Journaling with Stampotique

Minky Girl by Daniel Torrente

Abstract Foliage , Splatter Long by Jo Capper-Sandon

 Crow Line by Janet Klein

Journey collage by Amy Wilson Wellenstein

Squiggle Arms by Roc Nicholas

All for Stampotique originals

It's Val's turn to host the challenge over at Stampotique this time, and she has set us a real goodie of a challenge. Val has challenged us to use 3 squares in our creations. Simples! But it's amazing how many different interpretations of this there are, just check out what the rest of the Design Team have come up with for starters!

Don't forget that to join in with this challenge, you may now use any stamps at all, and to be in with a chance of winning a $30 gift certificate don't forget to link up your challenge entry at the Stampotique Designers challenge blog here.

I chose to use Minky Girl on my journal page, because I just love her slightly cross expression (it's how I feel sometimes), and then I chopped her into three squares. First of all I created a tag but then I decided to add it to a journal page. This background is a mop-up page in my journal where I literally mop up any ink left over on stencils. It's a great way to prevent wasting ink, and makes a quick and easy ready-made journal background.

I used one of my favourite words on this journal page : -discombobulated- 

Many years ago this word was brought to my attention by the infamous Blackadder in a wonderful and very funny sketch on the TV which still makes me LOL.

(If you have never heard of Blackadder, and haven't got a clue what I am talking about, then have a look at this clip here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOSYiT2iG08

For my USA friends, this is Dr House as you may not have seen him before!!)

Byee for now ...

Still drawing .....

So, I'm still drawing in my journal! I admit that I am absolutely not the best at this, but I don't mind at all, and more importantly I'm not at all scared of drawing in my journal :-) I'm quite happy to muck up a few pages along the way because it's all part of the learning process.

On Saturday I taught a 'drawing in your journal' class at Art from the Heart, to a packed class. It was fun! We started with a few drawing games, drew each other (with our non-dominant hands!), and gradually moved on to drawing portraits. More importantly, the aim was to draw directly onto a journal page which can be a bit scary. We used all sorts of materials to add colour ... acrylic paints, neocolor IIs, oil pastels, Stabilo marks-all pencil, prismacolor pencils ... anything we could get our hands on basically. So the portraits were truly mixed-media.

We finished off our pages with a random quote from vintage text:

Here's a few shots from the day ....

Mell added some fantastic red hair to her portrait.

Here's Michelle adding a  random quote from some vintage text. 

Sometimes you find the best quotes when you are not looking for them.

Bryan did a fabulous 'boyish version'!!

Isn't it great?!

Sara and Colleen are clearly sharing a joke here!

Such concentration!

Anne made a gorgeous page, pretty in pink.

And here are Martha and Maria ... all the way from ....

... Italy!! Wowee!

Maralyn and Gemma hard at it, and I'm pleased that Maralyn is still smiling!

Happy smiles!!

I was so happy that everyone overcame their fears and embraced the idea of drawing directly onto journal pages. As you can see there were some amazing page by the end of the day. And look! They're still smiling so it can't have been that bad!!

Byeeeeee for now ....

Journal time!

Not sure where time goes these days, but I haven't had a play around in my journal for ages. Far too long in fact. But on Saturday I will be teaching a class at the wonderful Art from the Heart, Harrogate UK (home of all things Dylusional) called 'Draw in your Art Journal', so I thought I had better get some practise in LOL! I have run this class once before and it was a popular class. Seems like a lot of us want to lose the fear of drawing and rediscover our inner child. (Children don't have a problem with drawing .. have you noticed? The inner critic sneaks up on us as we get older, when we're not looking).

Some of the AFTH regulars have requested that we draw faces / portraits so amongst other things, we will be having a go at that. 

