Farm Fresh Lavender

Posted: March 15, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Background Stamps, Brick wall, Brusho, farm fresh, Penny Black | Tags: , , , | 7 Comments

I am hoping I can fill a couple of jugs with lavender this summer. A couple of years back a friend split her lavender and gave me two plants which were coming along well last year and I hope will be even stronger and more full this year. When I have flowers in the garden I am always torn when deciding whether to cut them and bring some inside or just enjoy them outside where they will probably last longer.

To create this little scene I used two stamps from the new Penny Black ‘farm fresh’ set and the ‘brick wall’ background stamp. I worked in a stamp positioner to create this panel. I stamped the jugs first with wild honey and tea dye distress inks. After blending the ink with water I added shadow with walnut stain ink. I used both bundled sage and rustic wilderness for the stems and a mix of milled lavender (of course) and dusty concord for the flowers.

Because I had done the jugs first I stamped and cut little masks from post-it notes to make it easier to stamp a brick wall behind them. I used tea dye to stamp the brick wall then started blending the tea dye ink to fill the bricks. I sprinkled a very small amount of sandstone brusho over the wall and started blending it in random bricks. This resulted in the warm orange bricks you see. I also added walnut stain ink to a few bricks for a darker look.

I blended antique linen and walnut ink in the foreground and painted pale shadows below the jugs. The card is finished with a sentiment from the new PB ‘love big’ stamp set.

Just in case you wondered at me thinking about cutting flowers from my garden, I’m just dreaming; it is definitely still covered in snow!

Supplies

1 Bike + 3 Oxide Inks

Posted: March 11, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Simply Graphic, spring bike | Tags: , | 4 Comments

I am over on the Foiled Fox blog today with these sweet new stamps from Simply Graphic. The Foiled Fox has just brought in a lovely selection of cool stamps and dies from Simply Graphic and they shared a video on Wednesday introducing them all.

I went simple and graphic with my first two card layouts by blending oxide inks in stripes on both white and kraft cardstock. I stamped the ‘Spring Bike’ stamp in versafine clair nocturne above and embossed with Brutus Monroe alabaster powder below. I love how the white pops on kraft.

I thought I had finished after these two cards but the three oxide inks, rusty hinge, picked raspberry and salty ocean all wanted me to try a watercolour technique. I embossed the bike in clear powder on watercolour paper then smooshed the inks on my glass mat, spritzed with water, then swiped some watercolour paper through the inks several times to fill it with colour.

You can see I did get some grey and brown in the mix but I thought it worked well to define the bike and suggest some ground behind. When I saw how it looked on half the tire I mixed some more and painted the whole tire. I also filled the basket with blue but other than that the inks landed where they landed!

I finished all the cards with sentiments from the ‘English sentiments’ set. What sweet simple stamps these are. Make sure you visit the Foiled Fox to see the rest of their Simply Graphic selection.

Supplies

2022 BuJo – March theme

Posted: March 10, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Bullet Journal, Dingbat notebooks, Hand drawn, Hand lettered | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments

Yes we are a third of the way through March but better late than never. I live in the north where March rarely means spring flowers; more often it means spring snow so my theme is still wintery!

I actually left my home and went away last weekend to the mountains and did a little skiing and relaxing so this theme seemed appropriate. Our accommodation looked nothing like my hand drawn cabin but was lovely just the same.

The trees on these pages were stamped with a Simply Graphic stamp, ‘pine forest‘ in rustic wilderness and iced spruce inks.

Simply Graphic is a French company with some very cool stamp and die designs. The Foiled Fox just started carrying more of their product and sent me a few stamps to try out. You will see more in tomorrow’s post.

I used post-its to mask, drew my own cabin with Staedtler markers then lightly watercoloured it with distress inks.

I made many mistakes on these pages because I was rushing but I managed to cover them up or work around them!

If you haven’t seen one of my bullet journal spreads before I am working in a ‘Dingbats’ notebook; it’s A5 and dotted and I think the quality is excellent.

Supplies

Birches on Kraft

Posted: March 9, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Alexandra Renke, Art Journal | Tags: , | 10 Comments

These two pages began as ‘clean up’ pages after completing pages in another art journal. I had some pink and brown paints left over and also some blue with brown. I used an old key card to lift the excess paint and swiped it onto the pages in my 6×6 kraft journal.

