Sunset Canvas

Hi and Welcome!
I recently won a guest design spot for April at http://artasticchallengeblog.blogspot.com.au/   where this was the inspiration. The design brief asked for these colours to be used. 

 

This is the artwork of Australian Indigenous Artist, Trevor Nickolls and his  piece 'Warmun Mandala'.

With these vibrant colours, I immediately thought 'Aussie outback'..... but, no outback pictures. Then I found the perfect sunset photos, combined with an outback inspired theme and came up with this... a reverse canvas.

 

 

Gesso was painted on the canvas and frame prior to painting. For the background I've used strips of mulberry paper, cardstock and a piece made on a gelli pad. The gelli pad printing is just how it appeared after a second pressing. I loved the way this turned out, with the suggestion of grasses and rocks in the foreground. The frame was also painted with acrylics in the same tones with the addition of Opals embossing enamels and stamping with archival ink and 3D Stamp paint (chocolate and copper).

 

 

                             

 

 

 

 

The photos of  sunsets taken from my home, were matted on a stamped background (Darkroom Door Background Stamp 'Marbling'). The gum nuts are real, and were given a light touch of 3D Texture Paint.

The tree was drawn and cut from cardboard from a cereal  box, embossed with a Craft Concepts  'Secret Garden'  folder and inked with Black Soot and Bundled Sage Distress Inks. The background was stamped using  the same mediums as the frame.

 

 

 

Fibrous wool has been added to give a grassy effect. The  chipboard grass segment on the frame was finished with opals.

 

 

The log in the foreground was made from a dried lotus leaf. Flowers and leaves were also made from a gelli pad experiment using acrylics, Lumiere Metallics and spritzes of glimmer mist. One section of the cardstock was stamped (Darkroom Door Carved Flowers) and cut out. The other section was cut using T.H. Tattered Garland die. Brown flowers were die cut from glassine paper, spritzed with glimmer mist, scrunched and then heat dried. Inca gold, brads and seed beads completed the flowers. I really  enjoyed this challenge and had great fun designing for it. I hope you find it inspirational.

I must thank the ARTastic team for giving me the opportunity to show my work. Please make sure you pop over to the ARTastic blog to see what the fabulous design team has come up with and to also see the entries that have been submitted. You still have the time to enter if you feel inspired to do so.

 

Thank you for visiting and for your lovely comments. They are truly appreciated.

Cheers, Di

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Luck

Hi and welcome! Today has been mixed, weatherwise, with only a brief respite from the rain, but we are counting ourselves lucky in regards to the most recent 'low' that came our way Friday. This is what ended up as a temporary resident in the front yard,.... a large leopard tree from the verge across the street.  The resident had been wanting it removed for some time and he was lucky, that it didn't topple in the other direction, as his house would have been decimated.

Often, we have a car parked where the tree landed, but not Friday! It did take out a row of lillypillies, but with some judicious pruning ( almost to ground level with a couple) they may regrow,
The tree roots have entangled with the phone cable, but it didn't break. They're still sitting, waiting to be removed.

The rest of the tree was lopped, chopped and mulched on Saturday, re-opening the street to traffic. The damage in other towns in the region has been quite horrendous, with roofs lost, buildings damaged, flooding and on the coast, erosion caused by the rough seas.

So, back to LUCK!.
Today I'm showing my take on Challenge 13 at ABAC. Take a look at at what everyone else has done at  http://anythingbutacard.blogspot.ca/

I started my layout with a cut-out photo of self, taken about 40 years ago! This was put onto a background of silver mirror board.

 Acetate, left over from craft packaging, was embossed with T.H's 'Crack" embossing folder, cut down to fit an oval frame, inked lightly with StazOn Metallic Silver and Midnight Blue and then placed over the photo to form.... my cracked mirror.
The frame is a chipboard piece from 'Dusty Attic', a company specialising in fine chipboard embellishments. This has been treated with Opals enamels in Banksia and Nut, to give an antique look. It was also smooched with a touch of metallic silver stazon for some extra patina.The frame was then glued to the acetate.

Various ' Good and Bad Luck ' superstitions were written on the layout. I used gel pens for this.
The titles were written using a T.H. embossing pen and heat embossed with white. When cool, I coloured over the embossing with watercolour pencils (Black magic technique, tho' a departure from the normal one, done with white ink,  coloured and outlined with white).

 I like the extra depth of texture, and the more vibrant colours this particular method gives (thank you Julie, timetocreate-handmadetreasure.blogspot.com.au for the tip).
Some of the drawn symbols were coated with glossy accents. On the number 13 I used the crackle glossy accents. This gave an unexpected result, changing the colour of the gel pen underneath, from gold to black.... interesting!