I drew this face on a background that I had already done in my journal, and if you look really closely (at the top of the page) you can even see some spill-journaling in pencil underneath. I have no idea what that journaling was about now, and it is forever lost under layers of gesso and paint. The face itself is coloured with acrylic paint, neocolours, prisma-color pencils and a stabilo marks-all pencil ...er ... and probably a few other things along the way, I can't remember!  I know I am not the greatest at drawing faces (or drawing anything come to think of it) and I haven't done any real drawing since I left school, but I'm not going to let a little thing like that put me off. Drawing is like anything - the more you do it, the better you get. 

And isn't that what a journal is for? To experiment and play?

So what else have I been up to? 

I thought I would make the lovely Dyan a Dylusions inky journal as she is off to the USA soon and wanted something she could carry around easily to share Dylusions techniques with arty peeps along the way. I made something very similar to this before but this one is different in that is totally DYLUSIONS! Inks, stamps and everything!

Here it is as a work in progress. Boy, did my hands get messy on this day!

And here's a few close-ups of the inner pages:

For any of my arty bloggy friends who will be coming to my workshop at the Stamp Attic in November, or any of my Dutch friends who will be coming to some of my classes at De Craftorij in October, we'll be making something very similar to this. Woohoo! Prepare to get inky ;-)

Byeee for now .......

A colour challenge

UnderWhere by Daniel Torrente

Journey Collage by Amy Wilson Wellenstein 

Sentiment by Carol's Collection

all for Stampotique Originals

This time around the Stampotique challenge is a colour challenge. Yay! Just my kind of challenge :-) The challenge is hosted by the lovely Jane who has challenged us to use the colours mustard, orange and navy in our creations. These aren't colours that I usually reach for but that's why I love a challenge, it can make you think differently.

Hmmm. I don't really do mustard. Will Wild Honey Distress ink do?! Alongside a bit of Rusty Hinge, and Faded Denim?

I chose to use Daniel's new image UnderWhere (erm ... you may have noticed that this little fella is infact in his underwear. Oooh, luvverly Y-fronts!)

And of course I had to use this sentiment to go with it, isn't it just the perfect match LOL!

I hope you will join us on this fun challenge. There have been some changes recently which should make it easier for everyone to participate:

You may use ANY stamps for our challenges, of course we always enjoy seeing your work with Stampotique stamps, but is no longer required. We greatly appreciate all your support and look forward to seeing all your creations.

So, have a lookie at the Stampotique Designers challenge blog for plenty of inspiration, and dig out your bestest mustard, orange and navy inks and get stamping!

Playing with Gelli

Just last week I became the proud owner of a gel printing plate by Gelli Arts, woohoo! I first saw this on Dina Wakley's blog where Dina showed some of her fabulous prints she made with this. Being a total background junkie I just HAD to have one of these and have a go myself.

The idea of mono-printing itself isn't new of course, as it is possible to make your own gel plate with gelatine (so I have heard!) although this always seemed like far too much effort for me, I like things that are INSTANT.

The print above was made following the tutorial on the Gelli Arts blog, and you will see that my print looks very similar to the one on the DVD tutorial.

I had another go with different coloured layers:

And then I threw caution to the wind and did my own thing just to see what I would get, taking inspiration from Dina Wakley, however Dina has mastered the art of looking effortlessly arty, whereas mine looks like a 5 year old could have done it!

But I can't even begin to tell you how much fun this is! I had a great (and very messy) time playing with this and I'm desperate to do more. I have learned something already .... here I used Golden fluid acrylics which are a probably a bit too thin, and too quick-drying for this. You need a bit of time to work on your layers before the paint dries .... I just about got away with it because of the cool climate I live in here in the north of  England, UK. So, perhaps something like Golden Open Acrylics, or maybe add a medium to my fluid acrylics to increase the drying time.

I also learned that it is really useful to have spare paper or card to hand because you need somewhere to roll off excess paint off your brayer and stencils etc, and then you end up with another cool background like this! This is just the mop-up card, how cool is this?

Watch this space for more Gelli adventures and experiments.

