Pencil Poppies

Posted: April 29, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: brilliant, Coloured pencil, Gouache, Penny Black | Tags: , , | 10 Comments

Today’s pencil and gouache technique was inspired by a beautiful card recently posted by Debby Hughes. Debby did a video of her process so if you are interested you can pop over to her youtube channel and follow her directions like I did.

I used a different stamp, ‘brilliant’ from Penny Black but the other supplies and technique are the same as Debby’s. I stamped on kraft cardstock with pumice stone ink, painted inside the petals with white gouache then did all the colouring with Faber Castell Polychromos pencils.

When I first stamped the ‘brilliant’ poppy stamp I used Papertrey ink soft stone ink which is my current favourite for no-line watercolour techniques. It stamped well on the kraft cardstock but when I looked at it ten minutes later it had faded quite a bit. It would be fine for someone whose eyesight is perfect but mine is not so I stamped in pumice stone distress which gave me a bit more contrast.

Debby’s technique included painting the petals in white gouache then colouring over the top. I hadn’t tried it before but I will do it again in the future. It worked very well and took the place of my previous method which was colouring in white pencil first then adding colours over the top before blending again in white. Painting with gouache first gave me a base which happens to also be a nice matte surface to colour over. I finished the design with some white gouache splatter as Debby did. So basically I am saying, ‘ do what she did!’ Thank you Debby for a great technique tutorial.

The polychromos pencils I used were: white, medium flesh, medium cadmium red, raw umber, emerald green, pine green, naples ochre and walnut brown.

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Fresh Bouquet

Posted: April 27, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: fresh bouquet, how sweet, Karin brushmarkers, Penny Black | Tags: , , | 4 Comments

My Karin markers have been a bit neglected lately so I brought them out to work with the cute cup of flowers stamp from the PB ‘fresh bouquet’ set. I worked in a stamp positioner on hot pressed watercolour paper. First I inked the flower centres with the gold marker, next the blue petals with cyan, leaves with grass and berries with rosewood.

I used a paintbrush and water to pull ink from the stamping to fill the petals and leaves working loosely but taking care not to blend much from one ink to the next. Blue and yellow make green as you know and I didn’t want the petals or centres turning green.

Adding a sentiment was a bit tricky. The cup of flowers stamp comes with a large and lovely sentiment but it would have covered too many flowers. I need birthday cards at present so I stamped the little ‘happy birthday’ from the PB ‘how sweet’ set in paradise versafine clair ink and then wondered where to place it. It is rare that I will place a sentiment right in the middle of a card but it just seemed to work this time.

I have some beautiful tea cups, some from my mother, my nanna and my grandma. I rarely use them because I like a large mug of tea. Perhaps I could occasionally put a few flowers in one, once I have more than two tiny flowers in my garden.

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Remember when we all had library cards?

Posted: April 22, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Art Journal, bookshelf, bookworm, Darkroom Door, library books, Mixed Media | Tags: , , , | 9 Comments

I have always loved the library, perhaps now more than ever. I remember as a child having my own library card at the Civic Library in Canberra as well as library cards at school. Filling a library card with date stamps seemed a worthy achievement and then I would get a fresh new card. If only I had kept those cards for forty years later when I wanted to put one in an art journal! I worked in my 9″x 6″ ‘literary themed journal’ for this one not the 6″x 6″ I’ve been sharing a lot lately.

The library card on this journal page I made with a new Darkroom Door stamp, but I’m guessing you already knew that! The new set ‘library books’ includes a library card stamp, two stacks of books, an open book and three quote stamps. What can I say; it’s a delight.

This page was not a delight most of the way through but as I tell the participants in my art journal adventure classes this is often the case. Many pages really do not pull through until the very end. It is an example of a collage page which is what we will be doing in Art Journal Adventure Episode #3. All the dates are listed and linked on my Classes page including a couple of Episode #2 sessions next week.

I began this spread by gluing down pieces of old book pages. If you look at the top right corner of the photo above you will see the aged rounded corner of an old page. It has been become one of my favourite collage tricks to stick the book corners over my page corners then cut away the journal page behind to leave that soft round corner. I did it on all four corners of this page. After the old book pages I added stamping, paint and a couple of photos of books from magazines. More paint then more books using stamps from the DD set ‘bookworm’. I had already stamped my library card, distressed it and set it aside.

