Michelle’s Art Adventures

This month we are thinking about Shapes for the Green Pepper Press Street Team Crusade. While I don’t have Michelle’s collection of circle punches, I do have a two, as well as a Fiskars cutter with circle templates, so that seemed like a good place to start.

I covered a new spread with Gesso, let dry in the sun while I was pulling out all my circle things, then added a layer of red paint. Once this was dry, I used one circle as a mask and painted black around it, giving me a negative, red circle. Then I used an old bottle lid to “stamp” some circles. It was going to be some random circles but became more like a patterned border. The lid was from a medication bottle and had the “push down and turn” bit inside the lid, giving it two circles at once.

Work in Progress

I then did a rough lay out of the circles I had cut and punched. I took a photo of it, so I could remember where everything was, then ran the small circles through the Xyron so they were easy to stick on. I added the larger circles with glue stick, closed the book and left it to dry.

My plan was to then add some detail, as Michelle had done, but my white pen has dried up. I tried stamping a circle with white ink, but didn’t like it, so I rubbed it off (just as well I did that Gesso layer, it came of really easily). I was also going to add buttons but didn’t want to add too much bulk to the spread. After eliminating the possibilities, I decided it was finished.

Circles Layout

Here is some detail:

Detail 1

Detail 2 - Top Border

I’m planning to have some time this week to experiment with a more complex shape. I bought a Pazzles cutter last year and have barely used it. It will be able to do all sorts of shapes and sizes, I just need practice using it so it’s not so scary.

Thanks again to Michelle for another great crusade.

Happy creating,

Michelle