Tuesday 28 February 2017

Distress oxides first look - backgrounds and stamped tags

This weekend I opened my new Distress oxide inks. I tried them a bit, just to know how they look like alone, in the combination with traditional Distress inks or stamped and misted.  So I made just a few small tags.

They are nice to play with, I need to say, although if you want to make a nice combo of Distress inks and Distress oxides, it is better to be a careful with the oxides. Too much oxides can hide the vibrant colors of Distress inks and make all background too dull. And also some oxides seem to be stronger than others e.g. brown ones, so put pink oxide over the larger spot of brown one is a bit difficult, after water mist pink oxide kind of soaked into the brown one and disappeared. But maybe I need just try more :0)

And for the water mists I prefer older Ranger Mister bottle to a newer Distress Sprayer one, because with the mister you have a better control over the water amount and it is really just the water mist and no big droplets of water, so oxides start to shine but they don't bleed too much (for me, this is important when I stamp with oxides).

But mostly (and with a bit of practice) they make a very nice and unusual backgrounds and I really love the combo with Distress inks. The contrast of the matte and bright colors is incredible and sooooo nice :0)

So here they are - the first tags I made, for more detailed look open every image in a new tab:

1) Distress inks and Distress oxides combo: 
a) fist tag is Broken china Distress oxide over Mustard seed and Spiced marmalade Distress inks 
b) second tag Fossilized amber, Spiced marmalade and Vintage photo Distress oxides over Salty ocean and Mermaid lagoon Distress inks


2) combo and mix:
a) first tag is a combo of Broken china and Vintage photo Distress oxides over Mustard seed and Spiced marmalade Distress inks
b) second one is a pure Distress oxides mix - Fossilized amber, Mustard seed and Broken china distress oxides


3) Distress oxides mix: 
a) first tag Broken china, Wilted violet and Faded jeans Distress oxides 
b) second tag Worn lipstick, Wilted violet and Faded jeans Distress oxides


4) stamping with Distress oxides on white and kraft cardstock. Both sprayed with water more times - sprayed, dry with heat tool, sprayed, dry, sprayed, dry... .0). Bleeding of the blue colors on the kraft cardstock is not much visible, after the paper is dry.
a) Vintage photo and Walnut stain Distress oxides on the white tag 
b) Broken china and Faded jeans Distress oxides on the kraft cardstock 



5) background of all this tags made with Wild honey, Vintage photo and Ground espresso Distress inks and images are stamped over with 
a) Faded jeans Distress oxide (tulips) and Pumice stone Distress oxide (crackled pattern). I also covered this tag with liquid gloss acrylic medium, so all colors are more vibrant and have more depth - the tag resemble a glass tile. 
b) Broken china Distress oxide
c) Worn lipstick Distress oxide
Every tag is misted with water more times till the dye part of oxides started to bleed into the background colors. Especially on the third tag the Worn lipstick made a nice darker pink halo effect around the stamped image. On other two tags I used a glue stick and gold foil on the borders.




Thursday 23 February 2017

Art journal page - You can sail and you can fly...

"You can sail and you can fly, under water, in the sky" - another small journal double page from Dylusions journal (cca 20 x 25 cm / 8" x 10").

When I started with my previous journal page (London bridge), I didn't want to waste the beautiful Dylusions inks I sprayed for my background, so I pushed another double journal page against the first one and transferred the excess ink to it. As you can see, these inks are so strong that even this second page is as vibrant as the first one  :0)

So here is again a background with Bubblegum pink, Crushed grape and Calypso teal and some water droplets. I made an easy pattern with Black marble Dylusions paint and two stencils (The Crafter's workshop and Joggles) making also some circles and stamped most of the stamps from a new Layering marble stamp set (Waffle Flower) with Tsukineko Brilliance Platinum planet pigment ink around the page. For more dimension I shaded the circles with Distress Hickory smoke and Picket fence inks.

Stamps (Chocolate baroque boat and Carabelle studio origami birds and fish) are colored with Dylusions inks in waterbrushes. They were cut with white border and glued on a second (slightly bigger) black cardstock layer for more depth. White-silver string was strengthen with mate acrylic medium, so it holds its shape better and a white gel pen was used for highlights. Quote was printed on a small label printer machine.

This page is also my second entry for a Simon Says Stamp new Monday challenge: Transport it which you can visit it here and also the first entry for their Wednesday challenge: Anything goes here.