The stacks of very old books I made by stamping the DD ‘bookshelf’ border stamp on some gel prints. I cut them out (fussy) and defined some edges and spine details with markers. Once everything was glued down I added splatter and ink blending and some partial stamping with the DD world map stamp. Last but not least a wonderful quote.

I couldn’t end a post like this without asking for a couple of book recommendations. You have helped me before so please leave a recent favourite in the comments below. A few months back I read the first two books in a trilogy and now I am very keen for the third to be published. They were The Lost Queen and The Forgotten Kingdom by Signe Pike. I also enjoyed The Salt Path by Raynor Winn and have The Wild Silence, her second book, waiting for me at the library. I’m in the middle of Roots & Sky by Christie Purifoy which introduced me to her story telling podcast. That’s enough from me; I want to hear from you.

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Watercoloured Ink Bottles

Posted: April 21, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Darkroom Door, pen & ink | Tags: , , | 8 Comments

I’m sure the new ‘pen & ink’ stamp set from Darkroom Door will be a new favourite of mine. There are five different bottles, two pens, four nibs and some labels. You will see it on my cards, in my journals and on my gel prints.

I wanted to end up with a loose watercolour sketch of ink bottles. I worked on hot pressed watercolour paper with distress inks as my ‘paints’. I did not really plan my process at all and realised a few things about the stamps a little late but it turned out fine in the end. Next time I play with these stamps I might try putting the pens in the inks, and creating different colours of ink in the bottles. Ahh, so many possibilities.

By the way there are a couple of new dates for upcoming classes; the details are on my Classes page

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Dragonfly on text

Posted: April 15, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Dies, Dragonfly Frame, gel press, gelli plate, Penny Black | Tags: , , , | 4 Comments

All the coloured sections of this pretty dragonfly are inlaid between the outlines of the cream die-cut! Does it look the same as if I had just glued the cream die-cut over the top? Yes, I’m afraid it does. Perhaps if gel print had been on cardstock the same thickness as the dragonfly it might have been more noticeable. Lesson learned.

One branch of my current gel printing obsession is image transfer. In the past I have tried it mainly with high contrast photos of people but it works with text as well so I added interest to this blue, gold and red print with some black magazine text. I notice now as I stare at the screen the random line across the panel makes it look a little like an ocean view.

While I was painstakingly inlayaing every little bit of dragonfly wing I was listening to the audio book version of The Salt Path, a memoir with many references to ocean views, cliffs, weather and unexpected encounters. The author and her husband hiked the South West Coast path in the UK in rather traumatic and totally unexpected circumstances. I found the whole account fascinating and heartrending in places. By the end I had google maps open so I could see where the path was taking them.

Once again the photos don’t show the shimmer of the finished project. The sand coloured foreground is actually gold paint so there is shimmer spreading half way up the panel. Can you see why I love gel printing?

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Pods & Wings

Posted: April 14, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Dies, Flutters, gel press, Lavinia, Penny Black, pods stencil, soaring | Tags: , , , , , | 4 Comments

The background of today’s card is another gel print featuring a gorgeous Lavinia stencil called ‘pods’. You can’t see in the photos but in real life there is some shimmer on the print as I used silver paint along with blue, green and white.

Over the print I added a green and a white wreath die cut from Penny Black. It is part of the new ‘soaring’ set which also includes four butterflies. The background called for dragonflies rather than butterflies so I die cut three from the ‘flutters’ set, an oldy but a goodie.

As I spent a chunk of time yesterday listening to Ann Voskamp’s book ‘One Thousand Gifts’, the joy sentiment seemed like a good match for the design.

I was watching a Julie Balzer book club discussion on youtube today as I worked and she mentioned how addictive gel printing is and how if you haven’t tried it you must (48 minute mark)! She called it the one tool that has changed her life! So I will again shamelessly plug my upcoming gel printing workshops and hope you will join me in this addiction!

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Snow & Ice

Posted: April 13, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Darkroom Door, gel press, pine cones, snow flakes | Tags: , , , | 4 Comments

Although most of the ice is now gone, over the last few weeks I have seen it breaking up on the river near our home. The ice that once covered most of the bay cracks and ends up in layers as it breaks, moves and eventually disappears. When I lifted the print above from my gel plate I immediately thought of the cracking ice. It also reminded me of the colours in glaciers, not usually navy blue but I have seen blues and aquas.

