Showing posts with label Mixed Media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mixed Media. Show all posts

31 December 2017

Top 2000 Blog Party – Day 7 (finale)

Welcome to the very last day of 2017. Outside there’s an awful lot of noise as the neighbourhood is having fun with their own fireworks. We do have an organised firework show in the city centre, at the parlaiment building, but as long as people are allowed to light their own fireworks, I’m staying safe inside. Besides the fireworks there’s this weird tradition in my city of making bonfires wherever people like. For that one’s there’s also an official alternative at the beach. There’s even a contest for that one. Two revelling city parts (both former beach villages that are now part of the city) have been working for a whole week to build the tallest bonfire. I’ll come back to that at the end of this post. First, music!

For today I’ve chosen the song “Private Investigations" by Dire Straits. It’s been one of my favourite Dire Straits songs since my childhood. The instrumental part left plenty of room for my imagination to make up a movie in my mind. It was a bit a too high aim to try and image that movie on my pages, especially since I had to finish it today. So instead I went for a minimal approach with a big chance of success: a Gelli Plate party. When I thought about a private detective, I thought of Sherlock Holmes, who is as a matter of fact the most famous private detective. I found a very usable image at the Open Clipart website, which I cut with my Silhouetten Cameo. I decided to use the mask part of the cut out. My explanation for my colour choices: I wanted to have something that represented the old of the stories about Sherlock Holmes, for which I chose brown. And I wanted to add the atmosphere of the mystery for which I chose the purple.

Private_Investigation

#69 Dire Straits – Private Investigation

Here’s a few extra pictures for you.

Private_Investigation_WIP

Work in progress

Private_Investigation_bonus

The bonus I got out of this printing session. Left the print in my journal. Right the bonus print.

Now about those bonfires at the beach. The winning citypart is Duindorp. They built a bonfire measuring almost 30 meter in height. Pretty awesome right. The other citypart, Scheveningen, built a bonfire of a good 25 meter.

Vreugdevuur-op-Scheveningen-Foto-Ernst-de-Heer

Photo credits: Ernst de Heer

Have a fabulous New Year’s Eve. Stay safe!

30 December 2017

Top 2000 Blog Party – Day 3, 4 and (not) 5

Hi there! I’m so sorry I haven’t updated my blogposts these past few days. It was a race against time and of course I lost. I finished my page for day three at day four and only finished my page for day four past midnight. So, you’re getting a bonus in this blogpost: three days in one! Which means more artwork pictures in this one post.

I am having a blast with this combined art and music event. There’s so much great music on the radio. Some even worth checking out the singer or band to find out what else they make. And the art journaling’s also giving me tons of fun. One of the reasons I’ve run behind, is that I don’t want to rush my work process. If a page takes more time, then I give it the time it needs. For the page of day three, I added lots of layers, which took time, but with every layer the page got so much more depth. I also love to challenge myself by creating things that I’m not really used to. Like a full figurine, a ballet dancer in this case. And that hand was a huge challenge too! Let me show you the page I’m talking about.

Tiny_Dancer

#1371 Elton John – Tiny Dancer

At the moment I’m going through a very difficult time and it can affect my mood badly. When I listened to the radio and heared the song “Lemon Tree” by Fools Garden, I realised after hearing this song a million times before that it’s actually quite a sad song. Sometimes it takes a sad mood to understand these things. I alsways thought this was a happy song and I loved it. I still love it, but last night the meaning of the song made a shift. I found it interesting how the chorus described a happy world, while the phrases described sadness. It was that contradiction in mood that I wanted to express on my pages. And while being in this sad mood myself, it actually felt great to image the sadness into art. Bare with me as this is only my second attempt of doing a 3/4 face. The nose is better than my first attempt, but now I see the eye is way too close to the nose. I’ll pay attention to that next time. We’re learning by experience, right?

