Sunday, February 26, 2012

Look-See Art Journal

Let me start by saying my intentions were good. I was gonna take step by step pictures again. And I started off really good. Then I got caught up in what I was doing and forgot that the camera was right there by my side. So there are a few pics of the beginning stages and then none til the end. I do promise to try and do better next time.

I saw this quote on Pinterest and decided I needed to do another Dyan image and use the quote. So that was my starting point. I used my watercolor crayons and scribbled some blues and greens on Gesso coated white cardstock. Then used a fat paintbrush and water to blend my background color. Came back in with some yellow for subtle highlights. I had seen somewhere in my blog-travels someone had done a quote using a wavy design and I liked it, so I stole it for the quote. I added some doodles with Sharpies and white gel pens. And for the image, I used another head from Dy's Travelling Travis stamp set, (I REALLY need to get some more of her stamps!!!) and a pair of the legs. I cut the dress mannequin from t!m's die using a CTMH floral paper. Added a few button brads and some Stardust Stickles to the flower centers. For her hair, I took common household twine and used my blending tool and gathered twigs, vintage photo, ripe persimmon and tumbled glass Distress Inks and drug the twine thru the pads using the blending tool til I acheived the color I was looking for. Then took one. piece. at. a. time. and adhered to her head, mixing the colors up as I went to give her a "punky" feel. For her boots, I mixed some of the White Enamel Accents with Wild Plum Alcohol Ink on my craft sheet and used a tiny paintbrush to paint on her rain boots! For the rest of the coloring of her head and legs, I used my PrismaColor pencils, odorless mineral spirits and a nub. I used a couple of different CTMH embellies in the pinwheel and crochet flower for her "arms. The "unpredictable" quote is from my stash (NO "H" word, Anna!) I schmeared some True Blue and Lime Green Stickles here and there for a little bling.

 scribbled blues and greens  before water added
 after water blending
 after addition of yellow. Left side blended, right side not.
 Both pages together
 Image of girl
 head
 body
 legs
 quote page
 top
 bottom
both pages together

Friday, February 24, 2012

Groupie again!

Back in my wild, misspent youth there were a bunch of us that followed a local band, Snake Eye, around. I've talked about Max here before, how 20 years after the band broke up that he was a one man band and we would go and see him play. So imagine my surprise when I got an email from Max last week that hell had frozen over and Snake Eye was the Eagles of the 2000's and they were back together. All except the drummer, who got too far into the drugs and alcohol and last anyone heard, he was homeless in TN. But Max, George, Ernie Steve, Kenny the sound guy and a new drummer booked last Saturday night at Sam's Beach Bar just up the road a piece from us. So we went. And it was like nothing had changed! They even did a few songs from back in the day!! I have a photo album of the guys from the past, so I took it and it was the hit of the evening! Everyone wanted copies of the pictures! And while I know we won't be going to see them as often as we used to (every night of the week! I told you it was a misspent youth!) we certainly plan to go and support them often. Rock ON!

                                                 Early 1980's     Max
                                                           George
                                                         Ernie Steve       These were taken by my dad at River Ranch, which is down by Lake Okechobee when Snake Eye opened for Alabama. Yes, THAT Alabama! Snake Eye was on the cusp of really hitting big when they broke up.
                                                          2012     Kenny the sound man. He used to have a rockin' ZZ Top style beard. Now it's nicely groomed and fully grey!!
                                                                  Max
                                             Ernie Steve and Max talking to some other "old" fans
                                            Ernie Steve, George and Max
                                        Beautiful sunset on the west coast of Florida
                                            THIS is why I live here! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Dyan art journal

I can't seem to get enough of the images on the Dyan Reaveley Travelling Travis stamp set!

I decided I needed to mix up a few more images and see what I came up with! I started with a piece of Kraft cardstock along with Distress Stains in stormy sky, dried marigold and peeled paint. Smooshed them on my kraft sheet, misted my cs and smashed it into the stains. Dried it well then used the chicken wire stamp from t!m's mixed media set and used vintage photo and ripe persimmon Distress Inks to stamp them. Added a flowered piece of cs to the bottom cut with one of t!m's on the edge dies. Remembered that vein-y rub on sheet I found a few projects ago, so used some of it here and there. Squiggled some Glossy Accents in spots and used some Sparkle n Sprinkle Spirited Green glitter on it for some of that Dy brightness. Once again, I used my PrismaColor pencils along with odorless mineral spirits and a nub to color the images. Found an old playing card and decided to use it for the body, so I crumpled it up distressed the edges, used vintage photo, tumbled glass and iced spruce Distress Inks to age it. Then used some Stardust Stickles on the hearts. Found a piece of lace with  pearl accent on it and added it to the card. The grommet up top I filled with white enamel accents and it reacted with the vintage photo ink and turned brown! Pretty cool! Then as it dried, it left a hole in the center, so I refilled it and because there was a base, the center stayed white! Her shoes are also done in black and white enamel accents to mimic rain boots. The sentiment is from t!m's new set, words for thought. The bird was painted with paint dabbers and dipped in clear embossing powder and heat set. I highlighted the word Journey on the key with red pepper paint dabber.

 plain kraft cs with distress stains
 now with some stamping and rub-ons applied
 uncolored images
 colored images ready to go. I enameled the boots after everything was assembled
 distressed playing card
 finished tag
 head
 body
feet

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Tag Confusion!

