Seth Apter Tag 5

Time for another sample tag, this time we are going metallic. I started by scraping Grunge paste randomly over the card and then using Seth Apter's bubble wrap stamp and French text stamp I created texture into the paste. 

Once dry I added Turquoise, White Fire, Gold and Copper Fresco paints. 

 

Then I added Violet Storms and Are you Cerise Infusions, I spritzed them with water and allowed them to drip down the tag. 

The sheen is subtle as you look at the tag but titled on one side it really shines. 

Next some stencilling from Seth's inside out stencil. 

 ...and some stamped wings from my stamp EDY17 the Robo star die cuts are painted with Baltic blue and Zucchini and turquoise mixed with Gold.

As I was merrily die cutting, my floor became covered in bits of card that came out of the dies, it looked like confetti.. I especially liked the shape of these bits that came from the Splatter Proof die. I painted them with Pewter. 

I am calling these bits die cut debris!

and glued them on between the other elements. 

Some detailing with black and white pens and its all done. 

Darcy x

New Journal..

My friend Miriam found some cheap journals recently and very kindly sent one to me, we have decided to do paired journals. We each do a page in our own journal and then swap  and work in each other's journals and then swap again and so on.. 

So to start with i decorated my covers, using Grunge Paste through stencils, painting this black and then using 2 coats of Glossy medium to seal and protect. 

The pages in this journal are very thin, so I have gone right though the whole book glueing pages together in pairs. Although this cuts the page numbers down by half it does mean you have thicker pages to work on, very helpful when using wet media. 

So here is the first page done by me.. I began by scraping layers of Fresco paint. 

Then adding black, more white and then brighter translucent colours. 

More black, and some portfolio crayons, also some white dots in the black areas. 

I love all these layers

I then sketched out my focal design and whited it out. 

Added in some underpainting. 

I also added some texture , using Grunge Paste on the mushroom tops and on the stalks. 

I added shading with paints and once dry I added more shading with coloured pencils.

The last shading was around everything with Stabilo pencils. 

I added the text.. 

I think this might be my favourite area, love the layers and bits of texture,

This now needs sending off to Miriam so she can do the next page, can't wait to see what she does. 

Darcy x

Lots of Texture

Another sample from my Feb stamp release, love the texture on this one. I began with a 5x7 card and covered this with Grunge Paste thru a stencil. 

I then started to add paint in layers, first Tango, then Cherry Red then Baltic Blue. Next a layer of Snowflake, then Smurf. Once these were dry I rubbed back with a babywipe to reveal the layers of colour. 

The numbers were stencilled with Baltic Blue and then bumped with Snowflake. 

I painted card with Baltic Blue, then added Crackle Glaze and then Snowflake. I like to always rub back the crackling a little to distress it. 

Next I stamped the spikey flower from EDY18. I cut these out and mounted them onto stiff black card. 

Because the black card is stiff I was able to curl up the ends of the petals, adding great dimension. I also added orange buttons to the centres. 

To finish, the flowers were added to the card, some flat and some on foam pads to add extra height  and the text was stamped over Cherry Red. 

I just love the height achieved on these, I wish i had thought to add another layer of petals to make them more like water lillies... ah well, next time..

Check out your favourite PaperArtsy retailer to fnd these stamps on sale. 

Darcy x

Tilly Tomato Head

You may remember on launch night I challenged Lauren Hatwell to create a funny character using my stamps. I made one too, it was a lot of fun. Here is the tomato girl that I made. 

I started with a large tag and coloured it with black gesso. Then using my new stencil PS030 I used the random edge and a white posca pen to create this wonky chequerboard. 

I then used China Fresco to colour alternate areas. 

using red and black posca pens I added the border. 

Using my circle stencil PS031 I added circles of grunge paste to the blue squares. While the paste was still damp I scratched lines into each circle using a cocktail stick. Once dry I painted over the paste with more China and then added Treasure Gold. 

Now to create Tilly.. 

Her eyes are the centre of the Poppy from EDY19. 

Her mouth is half of a dotty circle from EDY17

Her hair is shaded lines from the centre of the frilly flower on EDY18

Once these were in place I drew around them to make the edges of the face and then painted her. 

Her body is the flower head from EDY17

The wings are half of the wings from EDY17

The skirt is the large frilly flower from EDY18

The button is a texture circle from EDY19

Her legs and shoes are the spikey grasses from EDY18

I just love how she turned out. I added text taken from 2 quotes, I felt she was a little wild lol

Why don't you grab some of your stamps and see what crazy character you can come up with. 

Darcy x

Liquid Sculpted Tags

This evening I am on the PaperArtsy blog with some experiments that I conducted on 5 tags using different mediums to stiffen fabric. 

The results are very interesting, please do pop over to the PaperArtsy blog and check out each of the tags. 

Darcy x

Big Hair

Well I had to... 

Meet Kala, my latest big haired girl. This time I wanted a different look, so I have tried a much darker skin tone. I started as always with a pencil sketch on heavy smoothy. 

I began with regular skin tones, and didn't get very far before I knew I just didn't want to do the same old regular pink tones. 

So I darkened my pallette, and introduced Brown Shed, Chocolate Pudding, Toffee, Nougat, Caramel, Green Olives..  plus a quick wash in the hair. 

Next I started adding colours to the hair, starting with black, I also adding Chocolate, and French Roast. 

The eyes are done with Chocolate Pudding, Caramel, Green Olives, Toffee, Nougat, Black. 

I also mixed some tar gel with French Roast and drizzled this over the hair, this turned out to be such a fantastic texture for the hair. 

Now for the background I applied Grunge Paste through my new stencil PS031. 

After adding some Treasure Gold over the dried tar gel, the hair looks so good. Using the centre of my new frilly flower I created a bindi.

More Grunge Paste down the sides, using the circle border from PS031. 

Now for some punchy background colours. I started with Captain Peacock. 

I also painted some card with Chartreuse and Green Olives, on this I stamped the leaves from EDY19, cut them out and added them to the base of the hair bun. 

more shading to the background, the outer area had some Caribbean Sea and Inky Pool added to it. The diamond shape is Eggplant, Bougainvillea and Cherry Red. 

Some Treasure Gold over all the grunge paste stencilled bits. 

I stamped the Popy flower from EDY19 onto purple card, cut out the petals and created this tiara. 

On Bougainvillea painted card I stamped the spikey flower from EDY18, layering the petals to creat a double  half flower for the hair. 

Here are the pink flowers in place, the nose has been shaded and the mouth is painted in Claret and Eggplant . The little necklace is the tall spikey grass stamp from EDY18.

I stencilled the butterfly from PS029 onto card using  Lavender, Glss Blue, CAribbean Sea and Bougainvillea, this was cut out and the wings cut apart so that a bridge piece could be added. I stamped the tall spikey grasses and added those as a handle. 

Using the same stencil I created 2 small butterflies, adding the veins with a black pen. 

Here she is finished, it did seem a shame to cover her pretty face, but I really wanted to create a butterfly mask. 

Because I didn't want to cover her face completely, I only stuck the butterfly down on one side, leaving the other sticking up. 

I do love this face.. 

Hope you like her. 

Darcy x