages were dried. :)

In this first one, you can see that I outlined the bottom butterflies in white for more accent. The hand drawn scallops around the edge were done with a black Fudeball pen, with white accents inside the scallops drawn with a UniBall Signo in white...

I drew inside and outside the circle diecuts with a black Fudeball, and accented inside the circles with a white Uni Posca paint pen...

In this photo, you can see to the left and below the butterfly where I used a Lindy's Stamp Gang Flat Fabio spray (South Shore Sand) to shade and add some dimension to the scribble diecut texture and around some of the diecuts. I wasn't sure how, or if, it would adhere over the Neocolor II's, but it surely did. Even though the Neocolor II's are labeled as "wax pastels," they behave much like any other watercolor once they're dry...

Here's a closeup of one of the circle diecuts, colored with Gelatos and accented with black and white pens...

I also added some of the Lindy's Stamp Gang spray around the circle diecuts for shading, and randomly inside the honeycomb diecuts in the corners. (And yes, I glued the sequins on "upside down" because I liked the way the stamped creases on the back side mimicked the honeycomb pattern of the diecut. :) )...

Have you spotted the one step that didn't work exactly as I had hoped, but was worked around to a degree? Yep, it's the flowers on the lower left. I was curious how stenciled flowers would apply on top of textured diecuts. First I pulled out my black heavy gesso, then realized that wasn't much of a challenge, because of it's thicker consistency. So I went for broke and pulled out my bottle of regular black gesso...and boy was I in for some fun.

I was very careful...and I mean "very"...to make sure my stencil was flat on the top of the page, but I took a deep breath, and instead of using a sponge applicator (which is what I'd normally do with regular consistency gesso) I pulled out a small palette knife. And you probably know what happened next...seepage to the nth degree! LOL

But it wasn't so bad that I couldn't take the edge of the knife and pull out the edges of the flowers to look like large, spiky, blooms. And one advantage to the "seepage" is that the design doesn't just rest on top of the diecuts, but seeps down to the base of the page, making it a more continuous image (and at least now I know what will happen to the design with this technique...LOL)...

Supplies:

Dies:   Tim Holtz "Mixed Media" and "Scribbles & Splats";   LaLa Land Crafts "Fancy Butterfly";   Simon Says Stamp "Bubble Parade"

Color Mediums:   Faber Castell Gelatos;   Caran d'Ache Neocolor II wax pastels;   Lindy's Stamp Gang Flat Fabio "South Shore Sand";   Ranger Fudeball black pen;

Uni Posca white paint pen;   Uniball Signo white gel pen

Art Mediums:   Golden white gesso,  Golden gel medium,   Darice Studio 71 black gesso,   Grumbacher "Miskit" liquid frisket

Word stickers:   Tim Holtz "Small Talk"             Stencil:   Tim Holtz "Wildflower"             Miscellaneous:  sequins, small colored gems

Thanks for stopping by for a visit...I hope your week is starting with a smile!

Art Journal - Play...

Good day, everyone! I'm getting caught up on my postings with another Mixed Media Monday share of a project in my small (5-1/2" x 8-1/2") Strathmore watercolor journal.

The first week of April, Tracy Scott posted about her limited supplies while on vacation. One of the supplies she did tote with her on vacation was her collection of Neocolor II watercolor crayons...and that got me realizing that I hadn't played with mine since I made this art journal spread and ended up muting and covering the crayons to get the pastel look I wanted that day!

So, out came my Neocolor II crayons, and off I went with a seldom-made freehand layout again inspired by Tracy's style.  I guess I still had Easter eggs on my mind while I drew, and this page ended up being named the "Easter Egg House" when it was all done...LOL...

I did the initial sketching using a medium black Faber Castell Pitt artist pen, then started coloring with my crayons and blending with water using various sizes of brushes, depending on the area and depth of color I was aiming for.(Because I was using watercolor paper this time, I didn't gesso the base page first.) Some of the circles and egg-shaped ovals on the side are freehand cut pieces of patterned papers collaged first, then edged with black pen, and finally painted with the crayons.

The next step was to go over some of the black outlines with a white Uni Posca paint pen. Then little polka dots were added here and there with both the black Pitt pen and a white UniBall Signo pen.

I reached into my tool box and used the end of one of my palette knives to make the larger white circles using some lightly thinned gesso, then scribbled around them with the UniPosca pen.