Lemon_Tree

#906  Fools Garden – Lemon Tree

And just because life happens, I have just decided to totally skip day 5. I got hit by fatigue this afternoon and just had to go to sleep in order to respect my health. I’m very sorry for this disappointment. To be honest, I mostly disappointed myself, because I had a great idea for today’s part of the list. I guess that has to wait. Maybe I just save that idea for next year hehe. Trying to think smart now. Tomorrow’s another day. Only two more days left.

If you want to learn more about this Top 2000 Blog Party, go visit Marit’s blog. Here’s where you can find the information if you want to join. It’s free and fun, so why not! And if you just want to see what everyone else’s been creating, you can follow this link.

Hope you’ll be able to make something fabulous, weather you join this blog party or just have your own project going on. Or maybe you’re here because you like to see other people’s work, but are not much of a crafty person yourself. In that case, I want to ask you if you are sure about that. Many of the people I now respect for the art they make, have thought of themselves as being non creative for decades. Apparently many High School teachers have ruined our trust in our own creativity. Maybe you should reconsider their opinion. After all, it was nothing more than their own opinion. And their concept about what makes good art doesn’t necessary have to be the truth.

25 December 2017

Top 2000 Blog Party – Day 1

Merry Christmas, everyone! Outside it’s grey, cold and windy. Inside it’s cozy with Christmas lights shining and the radio on, because like every year the Top 2000 has started this Christmas day. Until New Year’s Eve the radio will play the 2000 most voted songs of all times. It’s always been my pleasure, but ever since I discoverd the event Marit Barendsen hosts, it’s a bliss. Follow this link to check out Marit’s site where she explains everything about her Top 2000 Blog Party. It’d be fun if you’d join in!

For this first day I managed to do two songs.

Yellow_Submarine

#1897 The Beatles – Yellow Submarine

Everything_For_Free

#1821 K’s Choice – Everything For Free

Fun fact: I took this photo of K’s Choice lead singer, Sarah Bettens, at last weeks concert in my city.
Also on this page: some stamps I carved for Julie Fei-Fan Balzer’s Carve December.

Have a fabulous day, whatever you do. See you tomorrow with at least one new page!

04 June 2017

Art Journal Goodness

Hello! It’s been such a long time since I posted anything art related, other than photography. I am terribly sorry for my absence lately. If you’d like to see my work on a more regular base, please follow me on Instagram. I’m mebearc over there.

I’ve been quite busy making all kinds of art projects. Sometimes inspired by challenges, sometimes just inspired by whatever comes to me. I’m not going to bore you with small talk, because I know you are here to see art, right? Well, let’s go then!

In February I made two series of ATCs (Artist Trader Cards) and with each set a matching card for the host of the swaps.

Kiss_Me_02
ATCs

Kiss_Me A6 size card

In April I made something for Dina Wakley’s monthly challenge in her Facebook group. The prompt was to make something from recycled material. Like all the challenges in Dina’s group, there should be used at least one visible DWM (Dina Wakley Media) product in your project.  I made this art journal page with the Scribble Birds stamp set, which was the start of a new project: a complete art journal made from recycled carton packages.

A_Birds_Song

A_Birds_Song_02

Since I made the page for Dina’s challenge, I haven’t stopped making new recycled pages. For all the pages I start with a Gelli printed background that I glue onto the carton package (cut to size) and from there I start building my page. And when I feel like joining another challenge, I simply incorporate it with this recycled journal.

Teddy

This page was made for a challenge in the Miss Kate Cuttables Facebook group, which was to use at least one of her files and make something with the animal theme. This cute cat really spoke to me. In the PNG file the cat was grey, but it was easy to make him a ginger cat when cutting the parts with my Silhouette. Of course I had to use him with a photo of Teddy. This photo was taken short after Teddy came to my home.

Teddy_page

After the challenge expired I decided it wasn’t quite finnished yet, so I added some extra details until I was satisfied.

Some days I just made a bunch of backgrounds, that I could work on later. At this poing another project started: recycled coasters. I’ll come back to this in a later blogpost as there is a secret mission with these. Here’s a peek at some of these backgrounds.

