Finnabair Inspired 3D Canvas

Absolutely loving this Floral 3D composition on Canvas.

A flat canvas 8 x 10" was primed with White Gesso.  Wendy Vecchi white embossing paste was applied through a Harlequin Stencil in random areas.

Embellishments were applied to the canvas with Prima Art Basics- Soft Matte Gel & 3D Gel to form a central arrangement on the canvas.

As you can see these included Paper Flowers, Lace, Canvas Strips, Die cut flowers & Leaves, old wallpaper scraps, buttons, & metal jewellery & findings from Prima & Tim Holtz.

The whole arrangement was painted with White Gesso & then (as I forgot) Prima Art Ingredients like Glass Glitter, Glass Beads & Micro Beads were applied with soft matte gel.

They add lots of extra texture. 

 When dry I covered all with another coat of White Gesso.

It is a bit daunting when you are faced with the totally white canvas. Where do I begin?

I decided to use hot colours across the top & cooler colours to appear to come from underneath.

The hot colours were Prima Art Ingredients - Mica Powders in the colours of Lipstick, Tangerine & Gold Opal Magic.

The cool colours were Deep Water, Rust & Teal.

These powders were sprinkled on in areas then sprayed with water. Let blend & drip.

The result was very shiny & bright.

I shaded areas with Luminarte Hunter Grey Powder mixed with water & applied with a paintbrush. Splatters of Black & White Gesso were flicked across the canvas.

Highlights were applied with Luminarte Primary Elements, Emperor's Gold.

The canvas looks perfect displayed in this very worn gilded frame that my husband inherited.  

I have it now hanging in my lounge room.  It goes very well with our dark antique furniture.

I have quite a few more of these type of frames - Looking forward to more ideas to create & display in these.

Hope you have enjoyed this post & feel inspired to make ART that shines!

Cheers for now,  Deb

Art Journalling - Can't Stop Creating....

This underwater scene had been glued into my journal unfinished for quite some time.

Most of the diecuts had been all individually coloured before cutting out, but this meant that they did not blend on the page.

I decided to White Gesso over everything & reapply colours over the top.

I think this makes it look more blended & watery in effect.

I even gessoed over the gold embossing paste used with the Tim Holtz Eye Chart Stencil .

The paints dripped were various colours of Acrylic Glaze Medium - Key Lime, Ocean Wave, Teal Zircon with some Twinkling H20's as well.

I then dry brushed over the Textured surfaces like the SeaHorses, Starfish & the Embossing to make them stand out from the background.

Highlights were dry brushed with Emperor's Gold Acrylic Glaze & White Gesso.

 

The Sentiments were stamped with Black & Deep Purple Archival Ink.

Hero Arts Stamps from my stash were used.

Shading around shapes done with Cold Grey Big Brush Pen

I really like this page better than it was before.

Journal pages are never really finished........You can always change things up again....& again...

Hope you enjoy & I am sure more will follow soon as Creating is so Addictive.

Cheers,   Deb

ART JOURNALLING CONTINUES....

So Many Layers but still some original text showing through.

Love using Prima Microbeads - add just that tint of silver!

Red Lead Image of the sweet little girl.

Lettering & Flourishes applied with embossing paste.

Texture Stamping & lots of layers of white gesso & dripped Art Ingredients mica powder (deep water) & Silks Acrylic Glaze (Boysenberry)

ANTIQUE BOOK BECOMES ART JOURNAL

 I could not bear to throw this very old book away.

It is signed & dated at 26 October 1850.

'Life of Robert Bruce  The Restorer of Scottish Independence'

 But it really was falling to pieces!

I have started to use it as my Art Journal.

I have glued pairs of pages together with soft matte gel to give the pages some stability.

Masking tape used where the bundles have loosened.

Gesso applied leaving text exposed on some parts & pages.

So then the Creativity Begins........

WATERCOLOURING ON CARDS (WARNING!! ADDICTIVE!!)