There is a chance to win new Graphic45 collections on their blog right now. When they posted yesterday, I thought you had to MAKE tags and enter for a chance to win the new papers. I'd be wrong! Sooooooooo 20th Century am I!! What you were REALLY supposed to do is tag them on FaceBook and/or Twitter. The more times you do, the better your chances of winning. But I didn't figure that out til after I made my tag! So rather that just add it to my ever-increasing tag collection, I decided I'd take a picture of it and share. The car image is from Graphic45's Times Nouveaux collection.Numbers are from CTMH Dimensional Elements Numbers and covered in CTMH Lagoon Bakers Twine. Tire tracks are black embossed and stamp set is from CTMH Crusin WOTG as is the decal in the bottle cap. Seam Binding ribbon is CTMH, colored using CTMH Juniper ink.

Monday, February 20, 2012

12 Tags-February

t!m Holtz, never one to rest on his laurels has decided to change up the 12 Tags of Christmas that he started 5 years ago. The 12 Tags of Christmas are officially retired and in their place is the 12 Tags of 2012. He will do one new tag each month (two in March to make up for no January because of CHA) and participants will have the whole month to create a tag based on that month's technique and post it. Then at the end of the month, winners will be chosen and prizes given.

And since Feb is all about love, t!m went with a heart theme. Somewhere on your tag, you had to use a heart. Well, Valentine's Day is over! So I didn't want to do a Valentine's tag. Sew...I went in another direction! And yes, sew is a play on words and a sneak into what I did!

I used one of the pages out of my art journal for this month. I started with Distress Stains in spun sugar, wild honey and broken china and splotched them on my Kraft Mat and sprayed with a bit of water. Sprayed my faux tag as well and swiped it thru my puddles. Let it run a bit then dried it well with my heat gun. Used my Mixed Media  t!m stamps with tumbled glass, iced spruce and vintage photo distress inks and stamped in a random fashion on the tag. Then stamped the dress form from haberdashery on cs and cut it out. Used some tissue tape on the bottom half of the form and it's hard to pick up in the pictures, but I pleated the tissue tape as well. Used one of my yen tokens on the top of the form and a hanger as well. I used black embroidery floss to sew the ribbon on. I was not concerned about stitches being straight or even. I wanted it to have a rustic feel. I dug thru my stash of letter tiles and brads and what-have-you and used the "sew" play on words as part of my sentiment. The ASL "a" in "path" is from my friend Evan and that is the only one that I remember where it came from! And there's my heart, wayyyyyyyy down at the bottom. I used some butterscotch paint dabber on it then sanded off the high spots.

You can see t!m's challenge and his tag here: http://timholtz.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/02/12-tags-of-2012-a-new-direction.html




Saturday, February 18, 2012

One card two ways

I saw this technique done on SplitCoastStampers and really like the effect. Basically, you stamp with VersaMark on black cardstock them emboss with white embossing powder. Then you go in with colored pencils and color along the lines but not the whole image then schmear it with you finger to make the color lines less visable. (I know there's a word for that, but it escapes me right now. I know as soon as I hit "post" I'll remember it!)

The first card, I thought I grabbed my white embossing powder but as soon as it started to emboss, I realized I'd grabbed the clear. No matter! I liked it. So I went back and got the white and did it the way it was supposed to be done. All images are from CTMH Card Word Puzzle. I used Sunflower ink to color the seam binding and stamp the "Thinking of You" sentiment (CTMH For Every Occasion) and Gypsy ink for the "Congratulations" sentiment along with Black Bakers Twine and a black button from my stash. Two more additions to go in Debbie's box!




Thursday, February 16, 2012

Mixed Media canvas

Featuring my new Dylusions stamps, new t!m stamps and some of the pieces that were in the grab bag from Stampers Anonymous at last weeks StampFest!

I'm also entering this in http://simonsaysstampandshow.blogspot.com/2012/02/simon-says-stamp-and-show-anything-goes.html for Anything Goes!

I started with an  8 x 8 canvas and used some old...very old... (notice I didn't say the "H" word, ANNA!)  MM Acrylic Paints on Gesso and left it to dry overnight. Then used some 7Gypsies tissue paper and applied it in various spots along with some of the papers I got in the grab bag and dictionary pages I already had with Multi Medium and stamped here and there with my new t!m Mixed Media stamp set. My original idea was to stamp the Dyan image directly on the canvas and color it with my watercolor crayons. But the background color was too dark and you couldn't see the lighter colors of crayons. I was going to throw the whole thing away and start fresh when John said, just stamp the image on white cardstock then adhere IT to the piece. Well duh! THIS is why I keep him around!! So I stamped in Black Brilliance on white cs and heat set it then ended up using my PrismaColor pencils with Odorless Mineral Spirits and a nub to color the image. I did take liberties and changed her legs! There is an additional set of legs that come with this stamp set and I liked them better, so I masked off the legs and then stamped the "other" set of legs. I used my Alcohol Inks to color two of the teeny dice that came in my grab bag. Dipped a pen nib in frosted red embossing powder a couple of times and heat set it. Added a clock face, gear and hands from my t!m stash as well. The quote is also one of t!m's new ones called Words for Thought and I stamped it onto one of the pages that was in the grab bag paper stash in Gathered Twigs and highlighted the words with a white gel pen. I think I'm falling even more in love with this whole mixed media idea!




Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Hearts

So one of the good things to come out of participating in t!m's 12 Tags of Christmas was the wonderful women I met by commenting on their blogs and them commenting on mine. One of those ladies, Yogi http://yogiemp.blogspot.com/ is on the design team for http://quietfirestyle.blogspot.com/ and they posted this challenge for Valentine's Day. http://quietfirestyle.blogspot.com/2012/02/queen-of-hearts-challenge-2012.html and I decided I needed to play along!

I am also entering this in Linda's Grungy Monday challenge http://studiol3.blogspot.com/2012/02/grungy-monday-36-who-loves-ya-baby.html based on the works of the fabulous t!m holtz!  http://timholtz.typepad.com/my_weblog/  Also sponsored by http://simonsaysstamp.com

I used an 8 x 8 canvas, covered it in Gesso, then used my watercolor crayons to color the canvas yellow, orange and brown. I used lots of water to mute and blend the colors well. Then I applied torn pieces of 7Gypsies tissue paper with Multi Medium and dried it well. I cut a Grungeboard heard and used fired brick distress ink to color it and then used some black ink to age it a bit. The larger heart I used Pinky to cut out a bunch of hearts increasing the diameter by 1/4" per cut. Then I stacked them all together, gluing each layer. Then took my black Micron pen and highlighted around each heart. Used some of t!m's trinkets in the pen nib (which I dipped in embossing powder and heat set!) and 14 plaquette and the hearts were some that I had in my stash. The lace is some that Japanese cousin Akiko sent that I aged by dragging it thru bot vintage photo and gathered twigs distress ink pads. I usedblack and white markers to color around the outside edges of the canvas. The sentiment was stamped with CTMH (retired) Festive Alphabet. Finally, I covered everything in a light coat of rock candy distress crackle paint.



TUNA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Daddy's fixin' tuna sammiches for breakfast. Yes, breakfast! He has a rapt audience of two. They know if they sit quietly they will each get a bite. Note Savannah is the one sitting and Orleans is the one rubbin dad's legs to remind him that he's here. Maybe if I walk over here he can see me better. Dad.  And waiting. Are you done yet? Dad. TUNA. Dad. Dad. Ummm DAD. If I had claws, I'd be climbing up your leg dad!



Monday, February 13, 2012

Art Journal

I'd been thinking about doing an art journal for a while. Was gonna buy one and I remembered I had this ruler bookz that I bought yeeeeeeeeeears ago on sale and never did anything with. And guess who made it? Why t!m, of course! It was put out by junkitz, which I don't think is even in business any more and the copyright says 2005, so it's been at least 7 years that I bought it! NO! I DO NOT HOARD! Stop saying that! I've not done the cover yet. Still trying to decide exactly what I want to do with it. The front and back covers are thick chipboard and there are 10 manilla pages inside.

needed to get some ink on my new stamps that I bought at StampFest the other day, so yesterday I worked on the first page. I used the swipe my ink pads on my craft sheet and mist with water and schmear the tag thru it. I used ripe persimmon, gathered twigs and broken china distress inks. Then I used my new mixed meda t!m stamp set (the chicken wire) and the script stamp from attic treasures and the weedy "flowers" from flights of fancy. I used one of the small folders from the grab bag I got and inked it up with vintage photo and gathered twigs and used a sentiment from words for thought then stamped again in ripe persimmon and cut out the words most and least and used a couple of tiny paper clips to attach. I painted a flower and leaf and sanded once they were dry and attached to a frame along with a shell and muse token. The "4" I had sitting on my craft table from another project, so it got inked with fired brick and added!

Then on the other side, I used seedless preserves, brushed corduroy, evergreen bough and fired brick distress inks using the blending tool and foam method then flicked it with water and dried with my heat gun. The bird is another hoarded...ummm...lost and now found treasure from long ago! When I bought it, there were like 6 or 7 birds and they were all held together with the chain link in the bottom left corner. So I used the chain and copied Anita Houston (hi Anita!) and painted it with copper and once it was dry, put a bit of black acrylic paint on my fingers and ran the chain thru my fingers. The bird is covered with 7Gypsies Tissue Paper and edged in gathered twigs. The wing is from one of
t!m''s Valentine's dies of Cupid with a bow and arrow. I clipped Cupid's wings (!) and covered them in a scrap of cs and drew feathers with a marker, then inked the edges in gathered twigs and added distress rock candy over the top. The letters are from t!m's salvage stickers and I applied Crackle Accents over the top of then once it was dry, distressed with ...wait for it...gathered twigs. (It's become my new favorite go-to for distressing!) The eye I did with my new Black Enamel that I got at the ScrapFest.

So page one is done. Stay tuned for more!