A_bunch_of_collaged_backgrounds

 

The_art_of_smile_background

On Pinterest I collect quotes that appeal to me for whatever reason. I mostly save those I think will come in handy when I’m looking for words to add to my art journal pages. A lot of them are quite sarcastic. It’s my kind of humor. I think they go perfectly together with those women I got in a digital kit by Tumble Fish Studios.

The_art_of_smile

There’s a page about Teddy’s Easter shoot. On this page I used the most adorable easter washi tape by Hema (Dutch brand) and an image by Miss Kate Cuttables.

IMG_1795

Sometimes I just go through my stash with ephemera and use what appeals to me. Like this image transfer of a foal that I did years ago as a first try before doing an image transfer on a large page. It was in my stash all these years and now I found a good place for it.

Foal_and_butterfly

With my new stencil by Dina Wakley I created this background.

Your_are_good

And it resulted in this page. The colours may look different, but that’s because I took the first photo in the light of a lamp. The stamp is of the Scribble Girlies set by Dina Wakley. You’d think I get sponsored, but nope, I’m just in love with her gorgeous creations and a big fan of her art. Her books are really amazing, wheather you’re new to art journaling and mixed media or have been doing it for years.

Your_are_good-2

Alright. Well, I’m going to finish this post now. Otherwise there’ll be too much graphics which will make the page slow to load and we don’t want that to happen. I have plenty more to share and am making new stuff on a daily base, so don’t forget to subscribe as a follower to this page or to check and see if there’s any new stuff up. Like always, I’m giving a shout out on my social media when a new page is up, but I’m very much aware that not everyone gets to see my new messages due to Facebooks ever anoying algorythms.

As I’m finishing this writing, Teddy is getting very impatient. It’s an hour past his feeding time and he’s making clear he’s very hungry. Depeninding on what part of the world you’re in, have a great day or goodnight (it’s goodnight at my part of the world).

Much love!

04 February 2017

Sketch A Day

Practice makes perfect, or so they say. I’m not too sure about the perfect part of this saying, but one thing’s for sure: practice makes better! If you want to learn something, you need to practice on a regularly basis. So when I saw the #sketchaday event on Instagram, I thought it would be great to join to see if I could make this into a daily routine. My goal was not to finish a sketch or drawing every day, but to sketch something, anything, everyday for at least 10 minutes. It’s been a fantastic experience and I love it so much. Because of the 10 minute time limit, I don’t have to feel guilty if 10 minutes is all I manage to force myself to work in my sketchbook. And even the sketchbook isn’t a necessity. One day I just grabbed a piece of paper from my art trolly (you know, the fabulous Raskog one by Ikea). I needed something for my art journal and started a sketch of a squirrel on a piece of scrap paper. I’ll add a short video of the finished art journal spread in this post too.

Alpaca

This art practice is so easy to fit in your daily schedule. You only need paper, a pencil and for your convenience an eraser. So, when I had an appointment for a full checkup on my wheelchair, I took the essentials with me and made this sketch of an alpaca. Or is it a lama. I always find it hard to tell the difference.

Baby_squirrel_01

This is the squirrel I made for my art journal.

Baby_Fox_01  Baby_Fox_02

Like I mentioned before, I didn’t intend to finish a sketch every day. This cute little fox baby was done in two days. I had to find some YouTube tutorials on how to draw fur. Once you know the trick, it’s actually not that hard at all. I’m very pleased with the end result.

Polarbear_01  Polarbear_02

This polar bear cub was also done in two days. I love how his expression changed once I added more details. It was quite a challenge to add the texture of the fur, but still give the bear a white appearance

Hedgehogs_01  Hedgehogs_02

The inspiration for this hedgehog mum and baby came from a periscope of someone showing her pet hedgie. I’m totally in love and want a hedgehog for as a pet myself now. I’m realistic though, so I’ll just keep drooling over these cute pictures and videos I see on the internet. My cat isn’t even an adult yet and I’m very happy to have him in my life and take good care of him. The spines on these hedgies may look difficult, but they are just a bunch of V shapes. What I also love about those two photos next to eachother, is how you can see the difference between the first raw lines and the final drawing. Every piece of art has it’s ugly stage and you just have to keep going to make it look better. When I’m drawing sketches, the ugly stage is right at the start and when I see what’s on my paper, I’d rather tear it out of my sketchbook, because how could I ever make that into something not ugly? But as you can see, I kept going, adding details and texture and in the end it’s not that bad at all. And even if the end result isn't what you desire, it’ll still be useful as you always learn from the things you practiced.