I have been experimenting using watercolour with stamping on lots of cards lately.

I have given away many before taking photos. This means I will just have to make some more so I can share them with you soon. 

Any way here are some I remembered to photograph.

FYI:   Kristina Werner has really great videos on YouTube to inspire everyone to watercolour.

Above are the same Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous Botanical Sketch Stamp heat embossed in both black & white, then watercoloured to give completely different looks.

My newest stamp purchases are from Concord & 9th.  I am absolutely loving them & will post more photos soon, as they are so cool to use. You can combine the images in lots of different ways.  

Well worth checking out their Blog, Instagram & videos on YouTube.  

They are easily found so I have not provided a link.

 Dina Wakeley Bird Stamps used with Wendy Vecchi 'Art Comforts' Stamp set for the meadow flowers, white heat embossed & water coloured beautifully.

Same stamp set masked with Tim Holtz Sentiment & Wendy Vecchi embossing Paste applied through Tim Holtz Lace Stencil. Stamped in Jet Black Archival.

Older Hero Arts Butterfly Stamp repeatedly stamped & masked before watercolouring.

This was inspired by a photo I saved online. Sorry that I can't remember who from.

The Kite card is my idea.

As is this card using Tim Holtz Flower Garden Stamps.

Hope you enjoyed these cards and feel inspired to try Water colouring.

They are much cleaner & simpler cards, but lots of fun to make.

There are lots of video tutorials online on this subject.

My only advice is to always use watercolour paper for best results.

Bye for now,  Deb Adams

ATT YAHOO GROUP TICKET & TAG SWAPS

I was invited to join a Yahoo Group called ATT (All Things Tim) 

in 2011 after the last Tim Holtz Caribbean Cruise.

The Cruise was a fantastic 'once in a lifetime' experience that I was lucky enough to attend.

Tim supported this group by providing comments & prizes for participants. 

I met some wonderful people & kept in contact & up to date with lots of crafting ideas through this group over the following years.  

Eventually this group declined in membership & changed to Altered, Tattered & Timeworn (still ATT)  Tim & Mario became much busier elsewhere.

The Group ran lots of 'Swaps'. I found it hard to participate too often as postage to the USA was pricey.

I have included some pictures of the Swaps I entered below:

The 'Ticket Swap' was based on techniques shown on a video by Dianne from Art of Craft NZ (easily found on YouTube) as making these little beauties was quite addictive & they were small to post.

They make great little embellishments...

These Tags were created for the 'Tags & Phrases Tag Swap'.

They were quite cool with metallic underlay & heat embossed acetate overlay.

The slight warping of the acetate added to the distressed look.

These tags were created for the 'Dress Form Tag Swap'

The metallic tag below was created as a gift for Tim Holtz & given to him by the Swap Coordinator.

 Sorry about the quality of these last few photos.  

They were taken in my earlier days of crafting for my own reference before I considered presenting photos of my work on my own blog.

More recent activities within this group have included 'Sketch Challenges' which were easier for me to enter, as they just required posting a photo of my work online.   

During that time I created this blog & earlier posts will show entries in these sorts of challenges.

Thanks for taking the time to read all this.

Cheers,  Deb Adams

Revisiting TIM HOLTZ 12 TAGS of 2013 (August)

 LAYERED MASK TECHNIQUE

I really enjoyed making these cards using ideas from Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2013 August    Layered Mask Technique

                   Check out Tim's Blog via the link above for step by step instructions.

Each card is perfectly flat even though they appear to have so much depth 

(except for any added embellishments)

The base of all of the layers has been achieved with Pumice Stone Distress Stain.

Next the Focal Point Images were stamped in Black Archival Ink and masked off.

All other stamping layers were then applied by directly coloring on the stamps with distress markers.

You must HUFF! on the stamp before pressing to paper to moisten the Distress Ink.

A more feminine Style of Card using Worn Lipstick Distress Stain as a background.

Hope these cards inspire you to try this

Cheers  Deb