Journey - Art journal page with tutorial

Hello friends,

Today I want to share with you all an art journal page with a step by step tutorial.  The last few days have been quite eventful, pushing me out of my comfort zone on many levels and I wanted to relax and internalise what had happened in order to make the right decisions. I also wanted to clear my head before making a project for the Colourarte Design team audition, so I took out my art journal and played with my current favourites - lace, metal, twinks, arte pigments. On finishing, it felt right to make this journal page my submission for the colourarte design team audition.

Its a rather long post as I have a step by step pictorial of how I made this page. Hope you enjoy.

 Step1: Cover the two sides with teal acrylic paint. Tear out the roses from a paper napkin and glue onto paper (with matt medium) once acrylic paint is completely dry.

Step 2: Add a piece of cotton tape and lace on the left side and some texture paste through a stencil. On the right side (ART stencil) mix sand texture with texture paste and apply. Sand texture has a grainy feel as opposed to the relatively smooth finish from texture paste.

 Step3: Add water to a pot of Chiffon pink twinkling H20. Don't wait too long, pick up a little bit of paint with a waterbrush and apply on the word ART in random places. On a craft mat, take a little Spiced pumpkin pigment and apply to the ART word and also the left side of the page.

 Step 4: The colour on the word ART takes time to dry as the paint seeps through the texture of the sand paste. Before its completely dry, using a brush apply gesso. The gesso will pull some of the colour from the word and create an interesting effect. I used heavy body gesso without any water, dragging the brush over and over again in order to give a white washed effect. Dry thoroughly. Dip your waterbrush into the pot of Chiffon pink twinkling H20, dab it onto a piece of plastic and press the paint side onto the page. The paint will flow in random ways, some areas with more paint, some with less, but overall give a beautiful effect.

Step 5: Glue on some more of the roses from the paper napkin. Dry it. Apply clear crackle paste in a few places on the page and create a layer of tea bag and lace on top of the wet paste on the left side. On the right side the screws were glued to the crackle paste as well. This is the most time consuming step as crackle medium takes a long time to dry. Using a heat tool will result in small or no cracks so patience it the key.

 Step 6: Now if the my favourite part of the page: glazing. Add a tiny (really tiny) amount of Cinnamon Brown pigment with glazing medium. How shiny and wonderful it looks - just like rust as shown in 6b. Apply with a flat brush on part of the page. Leave it for a few seconds, rub out the excess with a dry kitchen roll first and then with a wet wipe. Can you see the subtle colour in 6d compared to no colour in 6a. Heat set. Repeat if you want stronger colour.

 Step 7: Glue down die cuts on the left and stamp with archival ink. Repeat the glazing process with teal acrylic and with pink acrylic. Here you can see teal acrylic paint mixed with glazing medium applied to a few random places on the page. After this I wiped it back just as described in Step 6.

Here is a look at the final page again.

Finishing touches include splatter of brown glaze and pink glaze and some glass glitter and beads around the lady silhouette. You can see it better in this close up.

Thank you dear friends for reading through my post, I hope you liked it, do leave me a comment if you did.

Cheers,

Kripa

Shabby Art journal Cover

I'm enjoying trying different forms of scrapbooking off late. Earlier this year, I dabbled with grunge Finnabair style altered paintbrush, then tried my hand at a more traditional painting style journal page and I was raring to experiment and try something more. So, this month, I combined three moodboard / inspiration cues and the versatile colourarte products to create something in a completely different style.

More than words challenge blog inspiration word is Bliss. To me this means creating with my favourite products - gesso, texture paste, lace and soft colours. 

The next criteria I chose to include is a key from the challenge at Scrapki Wyzwaniowo - March Challenge - Keys and decided to finally alter the cover of my art journal the key symbolizing answers to life's questions (which is usually what I journal about in this book). And finally, this gorgeous moodboard from Prima marketing, which also features lace and soft colours.

So goes the story of this altered journal which started as layers of pretty Prima marketing papers (Butterfly collection), lace, resin pieces and metal held by brads. All of it was covered with clear gesso to prepare for the next layer of twinkling H2O paints by colourarte - chiffon pink, summer breeze, buttercup and the tiniest bit of bashful  blue .

In order to get a delicate hint of pink in the texture paste, dab chiffon pink twinkling H2O with a waterbrush onto the stencil, then place the stencil on the background and pull texture paste through it. The colour gets trapped in the texture paste giving soft hints of pink in random places. Some texture paste remains white, some areas get more colour, some less depending on how much paint was dabbed on the stencil.

When everything is dry, run some gold paint only on a raised areas with a dry brush and a very light hand. The raised edges of the lace flower, some texture paste will catch the gold and give a sharp, shiny colour in contrast to the soft pastel colours. You can see this better in this close up which also shows some of the mica which only shines when it catches light.

 I've had my fair share of fun this long weekend and so excited there are two more days to go and hopefully some more time to create and blog. Thank you for visiting me today my friend.

Cheers,

Kripa

An art journal page - Freedom is a state of mind

Today I'm sharing my first painting of sorts in a very long time. I prefer to call it an art journal page as its still quite abstract in style. Ive been super scared of painting since school days, specially acrylic paints, so this piece was a breakthrough for me.