Around the time the ice was breaking and melting this snowflake stamp arrived from Darkroom Door so I stamped it on vellum to overlay the background. I really didn’t want to lose much of the background hence the vellum and then a very narrow navy frame and sentiment.

This gel print delighted me, both the colours and the pattern. That’s the fun of gel printing; you never know quite what you will get. I will be sharing a few more gel prints turned into cards and backgrounds over the next few days. In May I will be teaching a couple of gel printing workshops at Crop A While. I’d love to have you join me in making surprising and intriguing prints.

Supplies

Fresh Pansies

Posted: March 30, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Brusho, pansies, Penny Black | Tags: , , , | 13 Comments

Pansies seem to be a happy flower don’t you think? This is the new ‘pansies’ stamp from Penny Black stamped twice on cold press watercolour paper.

In my previous post I asked what colour suggestions you had for irises. Jan in Oregon sent me some beautiful photos she has taken over the years featuring some stunning irises, so the inspiration file has definitely been topped up. She also sent a few photos of pansies, tulips and daffodils as they are the next flowers to be featured here on the blog. The photo below was my inspiration for today’s card. I ended up with more purple petals than white as I didn’t have time for negative painting but I was still inspired and delighted by Jan’s photo.

I stamped with distress inks then filled the petals with brusho watercolours using the same method I used recently for the irises. I used shaded lilac, mowed lawn and fossilized amber to stamp the outline then violet brusho and a mix of leaf green and moss green for the leaves and stems.

I used a purple marker to draw the lines coming out from the centre of the flowers, blended some mowed lawn around the stems and finished with a sentiment from the PB ‘love big’ set.

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Iris Elegance

Posted: March 28, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Brusho, iris elegance, Penny Black | Tags: , , , | 14 Comments

This is the second iris card I’ve painted but it probably won’t be the last. Iris Elegance from Penny Black is such a bold beautiful stamp.

I worked on hot press watercolour paper in a stamp positioner to stamp the outline stamp in chipped sapphire, peeled paint and wild honey distress inks. I blended ink into the petals from the stamped outline but also used brusho paints to fill the petals with blends of colour. I had violet, ultramarine and moss green brusho mixed in a palette beside me so I could dip my brush and add paint to the petals.

To fill out the design I stamped just leaves to the left and the right of the main image. Let me know if you have irises blooming already or suggest some petal colours to me. The yard is covered in snow again here so the irises best keep on sleeping for now!

Supplies

Circle Flowers journal page

Posted: March 25, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: abstract flowers, alphabet medley, Art Journal, checkered, Classes, Darkroom Door, gel press, Hand drawn, mesh, Stencils | Tags: , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Last week I spent several happy hours gel printing. One of the prints I completed has ended all over this art journal spread. If you are a gel printer you know you can sometimes pull a couple of prints of the same design. The first one is full of colour and pattern and the second is often called a ghost print as it displays outlines and left over bits of paint.

For this journal page I used both the bold blue and green print and the ghost print. The ghost print can be seen on the top left and bottom right corners and is peeping out in a couple of other places. The first print which was very geometrical has been turned into circle flowers. It also had traces of a new stencil called ‘pods’. You will see more of it here on the blog because it is fabulous!

Also in the background you might see some black ink stamping (DD mesh and alphabet medley) and the texture of paste through the DD ‘checkered stencil. The text you see is a fabric tape with dictionary definitions of happiness; it is the first 49 & Market product I have bought and it is going to be handy!

There is plenty of white gesso over the background to pull it together and mute some of the bold elements.

The flowers are all cut with Penny Black ‘abstract flowers’ dies which basically cut slightly wonky circles so I could have cut them myself but why bother when the machine will do it. The print was on rice paper so I could cut a few layers at once. After drawing an edge on each circle with a silver paint pen I stuck a small circle on a larger one, then sewed a cross in the centre with silver thread. There are stems in the set of dies but I doodled mine with a black marker. The blue splatters and pops of pink are from inktense pencils which are coming in handy for art journalling.

I know that was a lot of photos and chit chat but that is the way with some art journal pages especially the collage ones which involve different papers, paints, stencils, and mediums. I probably haven’t mentioned everything I used but if you are still here now I’m sure you’ve heard enough!

If you are in Ottawa and feel like doing a little art journalling of your own, there are still spaces left in my next Art Journal Adventure workshop where we will be creating a watercolour green and leafy spread similar to what you see below. All the details are on the Crop A While website.

Supplies

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