Tiny Teabag Sketches

As I had amassed a bagful of tea bags, I decided to do some tiny animal sketches. They are so quick and easy to do. All I used were Derwent charcoal pencils and a little gesso. 

Charcoal is very smudgey and as such very forgiving, you don't need to be very neat or accurate.. 

I mounted each onto a piece of neutral/beige card. 

and wrote the sentiment on a piece of old book page..( I use the centre text of pages for collage but I keep the plain margins from book pages to write sentiments or stamp text.. )

I used a fountain pen for this but you could stamp your text. 

Then I mounted each animal and sentiment onto a card blank, 

They really don't need anything else, I guess this is my way of doing CAS, something I find impossible in paint. 

I really like them, they are sweet, and with a simple 'hello' greeting they can be used for any occasion. 

Darcy 

Journal swap

Time for another page in Miriam's journal, as you know we are swapping our journals back and forth, taking turns to work in each one. 

This time Miriam asked me to do a page of things that i love.. Well there are so many lol but i narrowed the choices down to 7 things. 

Giraffes

The colour red

Cakes

Books

Music

French (well any languages or text really, just love alphabets and words)

Paint/art

So a weird combination, now how to get them all on a page. 

I began with two old colours, I have several discontinued paints that I am tyiing to use up, just to free up space, so i use them when I can. 

Jade and Ice Blue, sponged on. 

Seth Apter French text stamped in Garden Patina Archival ink. This is becoming my fave background stamp. 

I then sketched out a pile of books and a cupcake. I began to fill them in using paper piecing. All papers used are old bits of painted and embosssed papers. Don't you just love using up old scraps. 

For the edges of the books where you would see the paper, I used actual old book paper, it has a lovely creamy colour. The lines were added using a Stabilo fineliner. 

Here are all the books in place, they still need some shading. 

The cupcake is done in the same way. 

For my love of text and languages I have added some Jofy alpha stamps. The reason I chose French is that I am currently doing a refresher course in French.

On the other half of the page I sketched out my giraffe. 

For the paint/art element I added this paintbrush stamp from EA03

I then added the music element using tiny musical notes down the centre of the page. 

Now to add some paint, Nougat, Caramel, Toffee, Chocolate Pudding, French roast. 

More paint, more blending. 

 Here it is once all the paint had  been added, note I brought in the red element by adding red paint drops off the brush. 

I then refined and blended the giraffe using Prisma pencils. 

Here is the finished page. 

Darcy x

Giraffe name??

For those wanting to know the outcome of the 'name the giraffe' competition.

It was announced on the PaperArtsy blog IN THIS POST...

Well done to the winner.

HIS NAME IS COLIN

Here are some more photos for you or our day trip...

first, packing him safely in the back of the car, he wouldn't fit in the boot.

and here's me carrying him around the farm....

making a few friends...

though several new friends tried to eat him...

but we made it onto the next field  in one piece, 

and then had a wander through the stables, having a nosey at the machines..

We had a look at some eggs in an incubator..

Colin was concerned he would get his spots sheared off if we stayed too long....

So we went off to the beach...

Darcy & Colin. x

Guest Blogging for PaperArtsy July project 4

This is my last project for this month, and has been a total labour of love to make. I have shown snippets of 'him' in progress over the past 3 months and I know many of you have been waiting to see the finished piece.

So here he is...

if you want to see how I made him...there are 2 short videos... then head over to the PAPERARTSY BLOG...

A key spool..

Yesterday the guest designer on the PaperArtsy blog was France Charles, she came up with a super nifty little way to make a key fob. It was so cute i just had to make one. 

She even made a little video showing how to make it, check out her video in THIS BLOG POST..

So here is the one I made. 

I painted my spool with PaperArtsy Fresco paint. 

London Bus.. Blood Orange..French Roast.. Stone

I used black archival ink to stamp a giraffe ( sent by the lovely DEDE...) and some text onto a piece of card, this was also coloured with fresco paint. 

The text reads ' free your soul' and is from Artistic Stamper, (designed by my lovely friend Donna )

The fibres are old and from my stash, except for the red one with the text on it. That is a piece of seam binding, dipped in fresco paint then heat set. Once dry i stamped it with archival ink and a text stamp from PaperArtsy. I used the same text stamp on the 2 flat ends of the spool. 

I stamped the giraffe onto shrink plastic and heat set that till it was teeny tiny. I coloured it with a smear of fresco and then added a layer of glossy accents. 

Around the main body of the spool I added a little cotton yarn, and some black stickles.

it was really fun to make and was tremendously helpful in my quest to procrastinate and not do any of the work that I was meant to get finished last night lol

Fun with Skin Tones

 I decided to challenge myself to make a picture using just the FLEXMARKER skin tone sets   These are great sets and if you are worried about picking out skin tones then these sets do all the work for you. 

So what could I do with such a limited colour scheme. There is an African theme going on this month so I decided to go with that..

I collaborated with a fellow artist, Jay the Viking and came up with this drawing of a giraffe girl. I inked the image using my LETRASET FINELINERS

I asked Jay to draw out an initial sketch of a girl that looked like a giraffe. I was really pushed for time and just needed some proportions and placements working out, as that is the bit I struggle with.

 So here is the sketch that Jay drew on the right... and on the left is the one I drew, changed up to be more my style. 

I then started to blend and layer the skin tones. 

and more layering and blending..

Before I started I made a photocopy of the inked drawing, I can't stress enough how handy this is. Use the spare copy for working out your colours and layers. Even if you are just stamping, take time to stamp a spare image to try out your colours. Markers are unforgiving and it is heartbreaking to get part way through a project only to mess it up by using the wrong colour. 

This is my spare copy, with extra spots and extra mouths, you can see where I tried different colours. 

Each time I was happy with a colour I used it on the main image..

I continued this system of trying out the colours,making decisions and filling in the main image till all the colouring was done. 

Next I needed to do something with the background. I wanted to make the image really pop, so I decided to do a green wash. However I didn't want to just colour with Flexmarkers around the giraffe girl, I felt this would look flat. So I used AQUAMARKERS to scribble on a craft sheet. I spritzed this with water.

I then dragged a second piece of card through the wet ink. This gives a lovely marbled blend of colours. To add a little texture I dabbed the craft sheet onto the card several times, once lifted it leaves behind these marks. 

Finally I cut out the giraffe girl and glued her onto the green background. 

I hope this has given you some inspiration. Why not try making something with a limited colour selection. You might be surprised at what you can make with just a few colours. 

GIVEAWAY TIME

This month I have a pack of skintones to give away, they are set number 2 . They are the darker of the two sets, but ideal for creating all kinds of skin tones from Caucasian to African-American.

To win as usual I ask you to do TWO things for me. 

1. Go to my post over on the Letraset blog and leave a comment.... GO HERE...

2. Come back here and add your name to the linky list. Only names in this list will be entered.