The words are scribbled here and there with the UniPosca pen...

Supplies:

Color Medium:  Caran d'Ache Neocolor II watercolor pastels - Golden Yellow,  Lemon Yellow,  Orange,  Flame Red, 

Purple Violet,  Ultramarine, Purple,  Cobalt Blue,  Periwinkle Blue,  Malachite Green,  Light Olive, 

Emerald Green, Salmon,  Black

Miscellaneous:   Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pen (black medium),  Uni Posca white paint pen, Uniball Signo white gel pen, white gesso, small patterned paper scraps

Thanks for visiting today...I hope your week is starting with a smile!

Art Journal - I Am Not Who I Was Yesterday...

It's Mixed Media Monday here in the Korner, and today's page was a fun experiment gone right. :)

I've used my Gelatos a bit recently, but so far only for accent coloring and almost always mixed with water or an art medium like texture paste or gesso. I've never made a page or layout using "dry" Gelatos as my only color medium, so that's what I set out to do with this art journal spread in my small Dylusions journal. Heavily inspired by Tracy Scott's colorful style, and itching to play with my new circle stamps, I dove right in. As vivid as these colors may look here, they're even more vivid in person...

I didn't do step-out photos, but the process was simple. I wanted to scribble on the colors, and be able to blend with my fingers, so I applied a coating of gesso to the base pages first. I used a brush, alternating my brush strokes horizontally and vertically, because I hoped the brush strokes would show through as a small bit of texture - and they did...yay!

After applying the gesso, I stamped the circles across the pages using my new Indigo Blu "Limor Circles" stamps ...love these...I'm sure they'll be getting a LOT of use in the future! For lack of a stamp or stencil, I had to hand-draw the flowers onto the pages (using Pitt Artist pens in black).  I always say I can't even draw a recognizable stick figure, so I purposely made these flowers look inexact...but in fact, it's the only way I *can* draw them! LOL

Also, in the background, you can see some black smudges...those are intentional, as a bit more added texture. They're made with one of the other stamps in the Limor Circles set...the largest paint splatter...I just didn't stamp them cleanly and neatly. I inked them up with Archival ink, and used my fingers to press down randomly as I applied the stamp to the page. Once covered with the Gelatos, they're more subdued and fade a bit more into the background.

I started coloring in the circles with Gelatos, then the flowers, then the background. I'd originally planned to list the colors I used, but then I realized there was an easier way. I received this set of Gelatos for Christmas, and the *only* colors I didn't use are the grays and the black! I just layered and rubbed, and layered and blended, until I got the intensity and colors I wanted.

Once the colors were applied, I took a black Pitt Artist pen and a white Uni Posca paint pen and added some small accent circles and white polka dots, and touched up the edges of the flowers that had gotten lightened when applying the colors over them.

Next was to add just a bit of vertical texture by using some modeling paste and a stencil in the corners and through the center of the two pages.

The final piece was to add the sentiment stamp. I used a baby wipe to gently wipe away some of the coloring in the area where I wanted the sentiment, made sure it was dry by hitting it with the heat gun for a few seconds, then stamped the sentiment using a black Big Brush pen applied to the stamp and quickly laying it onto the surface. (As sometimes happen, my hand slid a bit, so I went back over some of the letters with an extra fine Pitt Artist Pen to make sure the letters were all there...oops!)

Because Gelatos are waxy, it's hard to photograph them without getting a bit of reflection back into the camera lens when taking the photo head-on, so I took a few pics around the pages to show you just how vibrant these colors are in real life! 

Starting in the upper left corner...

This is the actual intensity of the pink/orange in the upper corner...much stronger than it appears in the "head-on" photo above due to the way the light bounced off the page in the larger photo...

Wiping away just a bit of the background colors with a damp baby wipe highlights the area around the quote so it pops off the page a bit more...

Supplies:

Color Mediums:   Faber Castell Gelatos

Stamps:  Indigo Blu "Limor Circles";   Unity Stamp Company "empowered words"

Stencil:   The Crafters Workshop "Mini Confetti"

Art Mediums:   Golden modeling paste and white gesso

Miscellaneous:   Faber Castell Pitt Artist and Big Brush pens;   Uni Posca white pen;  Ranger  Black Archival Ink

Thanks so much for visiting today...I hope your week is starting with a smile!