Tuesday, April 28, 2015

New Journals...


With only a few pages left in my Quill Art journal it is decision time.. I have been hoarding these three journals the Moleskine sketch (I received for my birthday last year), the small Dylusions (have had over 12 months it was a gift from 2 Xmas's ago) and the Monte Marte Sketch (can't remember how long I have had that one, must be over 2 years).. All very different papers.. So thought why does it have to be a choice of which one.. So radical idea here, I am going to use all three at once. So when I am waiting for something to dry I can just use another journal woohoo. 



So grabbed the Dylusion journal and then thought hmm have not used the sprays for a while better get a refresher and some tips from Dyan Reaveley. So watched this youtube tutorial and found that the biggest tip was spray water and make puddles of colour. The other tip that I picked up was that, it was just a background, have fun with it. Then what to pop on the top. Well I have so been wanting to use my new DecoArt Andy Skinner stencils. I used the Industrial Elements and the Made to Measure 8x8 stencils. They are so cool and I love that steampunk look.. I used my Momento tuxedo black ink and the round blending tool, to do all the stencil work. 

Edit 
Ooops I forgot to post this.. This was supposed to go up last week Gee I have made 4 pages in the moleskine since this.. Think that has to be my favourite Art Journal to use so far. 

Have a great day
Sandy :)

Love the art...


Loving the Moleskine sketch..  I really did not think it would hold up to everything I chuck at it. The paper is not thick but as a friend said, "it is the equivalent of silk in the fabric world". Kind of sums it up really well. 

I just wanted to play today and when I play in my Art Journal I always grab one stencil and paint and just see where that takes me.. First I added a layer of Gesso then tore up some dictionary paper and glued that down with DecoArt Decoupage.. I grabbed some DecoArt Media line Cobalt Turquoise Hue mixed with some Titanium White to make it a bit muted. I brushed that over the dictionary paper and then rubbed in some Gesso here and there too. It was time to use the Andy Skinner Baroque stencil.. The pattern on that one is so delicate.. I just used a makeup sponge and some more Cobalt Turquoise Hue. This time I did not tint it down with the white. Some stamping with distress stain in Peacock Feathers it's my favourite colour distress ink. The stamps I used are the France Papillon design cube, little circles this time.  I also used a Tim Holtz stampers anonymous stamp it has music and numbers. Time to turn to the collage, for that some scraps of Kaisercraft papers. I sewed around it and a little random zigzag here and there. My machine is being a bit weird when it is sewing need to play with the adjustments. Used one of my quotes that I have printed out, thought that one fitted this page well.. Love the art that's inside you.. We all need that message and it was perfect for this page where all my favourite things came together. I glued all the collage on with Helmars Tacky craft glue

Have a great day 
Sandy :)

Friday, April 24, 2015

Poppies...

It was honor to be doing my first Design Team post for Helmar and they have asked me to do one themed for Anzac Day. This year it is such a special Anzac day for all of Australia and New Zealand. It is the 100th Centenary of the First World War landings, of our Anzac troops on the beaches of Gallipoli. In case you have not heard of the term Anzac before. Anzac stands for Australian and new Zealand Army Corps. The soldiers in those forces quickly became known as Anzacs, and the pride they took in that name endures to this day.
So to commemorate this special day I thought I would like to do an Art Journal spread. When I think of Anzac day, I always think of the poppies. So that is what I thought just had to go on my Art Journal pages. 


Teams I design for
This is just the background I created to see what the final Art Journal pages looked like, pop over to the Helmar Design Team blog post. 

Have a great day 
Vicki-Ann :)

Stepping out of my comfort zone..


Today I was inspired when Tam, Willowing popped up on my facebook news feed.. So I popped over to take a look and well I stepped out of my comfort zone and drew a person..  I was so inspired and just fell in love with the girl Willowing drew in her art journal.. I just had to have a go and draw my own. 
I used NeocolourII for most of this and a little bit of Gesso here and there to blend my collage in. Some Rub-ons from Kaisercraft, dangles and some stitching stamps. The design cube from France Papillon made an appearance again for the stars. 

So pop over and take a look at Tam's blog and have a look at her youtube video, it's well worth watching. Lots of great information about journals and watch right to the end as Tam paints one of her awesome paintings in her Art Journal. 

Have a great day 
Sandy :)  

Colour fun...


I watched a fabulous tutorial over on Rae Missigman's blog. It was one of her 15 minutes of Mixed Media youtube videos that she has been doing.. The colours got me, those orange and pink with that striking yellow had to have a go.. I had made these glue gun stencil, stamp flowers a while ago.. So thought I would use those and see how they went. 

