FIVE FACES OF ME?

Hi and welcome. Over at Anything But A Card we have a week long challenge, based on the Number 5... five of anything. Pop on over to: http://anythingbutacard.blogspot.ca/ to check out the challenge and what the rest of the team has done to inspire you.

For this, I've made a tag. The base is  card which has been used initially as an overspray/ inking sheet. To this I added additional smooshings of distress inks and splattered with water.

 

 

This was then sprayed with Dylusions ink  and Glimmer Mist. Gesso was also applied through a stencil. As this was added while the sprays were still damp, some of the green was able to bleed into the gesso.

 

 

The card was cut to the size I needed. Photos of a juvenile tawny frogmouth were cut out. This particular tawny spent a crazy 30 - 40 minutes one morning,  gyrating and bobbling around on the branch while its two parents, appeared to look on in askance at its behaviour. We were able to capture various moments in this episode between fits of laughter. The juvy just carried on unperturbed. The photos chosen show just  five of the poses and facial expressions we captured... there were many more.  Some of the positions it put itself into made it look like a gargoyle, so this became its name. 

Added to the tag was stamping,  torn net fibre and scrim.

Thanks for stopping by and leaving comments. I always like to see what people think and I like to reciprocate by visiting your blogs and leaving comments as well.
Catch you again soon.
Cheers, Di

PS. ABAC is currently having a Design Team call. If you are interested in becoming a member of our team, check out the details.

PATTERNING

Hi and welcome. Thanks for stopping by. For Anything But A Card, this month, we've had the theme and challenge of patterns. To go with a previous canvas, I've done another, again in black and white, using a mandala idea, combined with different patterns. I like the look of these and  am tempted to do a series of them for a wall.... quite dramatic! The canvas size is a 45cm square.

 The design was drawn onto white cardstock, cut out and adhered to the canvas with Collage Pauge.

I started the design using a compass and drew  concentric circles and  a flower design.... always knew I liked geometry for a reason!

Further layers were added to make the design more elaborate

 

With the basic design drawn in patterns were gradually added

For the patterns I used an ultra -fine Sharpie pen. I like these because they give such a fine line and are permanent. Larger sections of the design were blocked in with a slightly thicker Sharpie.


   

 

 

 

Close-ups of the patterns used.

To finish off, I used some stick-on gem stones (black and clear). This added an extra dimension as well as helping to hide some wobbly cutting!
All I have to do now is to do another one or two....?!!!
There's still time to join in the challenge. Why not pop over to have a look at what the rest of the design team as done at: http://anythingbutacard.blogspot.ca/

Again, thanks for stopping by and having a look. I really appreciate your comments.
Cheers, Di

 

THE HOUSE THAT WE BUILT..... MINI ALBUM

Hi and welcome to my second post today. Normally. this post isn't due to go up until week three of the challenge at ARTastic, but because I actually finished this one in advance (don't ask me HOW!!!) it's able to go up today.
The challenge at ARTastic this month, includes the use of fabric. Check the inspirational art piece, criteria and the great takes on this by the rest of the team at: http://artasticchallengeblog.blogspot.com.au/

I've done a house-shaped mini album. The covers have been die cut from canvas and each page features some form of fabric: diecut flowers from old denim jeans or hessian (burlap), ribbon, torn fabric, or diecut fabric leaves. The inside pages have been diecut from laser print card, smooshed firstly with Distress Inks, then stamped with archival inks. On the pages I've also used a diecut chevron trellis and the leftover cut-outs as accents. Blue and / or black coloured bling has been added, as these were two of the colours used on the inspiration piece.

This post has quite a number of photos, showing the inside pages of the album. The photos were taken in October, 1977, the year we built our house, and show the early stages the building. I've added a very poignant photo of  my mum and dad,  favourite uncle and aunt and myself,. This was the last photo taken of my dad- he passed away the following month... cancer, and therefore the last one of this group as well. It had been dad's wish to see our house built, but I believe he knew it wasn't to be, so he asked to see it as it was and we were so happy that he was able to see at least this much.

 

Front cover finished with a door diecut. The windows were covered with glossy accents, as were the diecut paper flowers to give them a porcelain appearance. A bit of extra bling completed the flowers and roof line. The album is held together with binder rings tied with various ribbons and braids.



Canvas with smooshings of ink

Almost completed front cover

Page 1. The beginnings.



Page 2



Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Page 6

Page 7

Page 8



Page 9. Our son standing on an extension my husband built

Page 10. A Giant Strelitzia (Bird of Paradise)... the name really suits this plant as it is now much higher than our house!

Page 11. The namesake of this blog.. one of our much loved tawny frogmouths. The tree is a chipboard piece, coloured in 3D Stamping Paint, then layered over the top with Glossy Accents... very sparkly effect!

 

 

Page 12. A shot of some very special hippeastrums, which flower mid-late winter and early spring.

Back cover.



Thank you for stopping by. I hope you have time to drop by the ARTastic site.
See you soon.
Cheers, Di

SUNSET DREAMING

Hi and welcome to the first of two posts today.  This is my DT piece for Pixels and Paper. When you look at our inspiration picture, you might be counting sheep!
I've used the colours and wool of the sheep from the inspiration picture to come up with this quirky page.

