Instant Art!

Adrienne has us going on an "Instant Art" swap--sending bits and pieces to out partners so they can use them when they need to make art in a hurry. :)

We each put together five decorated slide mounts, 5 tags, 5 ATC backgrounds, 5 "little beauties" (1.5 x 2 inch little artlings) and some printed images. Here are most of my components, just need to print out some images.

Another tag card

While I was in tag booklet mode, I made this card for a dear friend's birthday. I sprayed it with Color Mists and just stamped and embossed. Happy birthday, Andrea!

New Year's Resolution Swap

This is going to Kacy on the CC Swaps group. I had a hard time getting going on this because I had not made any NY resolutions. :) After giving it some thought, here they are:

-Stop hoarding stuff. This is the impetus behind Kacy's card. I hoard my art supplies. I mean, what am I waiting for? This uses a chipboard tag booklet, Ranger Crackle paint that I'd never opened, and lots of doo-dads and doohickies I've been hoarding. Sending some of the doohickies to Kacy for her to play with as well.

-Find my voice. As a budding artist, I've spent a lot of time these past couple of years playing, learning techniques and ogling others' creations. I feel like I'm proficient, but I've yet to figure out my own niche. I'd like what I create to have its own style/soul. So, I guess the resolution is to keep growing.

-Stop creating just for swaps. I love swaps, I really do. But all my artwork goes to them and I'd like to focus on some pieces "just because" or just for home this year.

That's it!

ATC with the Nebula Grunge background

For a swap on CC Swaps, made with the Nebula Grunge background.

Shining Stones Card

Several posts back, I posted my experiments from playing with the Shining Stones background technique. This is a card I made for swap using these backgrounds.

How to be square

Another swap, something with a square. This is a piece of Stampbord sponged with inks, stamped, stuff added and painted over with with Ranger Sepia Accents. In spreading the Accents, I caused lots of little bubbles. I choose to think of it as "distressed," ahem.

Christmas Wrap ATCS

These were for a swap. Challenge was to make ATCs with leftover Christmas wrap. Just so happened to have some in my current favorite combo of red and aqua.

More Nebula Grunge experiments

My pal Fiona has experimented and done her own take on this technique. Check out her blog at http://fionascreations.blogspot.com/ to see what she did. I love that she tried it with different sprays and on glossy cardstock as well!

Nebula Grunge!

Yesterday I posted about a happy accident while trying to make something for a journal cover. Today I decide to experiment and see what I could come up with intentionally. Here are some finished backgrounds. In subsequent posts, I will explain how and what I did.

The basic technique and order is: paint chipboard with white acrylic and let dry. Spray with mists/colors of your choice. While these are still wet (immediately), lightly overspray with a darker colored spray. Dry with a heat gun ( I use a Marvy), moving the gun quickly and with short strokes over the surface until dry.

My theory is that by using acrylic paint (instead of the gesso I would--and do--normally grab when working with Color Mists), the paint "resists" the sprays and beads up when dryed--thus creating this distressed and starry look. The colors peek out from behind the darker color. In real life, these have a subtle sheen where pearlescent colors were used, and you can see the brush strokes in the paint (which adds to the grungy appeal).

My family kept saying these pieces look like galaxies and nebulas, and I kept loving how grungy they were, so folks, I offer you "Nebula Grunge," which I think is my own discovery. I've had A LOT of fun with this.

From the top down:

-Bright Colormists on chipboard box.
-Bright Color Mist Sprays with Tungsten Carbide (black) overspray;
-Halloween Color Mists with Emerald Green overspray
-Starburst Stains with Cobalt Sky overspray;

And one not to do: the bottom one is Adirondack Color mists in Butterscotch, Terra Cotta and Cranberry, oversprayed with Espresso. I tried a few other colors and these sprays just do not work with this technique. (I love these sprays for fabric (silk scarves) but I rarely use them for paper projects.)

More on Nebula Grunge

To give you an idea of how bright these are before I do the overspray, here are:

-Color Mists in bright colors (Lemon Yellow, Margarita Magenta, Slimescent Green, Cobal Sky and Tahoe Turqouise. The first picture shows the true brights, the second is the dried finished background. Overspraying these with Tungsten Carbide (black) gives the whole "night sky appearance" as the colors peek through. This was on one layer of acrylic paint.

-Starburst Stains in California Poppy Orange, Beauganvillea Fuschia and Delphinium Turquoise. Oversprayed with Color Mist in Cobalt Sky. This was also on layer of acrylic as well.

I experimented with lighter overspray colors as I went along, but I really like the darker look.