I didn’t have a plan straight away but a few weeks later I pulled out an Alexandra Renke stencil which I’d never used and decided to do a couple of simple landscape pages.

The stencil exposes only the edges of the birch trees which I wanted to be black so I mixed some black gesso with some black texture paste to make it thicker then spread it through the stencil onto the painted pages. Once it dried I painted the white spaces first with white gesso but it wasn’t opaque enough so I used Dr Ph Martin’s Bleedproof white paint.

After completing the trees I painted some snow covered hills with the same white paint and diluted them with water to reveal the land underneath. This is the opposite technique to my usual watercolour technique where I paint the shadows or hills and dilute the tops.

So far I have tried distress sprays, gel pens, acrylic paints and texture paste on the kraft pages. As long as I include some light colours in my designs the brown background words really well. Next experiment? Collage, stamping or maybe coloured pencils.

Supplies

New Penny Black Florals

Posted: March 8, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: letter background, modesty, Penny Black, sweet sprouts | Tags: , , | 8 Comments

It snowed all day yesterday but spring arrived anyway in a package from Penny Black! I have a nice little stack of PB florals to share with you in the days to come and I should manage a video or two as well.

This first card features four stamps from the new Springtime release. Those of you who have been PB fans for years might notice a re-release among them. I stamped the large and small flowers from the ‘modesty’ set over foliage from the ‘sweet sprouts’ set; both sets include two large cling stamps. I used milled lavender and aged mahogany distress inks for the flowers and a mix of three distress greens for the leaves and stems. All the supplies are linked below.

The washy blended look in the petals was achieved by spritzing the stamp before stamping along with some paint brush blending afterwards. I stamped a border of script in weathered wood with the ‘letter background stamp’ and blended the same ink around the edges. I splattered water for some watermarks and a mix of the milled lavender and aged mahogany around the flowers.

The card is 6¼”x 4½” on cold pressed watercolour paper finished with a sentiment from the new ‘love big’ set. I love the snowy cards as you are aware but I am definitely excited to be stamping florals again!

Supplies

Blue flowers on red gel print

Posted: March 2, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: gel press, harmonious, Penny Black, Tim Holtz, wild flowers #1 | Tags: , , , , | 3 Comments

Here is another of my gel prints from last week. When I sit down to write my process for you I get a little confused as to the order I did things. With gel printing you need to do the top layer of the final print first on the plate then layer the background over the top. I don’t list the paints I use for my prints because I end up with many paints over my work surface during a printing session of several different brands. If you are wondering about paints for gel printing, use any acrylics you have and see what you like best.

I imagine I brayered blue paint on the plate first, then pressed the fiddly flower die cuts into the paint, took a print to remove all but the outlines of blue then brayered the orange and red over that. I added texture to the red layer and took the final print, I think. The grid print you see was made by pressing a textured piece of cardstock into the paint on the gel plate. I guess I need to video my process for myself as well as to share with you!

The blue prints were not as distinct as I had hoped; I’ll keep working on that. I do like the shadow flowers though and when I found an outline flower die from Penny Black I stacked two blue layers and added it over the shadows. I like its grunginess, bold colours, shadow flowers and grid texture. And those two odd white dots were made as old paint peeled off the plate. Gel printing is full of delightful surprises.

Supplies

A Wintry Introduction to Art Journalling

Posted: March 1, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Art Journal, Classes | Tags: , | 3 Comments

My Art Journal Adventure workshops kicked off last Saturday with this wintry page. As I mentioned yesterday I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was great to be in the room as the creating happened. I know not all my readers live near me but if you are in Ottawa and would like to do some art journalling there are still a few places in the next two Wintry Introduction sessions (March 4 & March 12). Hope you are not too tired of seeing all things winter but at least I have titled the above pages ‘winter’s end’!

This is another take on the wintry theme. If you haven’t tried art journalling before you will not be alone. Click over to the Crop A While website to learn more or register. If you drop into Crop A While one of my journals is there to give you an idea of what we’ll be doing this week and in future episodes of the Art Journal Adventure.