The background on white cardstock has been stencilled using neon inks with gesso scraped over them and while damp given a light spritz with some Perfect Pearls mist. This is a second generation print, hence the 'bleeding' of the pattern.





The sheep was drawn onto white laser print card and coloured using Lyra Aquarelle crayons. Added to this was cotton wool, tiny knitting needles and wool being knitted into a very special banner.

Cotton wool has also been glued onto laser card which was firstly smooshed  with Radiant Neon inks using sunset colours. This was also repeated on the cotton wool (used a paintbrush dabbed onto the ink pads).

 

The sunset was one taken in late winter last year, again from the front yard.  The layout has been given some random stamping using a stamp I carved into a small eraser.

 

Pop on over to http://pixelsandpaperchallengeblog.blogspot.com.au/  to have a look at our very different picture and also to see what the rest of the team has done. This is also the first piece for three new team members as well.

 

Thank you for dropping by. Catch you again soon. Cheers, Di



ILLUMINATED POINTILLISM

Hi and welcome to my 100th post! This month at Anything But A Card, it's been... anything goes, so I decided to resurrect a couple of art techniques I often used in the classroom... illuminated lettering and pointillism.
These are fantastic techniques, but I've only used the basic ones for this project, using materials I had readily available, namely brush-tipped marker pens, gold metallic pens, 3D Stamping Paint and Inca Gold. Ideally I would have liked to have worked the lettering with gold leaf, but didn't have any in my supplies at the time. Pointillism is usually done with paint applied in layers of small dots (check out the artist Seurat). In the classroom this wasn't always a feasible method, because kids being kids, wanted to see as finished product on the day it was started, so I devised an adapted version using textas or marker pens and had them build up layers of colour on their art works. This also taught them a great lesson in blending of colours to produce depth and interest. For my little poster, I've combined the two methods.

 

 

 I started by lightly sketching my initial and then painted in the outline using a fine brush and gold ink ( Delicata gold stamp pad)

  

 

 

The background was sketched and then I started filling in the space with small dots of texta colour. To achieve the  depth of colour and variations in the landscape, I used different tones of the same colours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I painted the whole of the letter in the gold ink, and added colour to it with metallic markers.  This then became the base colour for the next layers. Firstly, over painting with copper- coloured 3D Stamping Paint, then topping this with  Inca Gold, using a water brush. 

 

 

The coloured metallic ornamentation was topped with Glossy Accents, to make them look more

jewel-like. 

 

 

 

 

 This piece was added to background of black cardstock which had been stencilled, again with gold ink. Words were added with the same ink and Glossy Accents applied over the top. 

 

The whole piece was then mounted onto another background and inspirational text added as a border. I haven't decided how this is going to be displayed so it has not had anything attached for hanging.

 

Thank you for dropping by. There's still time to be involved in the challenge.. Anything Goes at Anything But A card. Why not pop on over to:  http://anythingbutacard.blogspot.ca/ and have a peep at what the rest of the team have done and also at the amazing entries we've received this month. I'm sure that you will certainly be inspired.

 

Cheers for now.

Di

 

 

 

SUNKISSED ADVENTURES

Hi and welcome to my second post today. This month ARTastic is collaborating with CSI in a special case file.
This is the first time I've participated with the CSI challenge, so it was certainly something a tad out of my comfort zone, but in the end I enjoyed coming  up with a page that fitted a number of the elements required.

From ARTastic we had a fabulous poster promoting Australia, depicting an iconic scene at a beach. Our additional element was to include a striped patterned paper.  CSI added extra elements as well. On my layout I certainly have used a striped patterned paper (the background page from Fabscraps is based on a weatherboard/mural look) but I've also used stripes on my frame for my picture and on the hot air balloons. In addition, I've used a floral print, ribbon. transportation elements, created a rolled canopy, for a private beach gazebo and silhouettes. I've also journalled along stripes, used the words 'wonder' and 'gazed' as part of my story, as well as using all of the required colours.

Pop on over to ARTastic: http://artasticchallengeblog.blogspot.com.au/  to see what has inspired us and what the rest of the team has been up to. Also you might want to have a look  at CSI as well. Pop over to :http://csicolorstoriesinspiration.ning.com/ to investigate their site more.
Thank you for stopping by. Catch you again soon.
Cheers, Di

TIME

Hi! This will be the first of two posts today. At Pixels and Paper we have the inspiration of a carnival/ fair with a ferris wheel, dodgem cars and bright colours.

For my layout, I chose to take the circular shape from the ferris wheel and translated this into a series of cogs. The large one was a chipboard piece covered with embossed aluminium flashing.

The smaller ones were diecut from layers of crumpled aluminium foil. All pieces were coloured with alcohol inks which I tipped on, rather than using the applicator method. To further suggest movement and time, I've used 12 photos taken of sunsets, clouds and the moon,during various months of the year. These have been  placed in a spiral shape- again suggesting movement and cycles.
The background paper came from the  Bo Bunny Back To Basics -Somewhere in Time" collection. This, with its pattern of cogs and gears, fitted perfectly with my layout theme.
Pop on over to:  http://pixelsandpaperchallengeblog.blogspot.com.au/ to see the inspiration photo and to see what the rest of the team has done.
Thanks for dropping  by.
Cheers, for now, Di