GPP Crusade No. 44 – In a Scrape

In a Scrape is the challenge over at Michelle Ward‘s Street Team Crusade this month. And I faced this challenge with excitement – I’ve done something a bit like this before, so it isn’t as scary as some of Michelle’s past challenges (see Strip Ease and Pulling Prints, not to mention the ones I didn’t complete).

I started by tearing various text pages into squares (using a ruler) and sticking them onto an art journal spread using a glue stick.

Then I started the paint scraping. I had an idea in my mind so I began with light blue and put the paint directly onto the credit card. I started at the top fo the page, then lifted the card when I was half way down the page. I was going for a fading effect.

Then I added brown across the bottom.

I continues with a few layers of light blue and then a few of straight white, starting from the brown section up to try and enhance the fading. The white also took away some of the darkness in the brown.

I wasn’t happy with the blue contrasting, so I added two darker shades of blue across the top. I was very careful to make sure I only added a little at a time.

To blend these in, I added more light blue and white.

And I was finally happy with the overall results. I love this method as the print dries really quickly (even in the cold weather) so it is easy to add lots of layers in a short amount of time.

To finish off the piece, I created a stencil from a photo I had taken and printed on plain paper. After mixing up some grey paint, I sponged on the trees (no paint brush here!)

To create the layers and depth of the trees, I added more black paint into the grey, adding more trees until I was out of room. I also used the negative stencil but didn’t like that effect as much as the positive stencil trees.

Here is more of the detail. You can still see the underlying text paper and the darker blue.

This is the photo I had in my mind while creating this layout.

This was taken at Lake Mulwala, New South Wales, where the Murry River has been dammed and is full of dead trees. It makes such an eerie sight, early in the morning, but the expanse of blue sky and the reflection was breathtaking. (Taken June 2010)

So that’s it for another month ~ thanks for getting to the end of the post. I would love for you to leave a comment, fellow Crusaders and general blog wanders alike.

Happy Creating,
Michelle

GPP Crusade No 36 – Braving the elements

The Green Pepper Press Crusade has returned for 2010 to Brave the Elements. Now these northern hemisphere girls are braving the cold of winter and thinking of snowflakes. Snowflakes!?! I think I may have seen snow once – brrrrr! too cold for me!

Here we are braving the summer elements; scorching hot sun, blustery northerly winds that dry your eyes out and still in the middle of a drought. And my Tomato Jungle is surviving in these conditions.

I had an absolute ball creating this today and am very pleased with the results. I think I have stuck to the one hour time frame, although not in all one sitting. Can you see the ripening tomatoes peeking out? They take so long to turn red, even in this heat. Here are some more of the details.

The stencils were cut from scrap paper, using a real tomato leave as a template. I had one that was much bigger but it was just too big for the layout. The tomatoes were stenciled using a 1″ hole punch to create that template.

The stenciling with gesso didn’t give much contrast and neither did the light green, but the dark green paint provided the best contrast against the background.

I’ll include some details on creating the background and the gesso resistance technique over at the Mixed Media Art site.

Thank you once again goes to Michelle Ward to helping us to rise to the challenge and sharing her passion for simple techniques that give stunning results! And for giving us a time frame! No excuses this time.

*smiles*

Michelle

GGP Crusade No.19 – Stencils

April’s GPP Street Team Crusade this month is Stencils; what fun! how easy! fantastic results! Here’s what I did.

1. Decided on a large flower, which can be used as a stencil and mask/template. As I’m doing more altered book layouts, I need bigger images than I had been using. I created one petal, folded in half to get symmetry. I then used this one to create seven in total. I stuck these to the back of my cutting mat with on/off tape. Each petal is about 2″, the whole flower, just over 6″ across.

2. Using a recycled beauty product box (knew it would come in handy for something!) I traced the flower onto the plastic sheet with a Sharpie pen, then cut out with a craft knife (didn’t even know you could get a “Stencil burning tool” until Michelle told us!) This gave me a stencil and a template for each petal. I numbered each petal and template so I could line them up later, if need be (I AM an engineer, remember, lol)

3. To use the stencil for a layout, I used chalk ink and a sponge to lay down the bottom layer onto a prepared page. Using each template, I cut out text and music and an old engineering maths book (oooh) and sponged one side with the same chalk ink. As the templates have writing on them, it made it easier to line up the petals, so the text or music would be straight in the final design. Stuck the petals on with Xyron. Added text “Stillness”, which was the theme from this morning’s meditations, a border and petal highlights with a Tombow pen.

There, all done! I’m pleased with the outcome; quite tranquil. I might add that the reason I’ve got so much time to create and meditate at present, is that my company is out on strike, so I’ve had lots of time on my hands.

Hope you find some time to create, and be still!

Michelle

[Editors Note: For more uses of this flower stencil, see Disappearing Act – Sept 2011]