Tag Archives: Mixed Media

Any thing made using any, or all, of the following: paper, paint, ink, dye, pencil, pastel, stencil, freehand, ephemera and bling and anything else that comes to hand

Learning To Dance In The Rain

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It’s time to post the final ‘retrospective’  journal page, completed sometime in February I think.  My [previous] bad habit of forgetting to date my journal pages caught up with me and I now own, and use, an actual date stamp!  Hola!!

This is the page where I learned about using car polish over gel medium to stop pages sticking together.  [Thanks to Claudia Rossi – again!]  The added benefit, as you will see, is that the sheen adds to the wet look I was trying to achieve.

The first thing I did was cover the pages with various shades of paint in blues and watered down reds  and drag the colours downwards with a variety of makeshift instruments as I was trying to achieve the impression of falling rain.  It actually looked really effective until I started applying the mod-podge when, of course, the water reactive thing occurred and I lost my lovely down-pour!  Never mind – live and learn is the motto of the hit or miss crafter!

The house shapes were cut from old encyclopaedia paper – I like my art work to look learn-ed!

Dance In Rain 6 March 13

I used stains and paints to colour the houses and hit them with a ‘crackle’ stamp to add texture.

I die-cut the clouds from more book paper, stamped the winged flock and made the text using my trusty ‘Dymo‘ label maker.

Dance In Rain 4 March 13

This side retains some of the downpour texture I was trying for:

Dance In Rain 5 March 13

Tim Holtz stamps make another appearance, I stamped the rain man and the Model T onto tissue paper using black staz-on ink  and bunged them into place. My white gel pen outlined rain man:

Dance In Rain 3 March 13

I was feeling pretty contented at this point – and then decided to try the mod-podge and car polish effect.  As soon as I hit the page with the medium the colours started moving and blurring – I worked as quickly and lightly as possible to try and minimise it, but as I said before, I lost my downpour effect.  When the medium was dry I raided the car cleaning kit and applied a liberal coat of car polish, buffing vigorously.  I really like this – the finished page shines with a wet look sheen that is really effective for the theme and the pages don’t stick together – an added bonus!!

Dancing In The Rain

See, I even put a date stamp on it…….. and that’s the end of the ‘house’ themed journal pages – for now any way.

It’s time to hit the play room and create something new.

If you stuck with it – thanks for dropping by and have a most enjoyable day!

Home Is Where The Heart Is

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I am very proud of myself – I have remembered the reason I started this blog and have now taken photos of three journal pages – not to mention the half dozen or so photos of cards that are now on Orlando’s pinterest page!  My photography skills are questionable, but I am thinking that if I keep at it I have to get better, so now I am keeping the camera ready to go, on the table at all times. [I’m also following KBT’s advice and trying for shots in the morning light]  It appears to be a good thing to do as  I snapped a photo of Orlando watching the latest antics of Maru on You Tube through the TV screen yesterday morning.  He was sitting up tall and straight and blinking furiously and warbling at him in a friendly kind of a manner as Maine Coons do [they are on the whole very chatty in a non-annoying kind of way] hoping to get the cat’s attention and have a new friend……. so cute!!

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[Maru’s ears are back as he’s just realised the water has got his tail!]

But that’s not why we are here.  Back to the page you are about to see.

I follow a couple of great artists on You Tube Claudia Rossi  and France Papillon both are really inspiring and have great videos – France regularly and Claudia now and again.  You will find them by just typing their names into the YT search engine.

I’ve been playing with a theme of ‘happy houses’ for some years now – I used to paint smallish canvases with individual houses or groups of them – all slightly wonky and looking very happy and pleased with themselves.  All the canvases sold and I never took photos of them.  When I saw Claudia’s journal page of houses a few months back, I decided to have a go too.  A chance to move from working with paint alone into mixed media with a familiar theme.    I didn’t feel brave enough to stay with my original style working in such a confined space as a journal page so I pretty much copied what I remembered seeing in her tutorial.

I sprayed the top half of the pages liberally with Dylusions in shades of blues and purples and the bottom half in yellows.  I used a mask to create the full moon and stars, a white gel pen to outline the moon and stars and a Tim Holtz stamp supplied the curve of birds across the face of the moon.

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The houses were cut from card which I had coloured with a two or three shades of Tim Holtz stains and then dry embossed with one of my favourite embossing folders which features a woodgrain on one side and brickwork on the other.  I think it’s a Spellbinders.

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I cut out the window shapes, attached some tracing paper and scrawled in the dividing lines and the window frames with a Sharpie.  The doors were made using left over scraps of paper from the ‘scraps’ drawer.

I ran a ton of red stained card through the die cutter using a narrow lace die and layered them on top of each other, cut to roof type shapes and bunged ’em down on top of the house rectangles.  .

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The fence was added in and the little flowers were also used as they had been annoyingly sitting around for years and I needed to use them up once and for all!

Voila – light filled houses on a moonlit night!

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Thanks for stopping by ~ and have a very happy day!

 

 

 

The Heart Is Ever Young

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Secure in the knowledge that no-one now reads my blog except my eldest daughter I can happily post photos of the journal page that appeared after the events described in one of my previous blogs, so endearingly titled ‘You Old Bitch!’.

I managed a few hours in my play room and, not liking to be left out, had already decided to have a go at a half face, something I have never previously done, but which is all the rage right now.  