It seems that it is difficult to stop, when you start to play with Dylusions colors :0)

23. 2. 2017 You can sail and you can fly, under water, in the sky


P.S. ...if you want to see more details, please open the picture (link) in the new tab :0)

Tuesday 21 February 2017

Art journal page - London bridge

After a very looong time a new journal page out of the bounded journal book - a double page taken out from small Dylusions journal (cca 20 x 25 cm / 8" x 10").  It is so nice to have the freedom of the separate sheet of paper again. I need to admit, that working in the bounded book can be sometime a little bit limiting for me. I absolutely enjoyed all the sprays I used this time :0)

So here it is - Dylusions sprays background with Bubblegum pink, Funky fuchsia and Calypso teal and some water droplets. Then I used Black soot Distress ink pad and Carabelle studio stencil and on the bottom of the page Black marble Dylusions paint with older The crafter's workshop stencil. London double-decker buses are stamped with Dylusions Postbox red spray and Distress Candied apple ink. I cut them out with white border and then glued on the black cardstock which I cut out again, so they have both white and black border. It makes them pop up more on this colorful page. The buses, Big Ben tower, an emblem and London are from the same stamp set (Paper Wizard). Rope is a small stamp from Kaisercraft  and the cards are just real playing cards :0) And this time I used a nice script stamp set from Echo park. Unfortunately there are no upper-case letters for these lower-case ones. White highlights are made with a gel pen.

This page is also my entry for a Simon Says Stamp new Monday challenge: Transport it. You can visit it here.

I really enjoyed creating this page and I love its double meaning....I hope you will like it too :0)

21. 2. 2017 London bridge


P.S. ...if you want to see more details, please open the picture (link) in the new tab :0)

Wednesday 15 February 2017

Creative weekend 7 - "A fashion moment"

A fashion moment - an art journal page in Seawhite hardbound 7.5"x7.5" (ca. 20x20 cm) journal.

Simple two colors watercolor background in pink and violet with pattern of ferns (Inkadinkado stamp) stamped with clear Versamark ink all over the page and covered with silver Pan pastel. I used gray Distress ink and the same stamp for the stenciled silhouettes.

I was extra happy doing this page, because I made these stencils myself using Dingbats PC font of women's silhouettes. It is "Sewing patterns" font from dafont.com - every lower-case and every upper-case letter on your keyboard is a different silhouette. And there is a whole large category of Dingbats fonts on this web site prepared to be used :0).
I changed this font into .svg file in Inkscape program and then transformed this "3 letters-silhouettes" file in Brother Scan-n-cut canvas on-line program into a great custom stencil pattern I cut with my Scan-n-cut cutting machine.
It was fast and easy, even if I tried it for the first time. I followed some youtube tutorials from applelover53. This lady has really awesome tips and tricks for Inkscape and Scan-n-cut including several nice and easy videos how to use dingbats e.g. HERE or HERE. Or just write "dingbat" into the searching box on her youtube channel and you will find much more :0)

I finished the page with the beautiful circle stamps (Lavinia stamps), a stitch stamp (Technique Tuesday), black archival ink, white chalk marker and a small label maker :0)

14. 2. 2017 A fashion moment







Tuesday 7 February 2017

Creative weekend 6 - "Golden Ginkgo"

Another journal page started during a weekend and finished on Monday in Seawhite hardbound 7.5"x7.5" (ca. 20x20 cm) journal.

"Golden Ginkgo" started as a simple two colored watercolor background. Mix of dark and light green and dark blue watercolors created very nice turquoise - blue blend, although I used a very cheap old watercolors I have. I just spritzed it a bit with water and dried with a heat tool and a paper towel. Wet colors looks great, but dried with the heat tool they become quite dull.  So then I used a glossy acrylic medium (varnish) over the whole page and they started to shine again :0).
I used an older clock stencil with copper acrylic paint and the fish (Local King rubber stamps) and oriental text (Artemio) stamps with a darker gold acrylic paint. And on top another layer of glossy acrylic medium, so everything is nicely bright and sealed.
After that I painted one sheet of paper with lighter gold acrylic paint and used a ginkgo leaf die (Impression Obsession) from my stash. Because I was not quite satisfied with the gold acrylic color on the leaves, I tried to find some alternative I could use. Finally I over-painted all the leaves with Winsor & Newton gold drawing ink. This ink is incredibly shiny and beautiful and the color is exactly the lighter gold I wanted, because the main idea for this page was to make a gradation of metallic colors from dark to light :0)
At the end I made some shading around and under the leaves with grey PIT artist pen brush markers.

And because I'm not able to decide which photo I should use for this project, here are more examples how the page change in the sunlight :0)

P.S. If you would like to see any of the photos on this blog bigger and more detailed, just open it separately in a new tab :0)

6. 2. 2017 Golden Ginkgo