Tomorrow we will return to regular programming…

Gel printing & a new crafty crush

Posted: February 28, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Ciao Bella, Darkroom Door, gel press, patchwork, Penny Black, tall flowers | Tags: , , , , | 5 Comments

I had a couple of opportunities to gel print last week and it was, as always, most enjoyable. The prints did not all work out but I have a couple that made me very happy.

Now would be the time to tell you I have a new crafty crush! Not a crafter, a craft company. I have fallen for the beautiful stamps, stencils and papers from Ciao Bella. The stencil I used to create today’s prints is called ‘patchwork’. I bought it because it features eleven different patterns that will be good for adding texture to art journal pages. I had no idea how beautiful it would look when I printed it as a whole! (Both Crop A While and Ecstasy Crafts carry Ciao Bella products; if you shop from Ecstasy make sure you use my link to get there and the discount code heathertecs10 for a 10% discount at checkout.)

I brayered some blues and browns on my gel plate then placed the stencil over the top followed by a piece of paper so I could remove some of the paint. When the first layer was dry I brayered a layer of white over the top and pulled the print. This is only a small section of the stencil but it was the best part of the print. I used adhesive sheets to attach it to the card base then added three Penny Black ‘tall flowers’ die cuts.

I used browns and black for the base of this print then light browns and white for the second layer before pulling the print. (yes I will do a video sometime soon)

The sentiment is from the Darkroom Door ‘long distance’ sentiment stamp.

I have no immediate use for many of the prints but they will go in my collage collection for now because they might come in handy for art journalling.

I taught the first Art Journal Adventure workshop on Saturday and enjoyed it so much. The workshop was held at Crop A While; there are spaces in the Friday workshop this week, March 4, and the Saturday March 12 workshop.

Supplies

Doodle on Kraft

Posted: February 23, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Art Journal, Hand drawn | Tags: , , | 6 Comments

As you know I’ve been enjoying the 6″x 6″ white Dina Wakley journal; I have two on the go now full of experiments and ideas for my upcoming Art Journal Adventure workshop. Ranger has also made a kraft journal the same size so yes, I had to try it.

As you can see in these photos working on a kraft background tones down the colours used on top. I could paint the pages white before starting but I am interested in experimenting with kraft backgrounds for now. I also bought a few distress oxide sprays the other day. I love the traditional distress sprays but hadn’t tried the oxide sprays before. They are a good match for the kraft journal as a little ink soaks in while plenty of pigment sits on the surface.

I used prize ribbon and worn lipstick sprays on this page then doodled with a black gel pen. For inspiration I looked at zentangle pages I’d saved on pinterest and instagram and adapted them to spread across the pages. I also found pink and blue metallic gel pens from years ago and did some colouring in. I used a white gel pen to highlight parts of my design.

As I worked I wanted to make everything brighter to compensate for the brown background but that is an experiment for another page. If I had started my doodling in white the overall effect would be brighter but I like the opacity of the black.

I found the quote in a book I am currently reading and it seemed to fit my meandering pattern.

The art journal workshops that were originally planned for January have been rescheduled in late February and early March. You can find out more on my classes page or on the Crop A While website where you can register for either the March 4th or 12th workshop.

Supplies

AI Brussel Sprouts video

Posted: February 18, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Alcohol Ink, Concord & 9th, grafix, simple serif alphabet dies, Tutorial | Tags: , , , , , , | 9 Comments

If you are a little baffled by the title of this post don’t worry no brussel sprouts were harmed or eaten or even incorporated into the making of this video! But would you agree that the little patterns formed inside the circles on the panel look a bit like brussel sprouts?

You will see in the video I didn’t set out to make a brussel sprout pattern; I actually changed track part way through the process. The video shows the technique I started with along with stencil technique I ended up doing. So it’s basically a 2 for 1 deal.

There are several ways to use a stencil with alcohol inks and this is just one. Make sure you check out Ardyth’s youtube channel for more ideas. I mentioned in the video that some alcohol inks tend to be a bit pushy and end up taking over a colour scheme. The lime green did so on this card but I’m glad there are some blues tones still visible at the base of the card.

I finished the card with die-cut letters and a single word from Paper Rose Studio’s So Extra sentiment strips.

You can see other cards made using this technique here and here.

Supplies

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