I worked on that first, using a raw piece of canvas so that I had to work the colour into the texture.  I hoped that might allow me to layer and blend seamlessly – and it pretty much did. I gave her white hair as that is my natural [hidden] colour and I’m working on a vision of myself as I want to be at 70!!

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With that done I turned my attention to the double page – previously gessoed up and doilied, and sprayed dylusions colours liberally.  I used yellows and blues to make the spring green on the right side and added reds and browns to the left side.  It was all too much so I applied a whitewash over the whole lot and when that dried I crackled the left side with clear crackle paint rubbed over with some ‘vintage photo’ ink to get an aged and weathered look.  

 

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I used various stamps and staz-on ink to add texture to both pages.  I’m not that happy with the left side [age] but love the spring green that appeared on the right.  The doilies represent me – my girls will tell you that I love anything with lace and bling – the more the better really……… I’ve just got no taste!!!

I cut the face out of the canvas and glued it onto the prepared double page and voila – 

 

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It may transition onto a canvas one day……..

Here’s another random thought – written in the hope that someone may read this some day –  I’m not a very good photographer and always feel dissatisfied with the results of my aim and click style.  I use Adobe Photoshop, but really don’t understand it, [despite a 6 week course a few years back] any body got any tips?

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It’s been a while since I posted – if you have read previously and are waiting to hear more about the new life style, all I can say is it is going well – I still spend more time in the kitchen than I have for years and am still experimenting happily with recipes both old and new.

More important though is how I am feeling [within my body and health and well-being generally].  At the end of week five I am pleased, proud and happy to report that all is going very well…… for the first time in over a decade my body is pain-free, the inflammation has subsided substantially – I can now touch my toes while keeping my legs straight – something that had eluded me for some time!  And I feel good – that ephemeral feeling of general well-being and ease within the physical translates into a sense of greater contentment.

I’m sprouting [mostly alfalfa and a seed mix known as ‘Energy‘], making yoghurt, cheese and oat cakes [ see a previous posting for the recipe]  Oat cakes on plate

and chicken broth [which becomes a yummy soup].       

Chicken soup is a common classic comfort food ...

Did you know that when you put a dash of cider vinegar into the water it helps to pull out more of the vitamins and minerals from the chicken so that your broth becomes an even more potent cure-all.  There is wisdom in the old-wives tales and folk medicines!

My window sill is full of fresh herbs and regenerating bits and bobs such as celery and spring onions and my freezer is full of pureed pumpkin, chicken stock and soup, spicy nuts [for a quick pick-me-up snack] and bags of activated walnuts and almonds just waiting to be added to the next meal.

I’ve even made my own salad sprinkles – a tasty mix of various activated nuts and seeds mixed with dried karengo [a nutrient rich seaweed] and crisped coconut flakes.  This has been a great favourite and even though summer has given way to autumn, and salads are being replaced with hot dishes, I feel confident they will be just as tasty sprinkled over vegetables!

Now, just in case you think I’ve become a health nut, let me hasten to reassure you, all the old cravings for comfort foods are still being satisfied.  Why just last night I prepped up a couple of parsnips and sweet potatoes and rubbed ’em down with some oil and peanut butter [homemade, she said proudly] popped them in the oven with  good sprinkle of salt and enjoyed myself some hots fries and watched a movie!!  It was just that kind of night!

I think what I’m enjoying the most about this change in life style is that it is not a ‘diet’ – it is really a chance for me to enjoy good wholesome food without the crap that factory made stuff is liberally covered in and because I use home-grown or organic wherever possible I know it is good for my body and health too.  I’m enjoying finding out what my body likes and what it doesn’t like – perhaps for the first time ever I am really paying attention to the messages it sends me…….. a little later in the day, but hey, better late than never!

Now apart from all this, I’ve also been busy in the craft room – lots of stuff underway, lots more ideas waiting to be trialed in the art journal but here is a quick pic of the latest card:B'day Card front March 13 B'day Card Inside March 13

Front                                                     Inside

Made for my eldest daughters mumble birthday.

I’ve also popped those photos onto Orlando King’s pinterest page if you want to have them.

Thanks for popping by – leave me a note to say you’ve been, I enjoy hearing from you!

Easel Card Christmas 2012

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Easel Card Christmas 2012

I know its a bit late – or a bit early – but I just started a board on pinterest called ‘Christmas in New Zealand’ and loaded this photo of a card I made last December onto it.

I’m on a mission to encourage the true seasonal flavour of our Christmas time – no more cotton wool snowmen, robins on snow bent branches and happy families around the fire – I don’t want to be in stores any more that are sprinkled with fake snow and playing that ‘Sleigh Bells Ring’ song and others like it. We should be writing and listening to our own Christmas songs, about warm sun and blue skies and sharing picnics with our families and friends. We must really find and celebrate our own traditions now……………..

But enough of that rant – I’ll find more stuff to load both here and on pinterest and I’ll come back to these thoughts later on.

Mixed Media [prior to 2013] ‘Radio Shack’ door sign

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Mixed Media [prior to 2013] 'Radio Shack' door sign

Made for my daughter’s partner – an avid broadcaster….. and,oh dear, now I’ve forgotten what it’s called…….
Made from a ready made mdf board, painted, covered with paper and mod-podged. Distressed edges, die-cut radio waves, a photo and the call sign cut using the cricut machine and sealed again to finish.