Talking of playing ... some of Donna Downey's super-large stamps fell into my shopping basket the other day while I was at Art from the Heart and as luck would have it I stumbled across a background I had made previously in my ledger journal which I had totally forgot about. Don't you just love it when that happens?! Obviously as I had new stamps I had to stamp them STRAIGHT AWAY, so I tried them out on my ready-made background. This is a double page spread measuring 12" by 18" so you can tell just  how big these stamps are.

Poppy and stem by Donna Downey

Ink sprays (Vibrant Turquoise, Fresh Lime) and stencils by Dylusions

A bit of gesso and liquid pearls, and a quote from an old book:

A close-up of the background using the gorgeous Dylusions ink sprays. I love the way that you can layer light colour over dark colours with these inks ... there isn't many things that you can do that with.

Right, I'm off to have a major tidy-up in my craft room so I may be gone for some time LOL! Byeee

This and that....

Just so you know, Craft Stamper (UK) is out in the shops today, and if you grab yourself a copy you will see that I have an article in this months issue using Steampunk stamps by Chocolate Baroque and yummy Dylusions ink sprays.

 I ALMOST chose a neutral/grungy colour scheme for this project but in the end I went for BRIGHTS! Here's a sneak peek... and look! There's even a bit of glitter woohoo!! 

I loved using these funky Steampunk stamps, and of course I always love Dylusions ink sprays :-) So go and grab a copy, it's in the shops today, or you can get a copy *here*.

Yesterday saw me at the wonderful Art from the Heart teaching a workshop, using the *new* Stampotique stamps. Here they are, hard at work inking and colouring, with possibly a bit of tongue-sticking-out concentration:

Pam, Gemma, Bryan (who is looking super-nice in his pink pinny), Donna, Tracy, Jill.

If you have seen my DVDs you may recognise this layout, and this is what we were creating yesterday using the new stamps:

Goat Monster by Kira Nichols, Journey Collage by Amy Wilson Wellenstein for Stampotique

Basic backgrounds, Doodle parts, and ink sprays by Dylusions.

I have noticed something strange happening in my ledger journal (and it only happens in this journal). If I have used Archival inks which are oil based, the oil must seep through to other pages in the book, because when I spray inks onto a clean page the ink gets soaked up by the oil and I get an exact replica of the stamping from other pages! Ha! A ready-made background! Whether I wanted it or not!

Today, my children are at school, the house is empty and peaceful .... but hang on a minute. Where's the dog? 

She's always behind me, but she's nowhere to be seen. 

Hmmmm, it's suspiciously quiet, she must be doing something she's not supposed to be doing.

Ah, there she is! What was that rule about 'no dogs on the furniture'?! Shall I turf her off or leave her there? She looks mighty cosy ..............

Byee for now........

Stampotique blog hop finale!

Daniel's Tree Topper, Stringed Lights 

by Daniel Torrente for Stampotique Originals.

So, it's time for the final day of the Stampotique blog hop to celebrate the arrival of the new images. Thank you for sticking with us the last few days, hope you have been enjoying a sneak peek at all the new stamps being released.  

Today is our last day of the hop and the images you have been seeing the last few days are now available over on the Stampotique website. Woohoo!! We all like a bit of new rubber ;-)

All of those who have hopped with us this week and today will be eligible for our random drawing of a winner to get some new release goodies.  The winner will be chosen next week before our next challenge so keep an eye out.

Almost our whole team is hopping and sharing some creations so we hope that you will join us.  The whole list is here and you'll want to start at Sam's blog:

Sam Read

Nellie van Leeuwen

Gez Butterworth

Polly Bennett

France Papillon

Maria Sabina Raita

Roc Nicoholas

Kim Howard

Jennifer Cochran

Jo Capper-Sandon

Claire Boelema

Kaz Boughton

Kate Crane

Sarinda Jones

Carol Fox

Magda Polakow

Astrid Stulemeijer

Libby Hickson

Jane Wetzel

Valerie Wilson

Vicki Garrett

****************************************

Have fun hopping!