 

 

 

 

Random dotting for a framework completed the layout. This was done with Lumiere acrylics.

Thank you for visiting. Thank you also for your positive comments and feedback. They are most welcome and I enjoy reading them and visiting your blogs to see what you have  been doing. Cheers, Di

Faery Fantasy

Hi and welcome. I normally do layouts for the ARTastic challenge, but this time I decided to do a reverse canvas, so I could add more depth in layers. I've also gone for a fantasy theme, with 'wings' as the main feature. Pop over to have a look at the site to see what the fabulous design team has been up to. http://artasticchallengeblog.blogspot.com.au
Gesso was applied to the background of the canvas and the frame around it. Once dry, the whole piece was stippled with acrylic paint to which I applied a retarder to help colours blend and to slow down the drying time. The whole piece was then sprinkled with salt to lift off some colour and leave an interesting finish. I didn't paint a recognisable landscape, just let the paint do the work. Using the paint retarder and salt held things up for a while... took a lot longer to dry than anticipated (even with quick bursts from the heat gun).

Canvas stipples with acrylic paint

To fit with the impression of foliage I stamped on flowers and leaves, fairies and butterflies.



Stamping done with Distress and Archival Inks. Wool lines are criss-crossing the canvas.

Below, a close-up shot showing stamps



 

For the wings, I used a heavy watercolour paper and watercolour paints using various techniques: wet-in-wet, dropping in colour, variegated wash, stippling and salt spatter. These colours were painted on as solid blocks, dried, cut around and folded in half with the reverse side showing

Wings in various shapes and styles were drawn. When cut out, additional features and shading was added using Lyra aquarelles, Lumieres, Acrylic Glitter Glaze and bling. One set of wings was formed from a bought chipboard flourish, coated with Opals enamelling powder (Currawong) and finished with crystals.

Now I would like to welcome you to Shaylee's Fashionable Faery Wings Shop. This exclusive little shop caters for very discerning fairies who want a unique, hand-crafted set of wings for a special occasion or outfit.

Shaylee, when I met her, was very friendly and very keen to show me her designer wings. She had these displayed on fine spider web filaments, held in place by some cooperative butterflies. (A couple must have flown off when I arrived).
If you find one of the elusive fairy glades, be sure to make yourself known and ask about Shaylee's shop. You may be lucky to find her, because she wanders from place to place, loving to travel and meeting other fairy folk and finding new ideas.
The sign on Shaylee's shop is written in Gaelic, which I hear, is a language familiar to all fairy folk. (I'm hoping that I have translated this correctly and I apologise to any Gaelic-speaking readers, if this is incorrect in any way... information came from various sites on the net)

A fibrous wool, material leaves and flowers and a velvet butterfly completed the piece.

Thank you for visiting.I love reading your comments and words of encouragement. Cheers, Di



Butterflies

Hi! and welcome to my post. Today I'm showing my entry for ABAC Challenge 10 featuring wings
http://anythingbutacard.blogspot.com.au/

The piece started out as a Kaiser craft precut MDF bookend kit .

Basic Kit

The board was gessoed before transforming. The base and end boards were daubed with Distress Stains, which were then brushed across the surfaces before they dried.

Stained boards

The butterflies were heat enamelled. The black line work was originally done with black Glossy Accents, but I found that these peeled off quite easily! Luckily I'd only completed one side of a butterfly before I discovered this. Lines were then drawn on using a permanent marker. Gold markings were done with a metallic acrylic paint.

Stamping was added, using StazOn. Letters on the end board were from a bought glitter board alphabet set. These were daubed with metallic Distress Stains. The butterfly embellishment found languishing in my stash was silver originally, but I coloured it with alcohol inks.

The whole piece was then constructed and glued with PVA. So now I have a set of bookends, functional and pretty at the same time. I was going to add more embellishments, but considered the purpose and have decided that I could use the flat surfaces as a display area for small knick-knacks, if I chose to do so.         

Materials Used:
gesso,  Distress Stains: Peeled Paint, Bundled Sage, Brushed Pewter,  Burnished Brass, Weathered Wood, Broken China;  Opals Embossing Enamels: Banksia (soft gold), Macquarie (vibrant blue), Daintree (soft gold-green), Dove Lake (a deeper blue);  StazOn: Midnight Blue;  Alcohol Ink: Sailboat Blue;  Peel-off Markers;  Lumiere Paint: Sunset Gold;  Darkroom Door Stamps: Discover;  Stamping Up Stamps: Just Believe.

