Trees over Gel Print

Posted: February 2, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Darkroom Door, gel press, majestic mountains | Tags: , , | 7 Comments

Sometimes a background scrap can make a whole card. If you have done gel printing you probably know how beautiful the leftover edges can be. As you make print after print, excess paint layers up on the edges of the gel plate. I like to ‘collect’ those edges at the end of a gel printing session by brayering white paint over the top then lifting the whole section onto a last print.

The horizontal lines of blue and green you see here are from cleaning up edges. I thought they looked like the edge of a lake or river so I stamped trees over the top. Even the blue and white paint in the background looks a little like clouds and mountains.

I used tree stamps from Darkroom Door’s ‘Majestic Mountains’ set and Catherine Pooler inks to add to what was already a landscape. I had my gel plate out again yesterday after quite a break and once again saved some textural edges .

Supplies

2022 BuJo – January theme

Posted: January 5, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Bullet Journal, Darkroom Door, Dingbat notebooks, majestic mountains, pine cones | Tags: , , | 6 Comments

My plan for the new year was to take a different artistic route with my bullet journal themes but here I am with the same mask, stamp, blend approach. I still have fifty pages left in my current journal so I will continue in a similar style for now and make some changes when I switch to a new one.

I masked the edges of the page with painter’s tape for delicate surfaces but it was still a bit sticky for the smooth bullet journal page. I did press it on my clothes first but I think post it tape is a much better choice.

As well as a masked frame around the page I tore tape to mask snow hills across the page. I used the pinecones and needles from Darkroom Door’s ‘pine cones’ set and trees from the DD ‘majestic mountains’ set.

The inks are all distress inks (listed below) and you can see a bit of bleed through the paper. The juicier the ink the more likely it is to show through. None of the ink went right through the page so it doesn’t bother me or stop me from using the pages. I used a black fineline pen to rule the lines and letter the headings.

After a year using this particular dot journal I am still a big fan of the quality but havent’ settled on the best way to keep track of work projects past, present and future. I also want to come up with a workable chore tracker, not nearly as fun as the project tracking but necessary!

As I look at my ‘to do list’ page above I’m not so keen on the little trees to mark the list items; they look like tree shaped rain drops falling from a pinecone!

I’ll be setting up a new booklist for my 2022 reading and plan to put all the birthdays on one spread too. That won’t guarantee that I will remember to send greetings but it might help.

Supplies

Art de Fleur

Posted: October 23, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Art de Fleur vol 1, Botanical Script, Darkroom Door, global postmarks, majestic mountains, scratches, sheet music, tall flowers | Tags: , , | 5 Comments

This card is the cardmaking version of going down a rabbit hole. I know how easy that is on the interwebs, but apparently it is possible with a card as well. What started out as a vintage style two layer card became a little more than that. I just kept thinking of stamps and papers and techniques I wanted to add.

I decided an insert would be nice; I don’t usually put anything on the inside of my cards so an insert is quite the departure. An insert turned into two inserts which is more like a little book when you count both sides of the pages!

The front panel, which was initially going to be the whole deal features several Darkroom Door stamps: scratches background stamp, sheet music background stamp, global postmarks, art de fleur vol 1.

For the whole card I stuck with four Papertrey ink cubes (listed below); I used them for stamping, watercolouring, splattering and blending with a blending brush.

The inside pages are not watercolour paper but handmade paper from a Hanji gifts in Toronto. It is handmade paper with rose petals embedded in it. It was very white straight out of the packet so I smooshed some brown and pink inks on my glass mat, diluted with water then swiped the paper through the ink. This resulted in the colour I wanted but removed the sizing and wrinkled the paper. I ironed it, which did the trick then added little bits of stamping on every page. I used a couple of sentiments and some quote stamps, all from Darkroom Door and reused the same background stamps plus the floral stamps from the Art de Fleur set.

To join it all together I poked holes and used some fine twine for a little ‘book binding’. With all the ‘vintaging’ I did on the front panel and pages the card base itself looked very stark so I swiped that through some smooshed ink too so everything would co-ordinate.

I was so deep down the rabbit hole by this point I realised an ordinary envelope was just not an option so I pulled out another sheet of the handmade rose petal paper, inked it, ironed it and used my envelope punch board to create an custom envelope, which I failed to photograph. All in all a very satisfying but surprising creative project. Now, back to work!

