Gothic Arch - Birds

I've missed the last two Gothic Arch themes so I was determined to make one for this week's theme of "Birds" before the next theme is announced tomorrow!

Once again this is made mostly with images from Oxford Impressions although there are some others in the background, including one of my favourite calligraphy images from Alphabetique. Colouring is Adirondack Colour Washes and Moon Shadow Mists and I have used the beautiful Versafine Spanish Moss and Adirondack Butterscotch ink pads for the background stamping. I have included two scans of my arch as I am amazed how much difference the background paper I have used on the scanner makes to the look of the actual arch!! The green paper really has a dulling effect compared to the orange painted canvas.

And now back to working on my giant jigsaw pieces!

Think Monday - Think ATC - Birds

I missed last week's Think Monday - Think ATC challenge because I was away, so I was very pleased to see that this week's theme is "Birds" - a nice easy challenge! Once again I pulled out my Oxford Impressions stamps - this time "The Birds' Nest" collection. Another great plate of unmounted images that I have used so much. Apart from stamping this ATC uses Adirondack Color Washes and some Moon Shadow Mist (which of course doesn't show up on the scan but which adds a lovely golden glow in real life). The bird image is a bit spotty (speckled?) as I used quite textured water colour paper - not a great stamping surface but so nice to colour!

I'm off to Esperance for a quick work trip today and will be back tomorrow evening. Esperance is a four hour drive away but it is our closest beach so it will be lovely to look at the ocean and breathe some sea air. Hopefully I'll manage a walk on the beach as well - nothing quite like beautiful white beach sand between your toes.

Inchies - Housies (& Some Bleach Experiments too)

The current challenge at Inching Artists is little "housies" (I mean to say, how can you call anything so small "houses"!) When I first started stamping I fell in love with a little set of house themed Inkum's but at that stage I bought images without really thinking about how I would use them, so of course they never got used beyond the first trial stamping. I also used to buy stamps that needed detailed colouring, and once again I have to admit that I hardly ever did or do detailed colouring... Anyway when I saw the "housies" theme, I immediately thought of my little pocket set of Inkum's and sure enough, there they were sitting (looking at me very reproachfully) at the back of one of my drawers of mounted stamps (these are sort of mounted in that they are foam backed).

These stamps were perfect for this theme and fitted nicely on one inch squares! I have stamped them on a collage paper background, added some small text (Collections) and a rub-on number, rubbed the edges with sepia ink and sprayed them with my favourite Gold Moon Shadow Mist. I love the idea that every house has a story to tell...

I had quite a productive weekend although nothing was actually finished! I also did some playing with bleach (using a barrel type waterbrush) on various types of cardstock - you can see a little of each of the results below. You can easily see I was having a swirly sort of day! For once all of the cardstock reacted to the bleach!

I also tried an eye dropper with concentrated bleach on black fabric and ended up with something that makes me think of Halloween (which I don't relate to at all being an Aussie) or glow in the dark effects. This is the same fabric that went quite brown using a spray bleach a couple of weeks ago...amazing really. This was a really small piece of fabric so it doesn't matter that it is so weird a result. I also worked on my jigsaw puzzle pieces (involved a lot of looking for small images of vintage women, nudes, bathing beauties etc), did some printing onto fabric in readiness for some ATCs, postcards and small art quilts, worked on some experiments with the embellisher etc etc. All in all it was a lovely weekend and it was quite hard to go back to work this morning with so many works in progress.

Mixed Media Monday - Birds

This week's theme for Mixed Media Monday is "Birds" so I am using a piece I made for Somerset Studio's Holiday issue (can you believe we are in November already???)

It is a canvas board with stamping (text images), decorator napkin, a small tag and large brad and pieces of sheet music. I have used black gesso and Adirondack Color Washes in Butterscotch and Terracotta to add colour.

Gothic Arch - Gold

This week's theme on the Gothic Arch Challenge is "Gold" so I have gone for the aged tarnished and peeling religious icon look! It has come up looking more coppery than gold in the scan but there really is plenty of gold in there.

I stamped flourishes and old text images on the black leather look card stock using Gold Brilliance ink then edged the arch with Krylon Gold Leafing Pen. I cut the image from decoupage paper, used distress inks to tone down the vibrancy of the colours and added detail with gold and black pens, including outlining the image itself with the Krylon Gold. I wanted it to look really old so I used one of my favourite products (Helmar's Antique Crackle medium) and then rubbed burnt umber oil paint into the cracks (which don't show up much in the scan). I sprayed the whole arch lightly with Moon Shadow Mist in gold - the walnut ink part of the mist left lovely drops on the crackle finish. It is sealed with a coat of Dorland's Wax. I aged some gold German Scrap and added it to the bottom of the arch and then punched small holes around the two curving sides and added small gold brads/split pins to create a frame. It really does look better in real life - a lot richer.