Now, time to reorganise some space so I can use my new craft additions. Thank you for visiting and thank you for leaving crafty comments.  Cheers, Di

Hi!
First, it was a HUGE surprise to see that I had been chosen as one of the Fabulous Four featured artists for my layout for challenge 6: a stitch in time at http://anythingbutacard.blogspot.com.au/   So thank you to the team for this.
Today I'm showing an altered box which has a nautical theme, to be entered for challenge 7 at ABAC.
The box was a fairly plain one picked up at a local shop. Basically painted white and blue with a couple of beach stencils and wooden fish. Potential? Yes!



Side of box before alterations



The base was sprayed with Glimmer  mist (Sea Glass and Silver) and while wet, covered with cling wrap, scrunched and moved around and left to dry. The cling wrap was removed when dry. This left an interesting pattern. The base and interior of the box was stamped with coral and shells (Darkroom Door) with Stayzon Midnight Blue and Teal Blue.

Interior of box showing creased markings and stamping.
 

The exterior of the box was given a coat of Viva Croco Azure, left to dry overnight, before stamping with the Stayzon and Distress Stain Brushed Pewter.

A net was made from an onion bag and filled with shells and treasures from the deep. Dolphins were cut from packaging and given an Opals Enamelling Powder treatment (Zeehan) Starfish were made from wooden stars treated to an Opals finish. Liquid Pearls were added to these, fish and some of the shells decorating the box.

The box was completed with craft buttons, (pirate ship and fish, with the shanks cut off), shells and shell discs and small cane baskets (fish baskets).

I've popped in a piece of sea sponge and coral... so it could be a display box for those sea treasures or a storage box for art/ craft equipment, lotions and potions........ anything really.
It was fun to make over.
Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate comments that are left and enjoy reading them. Come again.
Cheers, Di


enchanted glade

Hi! Today I'm showing my layout for the ARTastic Challenge, which has to feature stitching and fabric.
I've based it around a created mixed media canvas completed at http://timetocreate-handmadetreasure.blogspot.com.au a couple of Saturdays ago. This was used as a background for a bronzed fairy sculpture, book- loving owls and various gumnuts, pine cones and pine roses, to create my base photo, of a fairy in a secluded glade.



Photo created using my fairy I've named Ariella, playing her zither. The mixed media canvas is in the background.

The background paper was altered by masking sections with white crayon, then smooching with Distress Inks: Bundled Sage, Weathered Wood and Black Soot. The crayon resist was rubbed off and the paper then randomly stamped with ferns, fairies and butterflies.

altered background paper

Tree trunks were from corrugated cardboard wet embossed using Opals Embossing Enamels.
The lyrebird, was cut from a piece of embroidered work I completed as part of a High School project, many moons ago. This was stem stitched onto very fine linen.Lyrebirds are one of Australia's native birds. They live in forested regions, but are rarely seen because they are very shy. Their tail feathers, when raised in a display, are shaped like lyres, hence their names. They are, however, wonderful mimics,copying other birds and if you can't see them in a forest, you may certainly be hearing them. They even mimic human-made sounds such as chainsaws, perfectly! To hold the cut piece together I ironed it onto a piece of fusible web, Steam-a Seam 2 and also layered over it, in the same process a piece of chiffon.

 

 

 

My fairy bower was made from strips of wool fibre sewn together and encased in a leaf-patterned chiffon. Stitched to this were 'fairy lights' made from drops of crystal beading.

 

 

 

 

 

The leaves edging the bower, were cut from the same chiffon, using a heat cutting tool. This not only cut, but also crinkled and sealed the edges. Great to use! Bits of wool fibre were then added to represent moss and Old Man's beard. The wool bobbles from some fibre, were cut, teased out a little and stitched onto the log and ground and became mushrooms.

I think Ariella looks very happy and contented in her secluded bower, playing her zither for her friends. Maybe If I  listen very carefully, I may even hear it next time I go walking through a forest!

Thank you for visiting my enchanted fairy glade. I hope you will come again.
Cheers, Di


My Little Book of Doodles

Hi! Today's post is all about my entry for Anything But a Card Challenge, using black. I don't usually have a problem with this, but wanted to try something other than a layout. I've been working on some special Christmas projects with a special "Girls Rock" group at the school where I had taught for 34 years, before retiring, using Petaloo Magnetic tags. These are brilliant as they can be used to create many projects, including mini-booklets for a special memory folder, which the girls did for Christmas. While these were being designed I started thinking about the challenge and came up with the idea of making a doodle booklet. Again, this Incorporated art techniques I had done with my classes over the years, where the students had to "Take a line for a walk" and then fill in the shapes made with interesting designs.This not only taught them about patterns, but also about the concepts of space, balance and contrast. Their artworks also became functional, in that they were often used as centrepieces for book covers.