Face

And there she is. I really love this hype of making beautiful faces. And as the incredibly talented Dina Wakley says, if you want to learn to draw faces, just go for it. Draw or paint a face for 100 days and you’ll see the amazing improvement between your first face and your 100th. For now, my faces are quite okay. They’re not perfect, but I kind of like them. The real struggle starts when I want to add hair to my girls. I ruin every face sketch as soon as I give her hair. It’s very clear what I need to focus to get better, but I really don’t want to keep drawing nice faces and then ruining them every time. So I thought of a solution. I’ll make a sheet on my computer with just six times this face, print out a bunch of those sheets so I can focus on practicing the hair.

Here’s a short video to show you the spread in my Gelli Printed art journal on which I used the squirrel sketch.

Well, that’s it for now. I’ve already started a new sketch, starring my darling red furr ball, also known as Teddy. So make sure to follow me or check this blog regularly. I always announce a new blogpost on Instagram and Facebook, but that last one doesn’t like me a lot, because it’s algorithm makes my post disappear for most of my FB friends. Instagram is way more reliable. And of course there’s also the following option from Blogger, which you can find in the side bar. Have a great weekend and don’t forget to make some art or anything creative. It’s good for your mind, body and soul!

03 January 2017

New Beginnings – An Art Journal Page – Happy New Year

First of all, I’d like to wish you all a Happy New Year. May it be a good one for you and your loved ones and may it be filled with fun, joy, health and happiness!! If you have a creative spirit like me, I hope this year will be filled with creativity and you’ll improve your skills and keep enjoying the process of creating!

Happy_New_Year

Finally I can show you a page I’ve been working on first half of December. It was part of a secret surprise project, we made with a bunch of women for someone that has been given a lot to us these past six years, but now decided to stop her business and spend more time with her family. About fourty women made a page on a A5 sized piece of paper/cardstock and one lady put the hole bunch together and made it into a great gift box.

I’ve shared some sneak peaks on social media, because I did want to share what I had been working on, but still needed to prevent the surprise from being spoiled. I think she must have seen all the pages by now, since she received the present last Friday, so I think it’s safe to share my page now.

Because of the sneak peaks, I’ve made quite some detail shots of the page. I’m happy I got those shots so I can show you all the details on this page. Many layers of yumminess. I tried some new techniques, new bought products and worked on it for several days, because I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to make and there was a deadline, so I just needed to start. And you know what, often that’s the best approach, just starting and looking what next to add when the page evolves. And as the great Dina Wakley always says: “it’s just paper and they’ll have more of it!”

New_Beginning_detail_01

This is the first detailed photo I shared on social media. Don’t you just love all that texture! I started by making marks into the wet gesso with the back of a brush. It was quite a thick coat, so I left it to dry overnight. The next day I added some pretty shades of blue with a babywipe. I did some background stamping, some reversed stencilling (Dina Wakley inspired), I stencilled some white paint through a piece of punchinella. I stamped some stars which I bought at Hema (Dutch store) in a pack of Christmas stamps and embossed them with golden Wow embossing powder. I now know why they called their brand “Wow”, because that was exactly what I said when I melted the powder. I added splatters of golden ink by Winsor and Newton and some black splatters with Liquitex acrylic ink.