Supplies

Fields of Gold

Posted: September 4, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Darkroom Door, majestic mountains, Nature Walk, Stamped Landscapes | Tags: , , | 8 Comments

This card was inspired by @jenny_illustrations a watercolour artist I follow on instagram. She painted her scene but I used a selection of Darkroom Door stamps and some wet into wet techniques.

I worked on a panel of hot pressed watercolour paper splattered with liquid frisket. I wasn’t necessarily wanting the look of snow, more the interest or vintage look of little dots over the panel. It could be snow, an early snow or a first snow but that is not something I am thinking about right now. Not for a minute am I wishing summer away, I would never do that. Summer is definitely my favourite season and it is still officially summer for another 18 days!

But back to the card. I taped it down to my glass mat which I also used as a palette where I squished my distress inks to provide me with ink to paint with. I spritzed the whole panel with water then painted weathered wood and faded jeans distress ink in the sky then tea dye and gathered twigs distress ink in the foreground. It was not meant to be gathered twigs; the lid said ‘fossilized amber’! The lid was wrong but the colour, surprisingly worked maybe even better than amber would have giving me a gradation from light to dark brown.

While the whole panel was wet I stamped the large mountain stamp from DD ‘majestic mountains’ in faded jeans ink then, after a pause, the small trees from the same set in ‘hickory smoke’ then. after a longer pause, in ‘black soot’ ink. I used a small floral stamp from DD ‘wildflowers vol 1’ to stamp and restamp flowers in the foreground, first in ‘tea dye’ then in ‘gathered twigs’. I dried the panel rather than wait and finished it off with tea dye and gathered twigs splatter.

I was pleased to see my taping sealed the edges well resulting in no leaks. I am trying a different painter’s tape so it scored points on this project. I’m not sure why but this panel needed to be a side fold card. It has a little sentiment from DD ‘nature walk’ that says ‘ walk through the wildflowers’; you might not be able to read it but the recipient will.

I’ve done very few scenic cards lately so I enjoyed the process and result. I am pondering my next online class… scenic cards or Christmas cards? Feel free to weigh in with your thoughts.

Supplies

Old gel print, new card

Posted: August 14, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: carved flowers, Darkroom Door, gel press, majestic mountains | Tags: , | 4 Comments

I am getting closer to doing some satisfying gel printing but this card was made from a previous gel printing session. You can probably tell the texture on this panel was from a piece of corrugated cardboard. So simple and effective.

There is definitely some leftover paint printed on this panel. Leftovers are a feature of gel printing I really like. I usually print and print without cleaning the plate so the leftovers, often on edges or corners appear in subsequent prints.

I stamped the large and small cone flowers from the Darkroom Door ‘carved flowers’ set first in white ink then offset in black before embossing in clear powder. White ink is very sticky so when I stamped on top of it the stamp lifted some of the white ink off. It was necessary to wipe the stamp each time and restamp in black to build up a solid black layer. After embossing I used the large six square grid die from Waffle Flower’s color combo set to cut my panel into squares. I popped them up on foam on a 6″x4.25″ card base.

The sentiment is the DD ‘majestic mountains’ set and reminds me that not all adventures have to be in person or in the outdoors right now, although I am missing that. I am enjoying the adventure of creating with new and old friends through my online class. (yes maybe this is another shameless plug, but it’s true!) As I see what class members are creating I am inspired and encouraged to be ‘in class’ with friends even while I can’t be in class in person.

And I am sure new gel printing is imminent; I want to print fresh leaves and maybe petals from my garden so stay tuned.

Supplies

Crisp or misty

Posted: December 12, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: majestic mountains, pine cones | Tags: , , , | 11 Comments

I pulled out the wonderful new trees from Darkroom Door’s ‘majestic mountains’ set to create today’s cards. I wanted to create two forest scenes, one on a crisp cold night, the other on a misty day. There are some similarities in the techniques and inks as well as differences which enabled me to create both looks. I began both times with cold pressed watercolour paper splattered with masking fluid. I like to have a few circles cut from frisket film on hand to mask a moon so I positioned one in the top right corner then tore a post-it note and positioned it diagonally across the panel. I stamped the two larger trees in versafine clair inks along the edge of the post-it mask so the trunks did not show and used one green for the largest tree and another green for the smaller.