Front cover

The front cover was decorated with grey and black patterned Washi Tape, patterned vellum, which I hand embossed, embossed acetate from my stash and chipboard flourishes heat embossed with Opals Embossing Enamels in Currawong (black) and Zeehan (silver). I also added a doodle drawn with Ranger Embossing pen and dusted with Perfect Pearls and finished with strips of bling and metallic braid.


Inside pages showing inchie sized doodles

My little booklet can be added to as I find or develop interesting patterns. Some have already been used as a background for a layout I'm working on.
I have used the idea of 'inchies' in which to draw the patterns; a small surface area, and a way to have heaps of different designs. As I don't have an inchies frame stamp, the squares were hand drawn (after searching for a ruler in inches, not as easy as you think, because of our metric system). This framework has been scanned to the computer for future designs. All patterns were drawn with a superfine Sharpie.

The inside front cover feature 2 ATC's using doodling done in white gel pen and finished with Washi tape.

The inside back cover has a doodle centred around a stamped image (inspired by craft Stamper magazine, Nov. 2012 issue. Thank you, Lisa). A swirl of bling, black beading and Washi tape completed this.
The insides are held in place by zig-zag binding, allowing for additional pages to be easily slipped in.
This was fun to do and I now have something that I will use. As my folder is already fatter inside then intended, I've added a binder ring and some pretty metallic fibre wools to help hold it together, and also gives me a way to hang it.
Thank you for visiting. Cheers, Di

Smile

Hi! Today I'm featuring a layout I'm entering in the ARTastic Challenge, where the challenge this time was to have handmade flowers. For this I decided to have a go at something new for me... quilled roses!


Layout showing two techniques of quilling.

 

Papers I used were different width quilling strips as well as pearl lustre papers I cut from A4 sized sheets. I also used some fringed and quilled flowers from the same papers.

Close-up of flowers.

The decorative frame around the photo was given a metallic look by the use of opals Embossing Enamels, in Rosevears (a deep rose/burgundy), Mountain Berry  (a deep pink)and Tarkine (a pale green).  The background paper, was distressed heavily by wetting, crumpling and tearing. In some sections, other snippets of paper and lace were inserted. Punched paper edges helped add a lacy effect to tie in with the dress in the photo.

The photo is the earliest one I have of myself and was taken when I was 2 years and 2 months old. This was a studio photo, and part of a group of 4 taken; this one in black and white and 3 others in colour. At this time, these would have been coloured by hand. These showed that the dress I was wearing was pink and white. It was made of some light material, probably organza, and was heavily starched. I don't remember the dress or the photo session, but for some strange reason, I do remember the bow I had in my hair... pink with blue Bambis on it. Strange what the old memory bank retains!

Thank you for visiting and while you're here, why not pop over and have a look at my other pages, especially if you're gluten free, as I'm starting to put up recipes I have found work, and which are enjoyed by friends with no allergies, as well.

Cheers, Di

Untamed

Hi! Today's post is also for the ABAC Challenge using Bling.
The photo used for this layout was taken one early September morning at Lennox Head, NSW. The waterfall tag completed for the last ABAC challenge was the A-Ha moment for this layout.
First of all, to give a subtle glimmer to the card stock (representing sand) I lightly spritzed with the Tattered Angels range of sprays: Sandy Beach Chalkboard, Suede and Walnut Gold Glimmer Mists. When dry, small puddles of Opals Embossing Enamels (Rosevears, Macquarie and Sandstone) were added to the lower third of the page.


My seaside interpretation

I sewed on a net of variegated wool which had a ceamy bobble edge (foam). Through this I wove in strands of metallic wool, silvery wire threaded with beads and mother-of-pearl shell, and strings of beads. I also added real shells, starfish, die cut shells and seahorses in metallic paper.
A fringed, silvery wool was used to represent sea spray.



   Close up showing some of the netting, starfish, shells, beading.

                                                       
Seaweed was formed from the metallic wool and finished with some crystal bead drops. Words from Jacques Cousteau were also formed into the shape of seaweed.

             "The sea, once it casts its spells, holds one in its net of wonder forever."

The title was die cut from pale pink photo board, stamped with a swirly stamp design ion versamark and embossed with Opals Zeehan enamelling powder. To give a little more definition on the page, the letters were lightly smooched with Weathered Wood distress ink.

I feel that I have achieved my A-ha moment with my interpretation of what could be found on the seashore.
Hoping you feel also the sense of wonder and peace I had when taking the photo.
Thank you for visiting. Di