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!

For the Holidays...

It's Friday, and time to close out the week with a couple more Christmas cards for the upcoming holidays. I did make a couple of each of these designs, so my collection is slowly building for this year...and it's a good feeling to be getting these done early!

We finally had a bit of very much needed and welcome rain this week in Northern California, so it only seems fitting to show you the "Joyful" card first! :)

The embossed background is accented with Pumice Stone Distress Ink, and as I've done before with this LaLa Land Crafts diecut, the street lamp is accented with Inka-Gold "Old Gold" metallic paint, and simply accented with branch punches, narrow ribbon, and a tiny bell...

The diecut sentiment words are accented with a gold gel pen...

Supplies:

Dies:  LaLa Land Crafts "Street Lamp";   Memory Box "Star of Wonder";   Paper Smooches "Christmas Words"

Punch:  Martha Stewart "Medium Branch"            Embossing folder:  Tim Holtz "Bricked and Woodgrain"

Pearls:  Recollections         

Miscellaneous:   ribbon, mini bell,  Pumice Stone Distress Ink,  Viva Inka-Gold "Old Gold", gold gel pen

The second of today's cards is a bit more shabby, with a bit more detail and lots of diecuts...

The little diecut poinsettia is surrounded with a holly diecut, and a twig wreath adorned with punched branches, clear red gems, and sparkly snow...

and a little pearl flourish pointing the way to another flourish die cut in the corner...

Supplies:

Patterned papers:  Graphic 45 "Christmas Past" and "Twelve Days of Christmas"

Dies:  LaLa Land Crafts "Pretty Poinsettia" and "Filigree Corner";  Memory Box "Holly Flourish";  Impression Obsession "Twig Wreath"

Punch:  Martha Stewart "Medium Branch"            Glitter dot:  Pebbles            Red gems:   Kaisercraft

Pearls:   Recollections          Miscellaneous:  white wire,  "Golden Rod" Stickles;  DecoArt Glistening Snow-tex

Thanks for stopping by for a visit...have a wonderful weekend!

 

Mixed Media - DREAM canvas...

Happy Monday, everyone! Today's share for Mixed Media Monday is an 8x8 canvas that I made just for fun. I played with a few of my newest colors of Golden heavy body acrylic paints for the background, then layered some stenciling, and finally lots of findings with a twist...

Instead of layering all the findings and fun pieces flat across the center of the canvas, I turned two 3x3 mini canvases upside down, adhered them to the center of the 8x8, and layered the pieces inside and out of the mini canvases...it adds lots of fun dimension...

Here are a few stepouts showing how it came about. The first step was to gesso the backs of the mini canvases with black gesso, and pencil in their final position on the larger canvas. Then I randomly added some of my favorite acrylics for the background, and splattered with white gesso...

Then I added some molding paste through a stencil...only in two corners, since the other two would most likely be covered with embellishments...

Then it was time for fun. The first step was to glue the two mini canvases to the larger one - I used fabric glue for that, since it was canvas-to-canvas. Once it was good and dry, I started adding...and adding...and adding...chipboard die cuts, wood cut shapes, lots of layers of metal findings...the works!

I coated most of the pieces with black gesso before I glued them to the canvas, so I'd only have to do light touchups after they were all secured. I didn't want to risk having some of the black gesso cover areas of the background where I wanted color to show. Once I photographed that step, I thought the middle looked like a big black blob (and who wants to look at that? - haha). So I painted some of the pieces with one of the colors I planned to use, and added the seed beads for contrast, so you can see a bit more where it's going...

Once I had the embellishments secured, and painted that first small area, I thought the stenciled background areas looked a bit too bright. I was using Inka Gold metallic paints on the embellishments throughout the center, and I wanted that area to be the brightest part of the canvas. So I got out a black Stabilo pencil and shaded the stenciled areas to tone them down just a little, and add more dimension to the unembellished corners...

Here are some more detail shots. Once I had glued all the embellishments down, I touched up some of the areas with more black gesso, then started applying several different colors of Inka Gold metallic paints.

I love how some of my very-old metallic-colored buttons are so perfect for this type of project. Many years ago, you could find bags of these silver and gold buttons in the craft stores. There would be mixes of wonderful shapes - butterflies, hearts, stars, keys, zipper pulls - all sorts of goodies all in one bag, for about $5. Years later, I'm finally starting to get to the end of the supply from these button bags, and sad that they're not available anymore. You can see in this first pic one of the butterfly buttons, and on the left, the rope-edged pull-type button beneath the wooden scroll...

paper and metal flowers, hearts, buttons, findings...lots of goodies brushed with metallic colors...