   
I have used them with sprays and on my Gelli plate but have never tried them with paint through them with a sponge.. I used Gesso through them and it worked ok. It gave me an image to go with. So I still did go over some of them with some more Gesso with a brush. I painted a couple of them with the colours that I had used on the background. I used all DecoArt Media line paints, Primary yellow and the Cadmium Orange Hue. The pink that is in the background, I mixed some paints to get the colour I wanted. I wanted a really soft pink, so I mixed the Quinacridone Red with Titanium White and it really came out so soft and pretty. The blue drips are Liquitex ink the Cerulean Blue Hue.


For the stamping I used a Kaisercraft stamp set called Rewind collection, so many cool stamps in that set.. I chose the three different circle ones.. One I used for the centre of the flowers. I also used France Papillon's design cube the handiest little stamp I have, that lives on my desk.  Lots of doodling on the pages and around the edges with my signo white pen and my black Pilot Permaball. I had a lot of fun with this. I typed a heap of quotes that I liked out and printed them out, they are so handy to just grab one and cut it up. I glued that on with my Helmars Tacky Craft Glue

Saying hi over at Paint Party Friday.

Have a great day 
Sandy :)

Sunday, April 19, 2015

New Art Journal...

 

I started a new art journal. I have been wanting to try this Moleskine since I got it for my birthday last year.. I have only ever worked in one Art journal at a time but now I am finding that I have a few on the go at the same time. 

I started with Gesso then decided to use tissue paper sewing pattern and glued it all on with DecoArt Decoupage.  I then just grabbed my DecoArt Americana paints in Wisteria and Dessert Turquoise and scraped over with a card.  Then for some interest in the background I grabbed the DecoArt Andy Skinner stencils. I used the Industrial Elements and the Made to Measure 8x8 stencils with the Tuquoise Blue. It's subtle but I know it's there..  I added circles with a lid and stripes with the edge of a card in the Americana Ebony Black. The white I used Gesso and then watered down the black and white and a bit of the Turquoise Blue and got the fan brush out and splattered. Then I started looking around youtube for some inspiration as I had this background done but just did not know what to put on the top.. 



So off to youtube for some inspiration and one of my favourites to watch is France Papillon. I found this great  youtube of her doing this wonderful heart all patchworked. It looked fabulous so I had to have a go..  I added the Quote. Smile it is the key that fits the lock to everybody's heart. That quote is so me.. 


France also printed with Black StaZon ink and made lovely wings for her delightful character. So thought I would try and stamp my key stamp on some transparent binding covers I have and cut them out. That worked so well, I will be doing that again. I added some glue dots to stick, but underneath I popped a little movers and shapers diecut, the Tim Holtz lock. 

So first pages done in my Moleskine and I tried a few new techniques. 

Have a great day 
Sandy :)

Friday, April 17, 2015

Junk Journal...

I watched a tutorial on making a Junk Journal that Teesha Moore did on The Artstronauts club. It was last year and it stuck with me thinking gee I must make one of those.. So last week I went through all the recycling and tore some magazine covers off.. Anything that I thought would hold up to some collage. Sewed and stitched pages together and came up with this. So here are some pages in my Junk Journal.. 


This first one I was trying to incorporate the collage more.. So I did more of the black and yellow spots and I went off the collage for the tree branches.. I made a red pod  and gave the character a pink and purple tail. 


With this I was just really cutting and sticking collage from the collage sheets from Teesha.. Piecing it together. Bit of doodling and making some swirls along the edge.. Some of my drawn collage for the arms. That sheet of arms and legs that I drew and copy out on the computer comes in handy. 


With this one I felt more in the swing of it. Bit of doodling and drew the little pink line of characters. Not sure about the spots and the blue rock thing the flower grub is sitting on but it is what it is..  

Saying hi over at Paint Party Friday
and at Art Journal Journey favourite poems and quotes.

Have a great day
Sandy :)

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Altered playing cards...

I am playing along with Claudines art corner card challenge.. Each week Claudine posts on her blog a technique to do 2 playing cards.. I am pretty much following along with what Claudine is doing, so I am not going to repeat it all and go into to much detail here. Claudine has step by step pictures and details on her blog of how she does her cards so pop on over and see her great pictured tutorial instuctions.

Week 9 
I used a stamp from Teesha Moore for the one on the left.. The stamp on the right is from Lacy Sunshine digi stamps. I just blew up the frog part of the stamp. 