New_Beginning_detail

Another detail shot. I found a quote about new beginnings using Google and typed the text on my vintage typewriter. It was such a lucky find! It only cost me 17 euros. A year later I saw those new vintage like typewriters by We Are Memorykeepers being sold for 200 dollars! So, please first visit some thrift stores or something like that, because those oldies really just work fine and you can still buy the ink ribbons online. They were made back in the days where manufacturers thought their products should last forever. I traced the outside of the cut out text with a black Micron pen. With a black Fudeball pen, I wrote down the text “Here’s to new beginnings” at the side of the collaged woman.

New_Beginning_angle

As you can see in this photo, I did some collage with bookpaper and a piece of Gelli printed paper, which I ran through my sewing machine before adhering it to the page. I added a piece of washi tape to make the figurine stand on something and wrote a quote under the washi tape saying “the best is yet to come”.

New_Beginning

And finally, here’s the whole page! To make the page more personal, I decided to use a photo of her. I turned her into a smashing looking royal lady. The body parts are from a digital collection kit by Tumble Fish Studios. I doodled on it for some extra texture, because it was looking too flat without the decoration. The white marks are done with a Signo Uniball Broad (the best white pen you can get!) and the other colours are done with my Molotov markers.

Stay tuned, because I have a lot more in store to share with you, as I’ve been very busy during December and I have photos of my projects and adventures to show you!

31 December 2016

Pink Floyd and Queen – Top 2000 Blog Party

There we go. This is my last blogpost for 2016. Outside there’s already quite some fireworks and my Teddy, my eight month cat, has reached the point where he doesn’t like the banging anymore. He’s hiding under my bed or under the couch. Poor little thing. It will get so much louder than this.

With the last day of the year, we have also come to the last day of the Top 2000 series on the radio and thus this is also the final day of Marit’s Top 2000 Blog Party. A little sad on one side, but on the other side, I’ve been so bussy those last couple of months, it would be good for body and mind to take it a little slower. Although I had planned to make a December Memories Album (in stead of a December Daily, which I tried two times and failed both years). I have taken tons of photos, but I haven’t touched my scrapbook supplies at all yet. And I know if I don’t start it soon, it will be another December soon and another project failed. So, maybe january will be for massive photo editing, so I can have all the pictures printed.

Back to the Top 2000 Blog Party. I had a lot of trouble finding a song that I could work out into an art piece. These top of the list songs are all very beautiful and a lot about love and life. Not the topics that I find easy to translate into image. Finally I made my choice for Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”. I carved a diamond stamp and with that I, at least, managed to carve one stamp for the #carvedecember event on Instagram. The picture doesn’t show it very well, but the blue paint on the diamond has real sparkles, just like the blue washi tape and the golden harlequin shapes I added with a stencil by The Crafters Workshop.

Shine_On_You_Crazy_Diamond

20: Shine On You Crazy Diamond – Pink Floyd (31st December 2016, 9:45 PM)

 

And this one, you might have seen before, if you are a regular visitor of my blog. I made this about a year ago, but never submitted it for the Top 2000 Blog Party, so I thought I might as well add it now. The background was made following the techniques in Kate Crane’s DVD’s. The collage elements are from Tumble Fish Studios.

Show_Must_Go_On

171: The Show Must Go On – Queen (31st December 2016, 7:30 AM)

 

 

I’m going to wish you a splendid New Year’s Eve (if you haven’t already entered 2017) and have a happy, healthy and artful 2017!!!!

30 December 2016

99 Luftballons & Not An Addict – Top 2000 Blog Party

While I thought this was going to be a great year for joining the Top 2000 Blog Party, because this would be the first year I would spend the days around Christmas and New Year’s eve at home. And so I thought I would have all the time to join this creative party, while listening to all those great songs on the radio. Boy, was I wrong about that! Yes, I am home. That part goes very well. The thing I didn’t think of, were all these appointments I had during these weeks. And all the shopping that needed to be done. I had too many plans this year and thus I seem to be rushing from one thing to another. And I’m happy if I can squeeze in some time to actually make art. So, that’s why this blogpost about today’s played songs, is appearing at the end of the day. Sigh. Time goes so fast! Can you believe tomorrow is the last day of 2016 already?