This pretty round medallion was in my stash, so I topped it with a silver button, then put a Finnabair finding right in the center of the beautifully-edged button...

The "dream" key in this next photo was the inspiration for the title of the canvas and the small phrase stickers that were added around the finished canvas...

Supplies:

Color Mediums:   Golden heavy body acrylic paints:  Teal, Primary Yellow, Ultramarine Violet, Quin Nickel Azo Gold, Quin Magenta

Viva Decor Inka Gold metallic paints:   Aquamarine, Green Yellow, Steel Blue, Orange, Magenta, Violet

Stencil:   Prima "Circular Lattice"             Stamp:   Prima/Finnabair "Messy"

Dies:   Sizzix "Flowers Branches & Leaves             

Word stickers, pen nib, arrow:   Tim Holtz Idea-ology            

Metal flowers, large metal butterfly, "dream" key, floral medallions:   TheFunkieJunkie.com

Paper flowers:   Wild Orchid Crafts             Small metal findings:   Prima/Finnabair

Wood scrolls, buttons, hearts, stars, butterflies, seed beads:   local craft stores

Miscellaneous mixed media supplies:   Stabilo All pencil (black),  drywall tape,  black & white gessos,  Golden molding paste 

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

Art Journal - Wildflower...

It's Mixed Media Monday again here in the Korner, and I have a colorful journal page to share today.

Unfortunately, I didn't take stepout photos this time...and this is one of those pages with a lot of steps. But I think once you see it and I explain what I did, you'll get it. I played with Dylusions acrylic paints, and masks and stencils...and this spread is one of the few "flat" journal spreads I've made.

So, once again channeling my "flower child" younger years, here's the finished double-page spread in my small Dylusions art journal...

I started by eyeballing where I wanted my two figures to sit on the pages, and in those two general areas, went to work creating a background of text tissue paper, hand-drawn flowers, circles, pens and inks, Dylusions paints...fun and bright colors.

Then I placed the masks over the areas I wanted to show through, and used black heavy body acrylic to cover the rest of the background around the figure masks. 

I knew the text I'd be using, and since it was song lyrics, I happily remembered I had an older Tim Holtz music mask in my supply stash...and an older Heidi Swapp loopy flower mask, too. I left the masks over my two figures, laid the music and flower masks down over them, and added more colorful Dylusions paints over the black gesso, covering most of the background with blocks of color.

After that dried, a stenciling of black heavy gesso at the bottom, and more magenta paint through the same stencil around the top and sides, and it was ready for the quote and handwritten lines.

Here are a few closeup shots...

I printed the text onto white cardstock  (the font used is called Janda Truly Madly Deeply) and glued the words down through the center of the spread, then hand wrote another line from the song up the sides of the two figures...

Supplies:

Art Mediums:   Ranger Dylusions acrylic paints-Bubble Gum Pink, Squeezed Orange, Vibrant Turquoise, Fresh Lime, White Linen;   Liquitex black heavy body acrylic paint;   Art Basics black heavy gesso;   Sharpie white poster paint pen;   Uniball Signo white gel pen;   Ranger Fudeball black pen

Masks:   Dylusions "Annie" and "Flossie";   Tim Holtz Idea-ology "concerto";   Heidi Swapp "daisy"

Stencil:   Tim Holtz "dot fade"             Orange gemstones:  Heidi Swapp

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

Mixed Media Canvas - Where There is Love...

Happy summer Monday...it's now official...there's a reason for the hot, and very dry, weather we're having! LOL

Today I have another photo-heavy Mixed Media Monday share for you...an 8x10 canvas board with a fun and *very* colorful background...

Do you remember this photo from a while back?

This is a pic of some of my "smoosh" papers - pieces of mixed media and watercolor paper colored by "smooshing" them into the leftover paints from previous projects and/or my handmade color charts of Lindy's Stamp Gang sprays and Magicals. (On Thursday, I'll be back to show you a card made with the bronze/gold/grey piece in the front...but today's piece features a bit of three of the papers in this stack, along with a few others not pictured here.)  

I wanted to make a brightly colored background for a canvas, and that's when I remembered my smoosh papers...and realized I already had the background in my basket all along! So I pulled out an 8x10 canvas board as a base, and started laying out and rearranging and re-sizing pieces. I stamped the final-choice pieces with a few fun mixed media stamps using grey Archival Ink to add some muted background images, then began gluing the pieces to the canvas with matte medium. I wound up with a starting canvas looking like this...

Then I took some smaller pieces, punched and played with the edges and ends, added stitching to a few, and glued them down with matte medium on top of the base pieces to add texture and more color variety ...

The next step was to pull out a couple coordinating stencils and add crackle texture paste...