A few months ago, I was in Melbourne and enjoyed a walking tour of the famous street art alleyways and ever since have wanted to paint.... like a realistic image. Not being good at sketching or with paints I went for a simple image.

The idea came from a trail of thoughts sparked by a pretty kingfisher that used to come by our garden everyday. He would sit on the same branch and bob up and down for a while and then fly away (having found no food) We all associate freedom with birds, in that they can fly wherever they want. But this little birdie would be there at the same time everyday! This birdie reminded me that we all have wings too - the choice to fly where we want,  to break free of our past, overcome our fears, choose happiness. How the kingfisher became a kookaburra, I know not, but on his belly is the quote - freedom is a state of mind.

The base is printed tissue modpodged on canvas. The paints are a brand called fevicryl, their pearl paint range is translucent and shiny a little bit like silks. Also used Derwent inktense pencils.

MMCC March - Tree + Bird (optional)

Hi everyone,

A short post to share my card for the Mixed Media Card Challenge this month.

This one had me thinking for a while, and I decided to go traditional and hand draw the tree with Derwent watercolour pencils on a pattern paper covered with gesso.

Head to the MMCC blog for more inspiration.

MMCC Feb - Red + Hearts (optional)

Hello creatives and hello Feb,

This month challenge at the Mixed Media Card Challenge is

And my take is

I found photographing this card quite challenging and this was the closest I got to the real colours on the card.

Its the month of LOVE, yet the MMCC criteria doesn't limit you to that theme. Head over to the blog and check out the beautiful creations by my fellow DT.

Happy creating!

Have a great day!

Cheers,

Kripa

New Beginnings - Altered Canvas

Hello peeps,

A very Happy New Year. Sharing with you all my first project for the year - hope I make many more as I totally totally loved experimenting with these products that were sitting in their original packaging - donna Downey stencils, colourarte pigments (wow!) and a whole heaps of finnabair stamps, beads, microbeads, stencils. Hurray to Mixed media place. The challenge New Beginnings made me sort my supplies and find all this buried treasure. Lol.

I don't think of myself as a true artist just yet, but just making this piece has filled me with a certain amount of confidence to just let go and Create for the joy of colours,  experimenting and expressing.

My first time with pigments, I used all the 4 in my stash - autumn skies, cinnamon brown , spiced pumpkin and china black. Linking to the Colourarte Jan challenge :

Also, Linking this to Scrapki wyzwaniowo: Altered art (altered my faithful paintbrush, plastic gears, metal, chipboard)

Cupcake mini album - tutorial

Hello creatives,

Im back with my DT project for Lulupu, the theme this month is

Make a Mini

(Click here to read all challenge rules)

Special rules for this challenge:

1. Construct a mini, don't use a ready available album (example mdf album)

2. You can use any binding, any theme

3. Submit entries by 30 November, 2015, 11.55pm IST

The challenge winner will receive a goodie bag from Lulupu.

Ive made a cupcake shaped mini album and have a tutorial on creating the cover page and tips for decorating your albums.  Its not a long post, but hope it brightens up your day :)

Are you ready to get started? Here is how the cover came into being.

Step1: Using a template, cut out cupcake outlines from Simple Life Echo Park 6x6 papers. These are double sided, so you already have a background for the other side.

Step2: Trace only the base of the cupcake ( not the cream) onto vellum or acetate. Handstich the vellum to one of the cupcake cutouts, I forgot to click, but you'll understand what I'm talking about in a minute. Fill it up with sequins - gold, grey. Ive also added some star confetti.

Step5: Seal shut with double sided tape. This part is a bit tricky, but patience pays :) in the form of clean finishing. You will now have something like this ( minus eyelets and stickers)

Next step is to create the focal points for each page aka embellishments. This was by far the most enjoyable and time consuming part of the project.

Ive used crate paper open book 12x12 papers and the ephemera pack and they matched  the colour theme quite well. My two tips when it comes to embellishments:

1. Mix and match  whatever is in your stash.

2. Layering - Experiment with combining  different materials  - lace, vellum, chipboard, acetate
Some details- the clothespin holding the butterfly had been glittered using the fine tip zig pen, the pinwheel  is held together  with American crafts glitter brad, the big heart sticker has an action wobble below it and finally the little moments base comes from Maggi Holmes ephemera packaging.

Can you see gold tape peeking through some of the layers- totally in love with this tape.

Using the crop-a-dile, attach green eyelets to all the pages. Finally assemble all the pages. Here is a close up of the pages.

 

  

And the other side.

 

In my second post this month, I will be taking you through more details of each page.

Supplies from the Lulupu store:

Black & Gray Essentials Sequins 8mm 6g

Simple Life Echo Park Paper Pad 6"X6" 24/Pkg

Fine Tip - Zig 2-Way Glue Pen

Ranger Essentials Wonder Tape Roll 1/8

Action Wobble - Self Adhesive Springs - 12 Pack 

Gold Dotted Japenese Washi Tape

Light Gold Japanese Washi Tape

Forster Woodsies Clothespin Tiny Spring 50pc

Gold Script Japanese Washi Tape

Green Eyelets Standard 60/Pkg

Maggie Holmes Ephemera Cardstock Die-Cuts 81/Pkg

Med Glitter Brads - Metallic