About the songs and art. I managed to make one spread in my art journal. And since we can send in two art pieces a day, I chose a photo I made. I had two artists to choose from, because I photographed at two of today’s played artist’s gigs. Eventually I went for a photo I never published before (it was still waiting to be post processed).

The first layer of the background of my art journal spread was done with a small Gelli plate. I stamped the clouds with a homemade foam stamp for which I also used the Gelli plate. The air balloons are a stamp I carved quite some years ago. I tried to clear emboss them, but every black ink I own, didn’t keep wet long enough, so the embossing only partially worked. Maybe the paper I used was just soaking up the ink too much. I coloured them with watercolour pencils and went over them with a clear Tombow brush pen. I also added some stencilling to the background using a stencil by Carabelle Studio and a piece of punchinella. I used distress ink (peacock feather). I added some background stamping with a Christy Tomlinson stamp and dark blue Archival ink. Finally some scribbles with a regular pencil and the title stamped with different kinds of stamp sets. And of course it didn’t feel finished without some white splattering. I finally found out how to do splattering with my Posca marker!

 

99_Luftballons

439: 99  Luftballons – Nena (30th December 2016, 8:46 AM)

Ks_Choice_03

431: Not An Addict– K’s Choice (30th December 2016, 9:31AM)

28 December 2016

Jesus He Knows Me – Top 2000 Blog Party

It’s another day for the Top 2000. I’m enjoying to hear all those songs radio stations hardly every play in their regular shows. Many of my favourites have already been played and I’m looking forward to some other. Again, I’ve made an art journal page to one of the songs. This is not necesarry my most favourite song. I just looked at the list if I could find a song that I could translate into an art piece. What I do like about this Genesis song, is that it’s about fake religion. I know at the time it was a lot about those telly preachers that earned way too much money for the job they did and how most of them were pure hypocrits. This was a time when in my country we didn’t have those television preachers (yet), but I had seen some documentary kind of things and thought it was appalling. However, if I translate the song a little, I can really find myself in it, being exposed to a life in which G_d and religion was abused by itself. A life I don’t like to talk about and to be honest, I think it would shock you too much, which I don’t want to happen. Perhaps one day I will be ready to tell my story, but I promiss, it won’t be on this blog. I like to keep it light here.

So, here’s to day 5 already. Time goes way to quickly!

Jesus_he_knows_me

817: Jesus He Knows Me – Genesis (29th December 2016, 3:17 AM)

 

27 December 2016

Little Red Rooster – Top 2000 Blog Party

It’s that time of year again. The annual Top 2000, hosted on Dutch public radio. It’s a list of the best 2000 songs ever. Of course that fluctuates every year, as previous to this event everybody is able to vote their top 5. The event takes a whole week between Christmas and New Year’s eve and every song on the list is played in it’s full length. A lot of people look forward to this. Marit Barentsen from Marit’s Paper World makes this even a bigger party by hosting a Top 2000 Blog Party, which is a mix of music and art. For many years this is a big succes and every year more artists join the fun. Follow the links to her site, to learn more about this.

The Top 2000 has already started a couple of days ago, but this is my first entry for this year. Stay tuned, as I will be making more!

Little_red_rooster

1024: Little Red Rooster – The Rolling Stones (28th December 2016, 11:26 AM)

27 November 2016

A 15 Minutes Page And A Colourful Owl

Hello friends! I hope you are having a great weekend. Yesterday was a bit of an off-day for me, but today I feel good. And I’m determined to finally give my project Midori a new try. I’ve watched a ton of videos on YouTube and I think I’m ready. Before I head to my art room, I would like to share some art journal pages with you. I’ve mentioned the #sisterswithheartinart project on Instagram before and both these pages were made after their new prompts.