Next up, splatter some white acrylic ink over the background, just for fun. Then I added some more LSG Magicals to color and shadow the crackle paste areas once they were completely dry.

Before adding embellishments, I needed to add an "anchor" for the large floral cluster and little pieces that would fill the center of the canvas.  I die cut two of the "Sketchy Rings" dies and glued them together in the center to form one long piece of distressed circles. 

The clear frame in the center is a Making Memories frame that's been in my stash forever...I knew I'd find the perfect use for it one day! 

And finally, black Archival Ink was brushed around the outside edges. I think the dark contrasting edges keep the eye from drifting off the edges of the canvas, and bring it back to all the fun embellishments and sentiments that will be in the center...

And now on to some closeups of the finished piece. There were quite a few "happy accidents" as I was pulling embellishments for the canvas, and I love how so many long-stashed pieces, in addition to the clear acrylic frame in the center, finally found the perfect use.

The "love" key was a recent purchase, but it was gold and didn't have enough contrast with the background, so I covered it first with black gesso, then accented with a couple different colors of Lumiere paints - and now it's perfect...

And then I found this in my metal charms drawer, and how perfect a fit is it? It's an old Making Memories plaque with the perfect quote to go with the "love" key. I accented the lettering with pink acrylic craft paint, then added more Lumiere paint around the edges, popped some foam adhesive on the back, and nestled it into the sides of the flowers...

There's still a bit of the black diecut circles peeking through at the top...I didn't cover them completely...LOL. ..

The metal butterfly was originally a dark bronze color. I had added Alcohol Inks in magenta and copper to it for another project, but didn't use it then. I pulled it out again for this canvas, dry-brushed black gesso around the outer edge for contrast, then added some Lumiere paints to the inside to bring all the colors of the canvas onto the butterfly...

I discovered that one of the Tim Holtz Idea-ology clock faces fit inside one of the diecut circles perfectly...the color was just not right. Dry brushing a little more black gesso and Lumiere paints took care of that, and a couple small black watch hands in another tiny stash drawer add the perfect finishing touches. 

Below that, another happy find...a long-held Making Memories word charm, this time the word "life," the second half of the quote in the larger sentiment charm...perfect! :)

Supplies:

Color mediums:  Lindy's Stamp Gang assorted Sprays and Magicals;  Lumiere paints "Halo Blue Gold" and "Halo Violet Gold"

Stamps:   Unity Stamp Co. "graffiti art";   LOTV "Set 66-Grunge Elements"

Stencils:   The Crafters Workshop "Mini Chicken Wire" and "Mini Chicken Wire Reversed"

Art Mediums:   Studio 490 Crackle Texture Paste;  Art Basics Heavy Black Gesso;  Liquitex Ink!-Titanium White

Dies:   Memory Box "Sketchy Rings"             "Love" key,  metal butterfly,  lace:   TheFunkieJunkie.com

Metal clock face:   Tim Holtz             Fleur de lis charm:   Prima             Chipboard chain:   Dusty Attic "mini chains"

Clear acrylic dotted frame,  metal word charms:   Making Memories             Pearls:   Recollections

Flowers:   Prima,  Wild Orchid Crafts,   local craft store            Pink stamen clusters:   ChocolateLetters on Etsy

Miscellaneous:   watch hands,   acrylic craft paint

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

Grateful - Cardabilities #124

Hello, again! I was feeling in the mood to make a layered, softly-colored, shabby-chic card, and when I ran across the current sketch at Cardabilities, I knew it was a perfect inspiration that would be so much fun to play with.

Here's the finished card...

(and here's the inspiration sketch...)

This time, for a floral cluster, I used a couple mini gardenias, next to a small lily, and just a couple mini roses, all sitting inside a twine wreath (inspired by all those threads inside the circle on the sketch)...

and atop a chipboard heart and heart circle frame that are inked and coated with clear German glass glitter for a slightly sparkly, sugared look...

The sentiment, perfect for either a thank you card or friendship card, (because I like to leave my options open when I'm not making a card for a specific use at the time) is a Tim Holtz "Big Chat" sticker backed with chipboard for stability...

Supplies:

Patterned papers:   My Minds Eye Lost & Found "Heirloom"

Chipboard heart and frame:   Maya Road            Dies:   Sizzix "Flowers Branches & Leaves"

Flowers:   Wild Orchid Crafts              Pearls:   Recollections              Sentiment:   Tim Holtz "Big Chat"

Lace and pearl stem:   local craft store

Miscellaneous:   clear medium German glass glitter,  twine,  Liquitex Ink! acrylic inks - Carbon Black & Titanium White

Thanks for visiting today!