 Week 10
With week 10 I had a bit of a mix up.. I did the ones above in about November last year and it's only last weekend, yes 6 months later that I thought. Oh I better finish this challenge. The posts are all still there to catch up and I did enjoy doing these cards a lot..  So I started doing them again got half way through this one and though wait think I have done this one.. Oh well think I like the second lot better than the first lot anyway. Dylusion stamps more of some Teesha Moore collage I used on these ones.


Week 11
Last year I was lucky enough to get a grab bag of mixed stamps from Teesha Moore. These stamped images where 2 of the stamps that I received. the one that says imagine that is the same stamp, stamped twice and I just turned one of them to make him look 2 eyed.  I like the other one on the planet well I thought it kind of looked like a planet.
 Week 12
This was for Thanksgiving it was a simple card week. Covered the card with cardstock and the purple is a printer copy of my art work. Cut out a butterfly and collaged that and the paper background on with Helmar Decoupage craft paste.
 Week 13
Bees I just gotta love bees.. I had these bees in my stash of papers for a while.. The big one was a magazine image that I cut out. I could not tell you what die the honeycomb is I cut that out at a friends one day to see what it was like. Just had the pieces in my stash. I used the DecoArt Media crackle glaze on the bird image inside the honeycomb.

Week 14 
Well this shows how far behind I am when I am doing Christmas cards at Easter.. These where both die cuts that I have had for ages, given to me by a friend. I don't have any snow embossing folders, thought this burst one looked ok though. Stampin'up stamp for the Merry Christmas. 

Have a great day 
Sandy :)

Friday, April 10, 2015

Paint Party Friday and Inspiration Wednesday...

This is No 4 in this years journey with Donna Downey and the Inspiration Wednesday group for 2015.. You will see my pages pop up fortnightly as I follow along.. 



I found this one to be a very long process to get it done.. Think I am a very impatient art journaler and don't like the waiting for things to dry.. Because this has the modeling paste on both pages. I had to wait 2 days for this to be dry enough to pop the glazing fluid on. Did half one day wait to dry then the other page wait to dry..  Quite a process and a challenge in patience for me. It was quick after that though. I used the Dina Wakely stencil for the wording. The DecoArt media line Glazing fluid worked fabulous, with the Burnt Umber and Cobalt Turquoise Hue DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics. The stamps I used where a Kaisercraft one for the poppies and a Darkroom Door one for the fabulous quote.

Warning.... Lots of Baby wipes where harmed in the making of these Art Journal pages. 

Saying hi to everyone over at Paint Party Friday

Have a great day
Sandy :)

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Exciting News...

♥Teams I design for ♥

Today I have some exciting news to share. I have been accepted as a new Design Team member for Helmar. So wonderful to be supporting such a fantastic Aussie company. I just love the products, they are some of my favourites that I use on just about every project. Tacky craft glue just lives on my desk and the 450 quick dry Adhesive is wonderful for that instant hold.  So terrific when you can be on a design team that you already use and love all the products. Congratulations also to my wonderful friends Tamiko McCurry,  Sandee Setliff and Sharon Estes for also making this wonderful team.. So come over to the Helmar blog and check us out. 

If you pop over you will see I am on there as Vicki-Ann White with a very rare photo of me and a bio..

Have a great day
Sandy :)

Friday, April 3, 2015

Art is...


Nothing better than when I get to just play in my Art Journal.. When I made my other little flip out journal. I had this one open to rub off the DecoArt Andy Skinner code breaker stencil. I was using the DecoArt Media Line Black Gesso and I had it all over the stencil so I just kept going with it on each side of this background. I always seem to have a few things going at once. The blue background was rub offs from another stencil page I did. I then thought hmm think I feel like doing some stamping today and I have hardly used the terrific grab bag of stamps I got from Teesha Moore. So I stamped the girl and coloured her in with Dylusions and my waterbrush. Fussy cut her out and stuck her on. The wording across the top of her is a stamp from Teesha too it says. Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. Then I grabbed one of the artstronauts collage sheets and matched some colours cut and pasted. I love trees, so popped that one on and then just took a pen and drew it off the piece of collage onto the page. Added some swirls to the little blue heart with my Gelli roll pen to make it sparkly. Then I just did some doodling with my black Pilot pen. Used the white signo uniball for some dashes.. Wrote the quote that I thought suited the page. Quote says "Art is not what you see but what you make others see." So more fun with some coloured pencils too.  Just for a bit more blue here and there and even a bit of shading with some Neocolour II around the girl. Liked the way it looks a bit sketchy around her. 

Going to pop this over at Paint Part Friday.
Joining in also at Balzer Designs
I was asked so nicely to join this blog post over at Art Journal Journey so popping a link in there.. 

Happy Easter 
Sandy :)