The first one was to make an entire page in 15 minutes. I am a slow worker, so this really was a challenge for me. I decided to use my A6 size journal, so my pages would be small enough to fill in an hour. I spread some paint with baby wipes. I love using them to layer a first coat of paint on my paper. You need a small amount of paint and the moist wipes makes it easy to spread the paint in a thin layer. It also works great for blending, which I did with a second colour. I started with bright yellow and added some orange from the edges towards the center. Thin layers speed up drying time, which is very usefull when only having 15 minutes to make a page. I used a stencil by The Crafters Workshop together with a make-up sponge and a red acrylic paint. At this point, I layed my journal aside to dry and moved on with the focal image. I drew a bunch of whimsical animals in Juliette Crane’s online workshop, which I scanned into my computer and printed out a several times, so I always have them at hand when I want to use them. They’re kind of my home made digital stamps now. I chose one of the animals and coloured it in with coloured pencils (Koh-i-Nor, not the best quality, but a good alternative when you can’t affor the fancy pencils by Prisma or Derwent). Usually I take my time for colouring, but time was not my friend with this project. Only 5 minutes to go. I quickly layered some colours on top of each other. Only 30 seconds to cut and adhere. I like to be very precise when I fussy cut an image, but there was no time for that, so I quickly cut around the image, leaving a small white border. I adhered it to the page using a glue stick. Times up! So…I cheated a bit and took another 30 seconds to write down some journaling.

I have to say this prompt was very educative for me. Normally I tend to overthink everything too much and you don’t have time for that with this prompt. I think it’s a good exercise for us overthinkers to practise every once and a while.

15_Minutes

Another week’s prompt was to create a cartoonish owl. Those of you who know me for a while, know I am a big owl lover. No surprise I was very happy with this prompt. As a warm up, I started sketching some owls in my sketchbook.

owls-sketch

I chose the top right owl for my project and decided to work in my watercolour journal. I made this journal as an insert for my Midori style Travelers Notebook, that I have yet to make. It’s A5 size. I had a lot of fun mixing and blending all the colours, even though my skills are pretty lousy. Well, you need to practice to get better, right. I used Van Gogh watercolours, which is a student grade. I won’t buy any fancy watercolours until my skills have improved enough to be worth artist grade paints. Sometimes I do treat myself to a new colour, but always the student grade. I must say these Van Gogh watercolours are pretty good quality.

When I was done painting and let the page dry overnight, I started to add some texture to the owl with some coloured pencils. Also I went over the lines with a black brush pen (Faber Castel) and gave him eyelids with a small tip fineliner (Micron). It looked nice, but it was too clean to my liking, so I added a couple of background stamps with Archival ink. Finally I marked a small border with a black inktense pencil and called it done.

Owl

I hope you enjoyed today’s post and see you back next time. Have a great day!

16 November 2016

How To Make Marbled Background Paper – The Easy Way

Don’t you just love the effect of marbled paper? I sure do! Back in the days at college, I learned how to do it, but it was a lot of fuss and the results weren’t very satisfying. And most of all, it definitely wasn’t a project to do at home, unless you had a lot of room and didn’t mind to clean the hot mess. Well, I’ve got good news for you. All you need is shaving cream and something like liquid watercolour. In my instruction video I’m using Dylusions ink sprays, but there are all kind of products at the market you can use. You can even dilute acrylic paints with water. I just thought it would be fun to use my Dylusions in a different way than just spraying on paper.

The picture below is a collage of all the papers I created. They make great backgrounds for all kind of projects.

Dylusions_background_collage

Here’s an example of a digital Project Life card I made, using one of the backgrounds. I just scanned it to my computer, transfered it to my iPhone and used an editing app by Rhonna Farrer. Feel free to download this card and use it in your projects. If you want to share this card, please send people to my blog so they can download it here.

PL_Christmas_01

When I needed a quick thank you card, I made one using another background.

IMG_8829

I hope you’ll give this technique a try. Maybe you can even make it into a creative afternoon with your kids. I’m sure they’ll love it!

 

For this project you will need:

- Dylusions spray ink (or any other ink)
- shaving cream
- kitchen roll / paper towels
- skewer
- something to spread the shaving cream (think baking supplies)

Optional:
- wear disposable gloves to protect your hands from staining
- cover your working surface with a plastic bag

 

Have a great day and see you back soon!