Nebula Grunge on a box

Here I used Color Mist's Lemon Yellow, Slimescent Green and Tahoe Turquoise. Sprayed the box with these colors and while wet, I oversprayed the box with Cobalt sky and then dryed with the heat gun.

I added some Copper Kettle to the lid and dried again. The box had one coat of white acrylic on it to start.

Nebula Grunge: how I started

Re: the Nebula Grunge Technique: here's where I started: white acrylic paint on chipboard. For the piece in the left, I painted just one coat, while I did two coats on the right-hand piece. Painted one coat on the box, which is also chipboard.

More in the next post...

Happy Accident

Today has been a fun day of just experimenting. If you look at my "background noise" journal from earlier this evening, you'll see I use what looks like a stencil on the cover. It was actually a piece if scrap watercolor paper that I sprayed these letters on. I liked the negative image better for the journal, it felt perfect.

These are chipboard letters I painted with white acrylic paint. I was reaching for my trusty gesso when I opted for the paint instead. I originally sprayed these with Aileen's super bright Color Mists, but they were just too bright for my needs. So grabbed her black spray, which is called Tungsten Carbide, and oversprayed them all lightly, and then hit them with the heat gun.

The result was these, which I think look batiked and very cool. I think the acrylic caused the sprays to "bead up" when heated.

I love happy accidents.

Thank you notes

Made a batch of similar, but not completely alike versions of this card today for some holiday thank you notes.
The image is by Stampington and I used it as a guideline. Painted the image and background with Twinkling H20s and then added depth with the oil pastels (my current favorite art toy!) I've adapted this card from one I saw at a stamp show, but tweaked it a bit.

Complementary Colors ATC Swap

These are going out to Annie in the U.K. I love comp colors, especially tertiary colors. Here I used red orange and blue green in oil pastels, a recent present.

Oil pastels are awesome. They go on so smooth and dense, and you can scrape them off to be as grungy as you want--my favorite part. The colors are highly saturated too.

The theme developed as I went: "time & tide."

Cheers Annie.

Shining Stones Backgrounds

The first "noise" challenge was Julia Andrus's "Shining Stones" background a la Trish Bee. It involves rainbow dye ink pads, glossy paper, mica pigments (I used Moon Glow w/ gum arabic for the binder), water, a heat gun and paper towels. For a how-to, please visit Trish's blog at
http://trishbee.co.uk/?p=309.

With the exception of the creole spice, which is a Kaleidocolor pad, I used Adirondack Big & Juicy rainbow dye ink pads. In order: Beach Comber with Moon Glow Fool's Gold; Waterfall with Pay Dirt Gold; Creole Spice with Fool's Gold; Hydrangea with Fool's Gold; and Tutti Frutti with Pay Dirt Gold.

This is an easy technique and the scans don't show the lovely gold shimmer.

New challenge technique: Shining Stones

On the NGS group, Trish has us starting a "Background Noise" journal. The idea is as we try out her various challenges, we have a place to record and keep the experiments.

Here's the cover I made for my big 9 x 12 sketch journal. It's made from bits and pieces of backgrounds I've made.

Christmas Fun

A good Yule was had by all, and we are very lucky people! Here are the kids and the dog. Baloo was only cooperative when he was in the frame by himself--stubborn Aussie!

The Yule Log

My daughter wanted to make a yule log cake this year. If you are unfamiliar with such a thing, it is a jellyroll type cake filled with cream and iced to look like a log.

This cake takes four different kinds of chocolate, countless dairy products and hours to make. We had a great time making it but decided this will be a one-time deal and not a new annual tradition. It was yummy, and I loved helping her get it done.

Art Doll ATC

Adrienne G. in Wales gets my first creation of 2008. I finished this several days ago but am just getting a chance to upload now.

This was for an "Art Doll ATC" swap Adrienne organized on CC Swaps. His head and legs fold up so that he is standard ATC size. I call him "St. Festivus," and he's ready to rock n' roll.

My husband thinks this guy looks like him, and he's not far off, LOL!

2007 Ornaments

A sample of the ornaments I made this --whoops, last!--year. I found the beveled glass pieces at a thrift store, backed them with mat board, and sandwiched a mini collage inside.

Happy New Year

We just weathered a big storm here, intermittent power with lots of power outages around town, and no Internet access for three days. I've done a lot of tidying up and culling of stuff during this time, as well as lots of reading with the kids and just hanging out. It feels good to be a homebody after a very busy holiday season and being out of town. I am ready to start making art again!

On that note, I am posting here a few of the things I did at Christmas. I actually made few cards, but I did make ornaments and tags. Here are some ATCs made for a challenge on NGS, with images supplied by Trish Bayley.