Monday 21 July 2014

ILLUMINATED POINTILLISM

Hi and welcome to my 100th post! This month at Anything But A Card, it's been... anything goes, so I decided to resurrect a couple of art techniques I often used in the classroom... illuminated lettering and pointillism.
These are fantastic techniques, but I've only used the basic ones for this project, using materials I had readily available, namely brush-tipped marker pens, gold metallic pens, 3D Stamping Paint and Inca Gold. Ideally I would have liked to have worked the lettering with gold leaf, but didn't have any in my supplies at the time. Pointillism is usually done with paint applied in layers of small dots (check out the artist Seurat). In the classroom this wasn't always a feasible method, because kids being kids, wanted to see as finished product on the day it was started, so I devised an adapted version using textas or marker pens and had them build up layers of colour on their art works. This also taught them a great lesson in blending of colours to produce depth and interest. For my little poster, I've combined the two methods.

 
 
 I started by lightly sketching my initial and then painted in the outline using a fine brush and gold ink ( Delicata gold stamp pad)
  

 
 
The background was sketched and then I started filling in the space with small dots of texta colour. To achieve the  depth of colour and variations in the landscape, I used different tones of the same colours.
 
 

 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
I painted the whole of the letter in the gold ink, and added colour to it with metallic markers.  This then became the base colour for the next layers. Firstly, over painting with copper- coloured 3D Stamping Paint, then topping this with  Inca Gold, using a water brush. 
 

 
The coloured metallic ornamentation was topped with Glossy Accents, to make them look more
jewel-like. 
 
 

 
 
 This piece was added to background of black cardstock which had been stencilled, again with gold ink. Words were added with the same ink and Glossy Accents applied over the top. 

 
The whole piece was then mounted onto another background and inspirational text added as a border. I haven't decided how this is going to be displayed so it has not had anything attached for hanging.
 
Thank you for dropping by. There's still time to be involved in the challenge.. Anything Goes at Anything But A card. Why not pop on over to:  http://anythingbutacard.blogspot.ca/ and have a peep at what the rest of the team have done and also at the amazing entries we've received this month. I'm sure that you will certainly be inspired.
 
Cheers for now.
Di
 
 
 

Tuesday 1 July 2014

SUNKISSED ADVENTURES

Hi and welcome to my second post today. This month ARTastic is collaborating with CSI in a special case file.
This is the first time I've participated with the CSI challenge, so it was certainly something a tad out of my comfort zone, but in the end I enjoyed coming  up with a page that fitted a number of the elements required.



From ARTastic we had a fabulous poster promoting Australia, depicting an iconic scene at a beach. Our additional element was to include a striped patterned paper.  CSI added extra elements as well. On my layout I certainly have used a striped patterned paper (the background page from Fabscraps is based on a weatherboard/mural look) but I've also used stripes on my frame for my picture and on the hot air balloons. In addition, I've used a floral print, ribbon. transportation elements, created a rolled canopy, for a private beach gazebo and silhouettes. I've also journalled along stripes, used the words 'wonder' and 'gazed' as part of my story, as well as using all of the required colours.





Pop on over to ARTastic: http://artasticchallengeblog.blogspot.com.au/  to see what has inspired us and what the rest of the team has been up to. Also you might want to have a look  at CSI as well. Pop over to :http://csicolorstoriesinspiration.ning.com/ to investigate their site more.
Thank you for stopping by. Catch you again soon.
Cheers, Di

TIME

Hi! This will be the first of two posts today. At Pixels and Paper we have the inspiration of a carnival/ fair with a ferris wheel, dodgem cars and bright colours.



For my layout, I chose to take the circular shape from the ferris wheel and translated this into a series of cogs. The large one was a chipboard piece covered with embossed aluminium flashing.




The smaller ones were diecut from layers of crumpled aluminium foil. All pieces were coloured with alcohol inks which I tipped on, rather than using the applicator method. To further suggest movement and time, I've used 12 photos taken of sunsets, clouds and the moon,during various months of the year. These have been  placed in a spiral shape- again suggesting movement and cycles.
The background paper came from the  Bo Bunny Back To Basics -Somewhere in Time" collection. This, with its pattern of cogs and gears, fitted perfectly with my layout theme.
Pop on over to:  http://pixelsandpaperchallengeblog.blogspot.com.au/ to see the inspiration photo and to see what the rest of the team has done.
Thanks for dropping  by.
Cheers, for now, Di