Next I removed the post-it mask and painted water along the lower edge of the stamping and upwards to fill the sky. Then while the paper was wet I added weathered wood, faded jeans and old paper distress stains to fill the sky. Once I had the sky blended I used the post-it mask again as an edge to stamp more trees including one of the smaller ones from the ‘majestic mountains’ set. Again after removing the post-it mask I painted water and blended some of the three stains into the water to create shadows behind the trees and snowbanks. To finish it off I dried the panel, removed the frisket film and masking fluid then added a sentiment from the DD ‘pine cones’ set.

Although the colours and stamps are very similar I worked very much ‘wet into wet’ to create the second card. I painted water and diluted stain over most of the panel adding stripes of faded jeans, weathered wood and old paper. While it was wet I stamped the trees repeatedly with memento northern pine ink making first and second generation impressions to get dark foreground and lighter background images. Each time I inked the stamp I wiped ink off the trunk so it would not stamp, that way the trees all looked like they were in deep snow.

Believe it or not both panels started out the same size but a blot here and a mistake there meant this second one underwent some downsizing.

You might have noticed a stamped envelope in the first photo. I am going to try hard to stamp an envelope and my name on the back of the card as soon as I complete it. I have never been good at this but it makes a lot of sense to do it!

Supplies

Stamps:majestic mountains, pine cones (Darkroom Door)


Inks: northern pine memento, shady lane & rain forest versafine clair

Stains: faded jeans, weathered wood, old paper

Paper: cold pressed watercolour paper, neenah natural white, dark green

Also: masking fluid, glass mat

Majestic Mountains

Posted: October 29, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: majestic mountains, Stamped Landscapes, yuletide greetings | Tags: , , , | 7 Comments

I have a few wintry landscapes to share today featuring stamps from the beautiful new ‘majestic mountains‘ set by Darkroom Door. This set includes three mountains, six sentiments (not featured on these cards) and – happy sigh – four trees! You can find step by step instructions on the Darkroom Door blog. I usually list all the ingredients at the end of the post but today I have included links throughout my descriptions.

On the card above I first splattered masking fluid over cold pressed watercolour paper and let it dry. I placed a torn post-it note mask across the panel then stamped the mountain several times in weathered wood distress ink so the base of the stamp overlapped the post-it. I painted the sky in dusty concord and tumbled glass distress stains then added a small amount of mustard seed stain close to mountain edges. I dried the panel then placed another torn post it note across below the base of the mountains.This was so I could stamp the trees in chipped sapphire distress ink but not have all the trunks showing. Because I was working on cold pressed watercolour paper the tree images were not solid so I used water to blend the ink. I dried the trees then painted a line of weathered wood distress stain along base of trees to create a snow bank and some shadows in the foreground. I removed the masking fluid and added a sentiment from the new Yuletide Greetings Stamp Set in chipped sapphire ink.

For this second card I once again splattered masking fluid but over hot pressed watercolour paper. Instead of using a post it note I partially inked the mountain stamp in weathered wood distress stain so the bases of the mountains were uneven, then stamped across the lower half of the wide panel. I picked a small tree  and stamped repeatedly in front of the mountains in memento olive grove ink including second generation stamping to fill the space. Then I switched to large trees in olive grove ink overlapping some of the small trees.
I painted the sky in stormy sky distress stain taking care to paint to the edge of mountains and tree tops then dried it completely. I removed the masking fluid and chose another sentiment from the Yuletide Greetings to stamp in versafine olympia green ink.

On my last card I wanted a big winter moon so I cut a circle mask from frisket film and attach to a hot pressed watercolour panel then splattered masking fluid over the panel. I painted water over whole panel then added some stormy sky distress stain keeping the colour darkest in the top half. While panel was still damp I stamped a large tree in memento northern pine ink repeatedly using first and second generation stamping for dark and lighter images. I removed the moon mask and stamped one more tree to overlap the moon. I dried the panel completely then removed the masking fluid. I used another sentiment from the Yuletide Greetings Stamp Set in versafine olympia green ink.

This is going to be another of those lovely year round sets but I think it will be all wintry scenes from me for a while. I love having new trees to play with and those mountain stamps make it easy to fill in a simple background. Even though it is still October it has been snowing for the last 24 hours! It’s not going to stay though, definitely not!

Stamps: majestic mountains, yuletide greetings (Darkroom Door)

The rest of the supplies are linked throughout the post. I use affiliate links to the Foiled Fox online store. For no additional cost to you I receive a small commission when you use my links to shop at the Foiled Fox