inspirational ATC cards

i am participating in a monthly inspirational card swap; so the past few months i have been making 12 cards to share. when we are all finished we will have swapped for a year and should have a full ring of inspirational cards.

i will share a few of the cards this round that were my favorites.

#printmakingunleashed {a mixed media paper towel}

i had saved a paper towel that had ended up with a cool pattern on it to start- simply setting it aside to see if some other creative idea would come along.....

low and behold, one of the print making unleashed challenges inspired me to use that paper towel to create a mixed media flower....i had used the paper towel to soak up spray ink off of an alphabet stencil. i love the lime green diamonds that were imprinted into the paper towel.

you catch a glimpse of the stem and leaves- those i used book paper and a strip of paper from a gelli plate print.

to tie the flower all together i stitched on the paper towel- sewing first the flower petals and later filling the petals in with a little ink. the center of the flower is watercolor/ ink scrap.

i ordered my book last week and expect a delivery sometime this week....cannot wait!!

meet the rust king

doing a little assemblage- meet the rust king....he may be more of a prince at this point. isn't he handsome? 

you can see just a few of the items i used to assemble him together in this pic. just a sneak peek until he gets to his new home.....

happy friday to you! 

onto canvas {to listen}

i was feeling so inspired on sunday in my studio with my art journal progress that i decided to move back to canvas.

i had started a painting on a 24"x 30" canvas quite some time ago as i sometimes do. i like to get paint onto the canvas so it is not white. white can be so overwhelming sometimes especially if your creative mojo has left....white can be crushing....have you been there?

i had been on such a roll with my foam stamps on paper, i decided to use those on my canvas as well as shown below.

some of my style is built up the layers and then, destroy and tear some of the layers back down to reveal whatever was underneath. i so like it when colors peek through in spots....at one point however during this painting, my mojo left. yep....mojo gone.....walked away....leaving me to walk away as well.

i let it sit for a bit and came back later only to discover that i need to be reminded that i too, "have to listen." sometimes that creative voice is whispering to you and you need to listen carefully; to not be afraid to walk away, but, come back when you have heard that soft whisper calling to you....

to put that paint down, and then scratch it off...to write those words and mist the words to blot some of the words away.....and yes....to listen.

stamping up a storm {foam stamps}

this weekend was busy, but, on sunday i did sneak down to the studio to play and do some catch up with the printmakingunleashed 31 day challenge....i must buy this book- this has been the most amount of good creative fun i have had in a while with such wonderful prompts to get you started....

(focus...)...okay- so the newest challenge was to make and use foam stamps. i looked around my studio and found my stack of play foam sheets and a small amount even had sticky backs! i set to work making up a pile of foam stamps. check out my pile...

with my new foam stamps i combined with my gelli plate to create backgrounds and several very cool pages in my art journal. i used my brayer to apply paint to my foam stamps; sometimes covering the whole stamp, and other times rolling just once and leaving empty space on my stamp. i didn't even mind if the edge of my stamp touched the page as you can see below.

are you playing?....let me know and i can stop over! happy monday.....

tgif

today is a happy day....it is friday....tgif to you!

thank you to Susan for the wonderful art goodies!

progressive printing in black n white

the challenge the other day was to print with white paper and black paint, ink, or whatever was handy....mine happened to be black gesso.

i laid down a fairly thick layer of black paint on my gelli plate and then, grabbed items that happened to be close to add additional details into the print.

here is my first print off of the plate. the paint was thick and i could not really get the paint and print to really pull the details.

my second print, is by far my favorite print. i pulled the items off of the gelli plate leaving a ghost image of the details in the paint.....the edges on this print are a bit softer and the paint is lighter and not as thick.

now when i pull this print there was still paint and an image on my plate, so i decided to print one more time (hate to waste any paint)....

 i still like this one- the softness and the looseness. i had sprayed water onto the gelli plate to keep it wet and allow me to print one more time, as it was becoming fairly dry.

one little word....evoke

the one little word for the month of july was evoke. i had initially started my painting working with some of my favorite colors....but, this little snippet was about all that i liked on this page.

my wheels kept working and i have been playing along with Traci Bautista's #printmakingunleashed and one of the days i made hot glue stencils. i loved how i could make a word and used this to write evoke.

i used a stiff bristled brush to paint around my letters to create this.....there were many (many....) colors on the bottom, but, i didn't feel like i was able to pull it together. i used the white to really tame the colors back and the white provided some unity to the overall painting. i wanted to sharpen the edges of my word, so i did use a stabilo pencil to give a bit of definition.

as i worked through my painting, the other thing that was floating through my mind were the feelings that were being evoked as i worked.

some of that day, i felt lost....i seemed to have lost some of my creative mojo. so when seeking words to put with this.....you can almost hear my story of this piece....

at the end however, i had felt like i had found myself. i loved how there were some ghost images of the underneath painting peeking through the white.

gelli plate flower ghost print

happy wednesday.....

#printmakingunleashed days....

i have been playing, or printing along with the print making unleashed 31 day challenge.

the hot glue stencils were fun once i figured out what i was supposed to put the glue on....i first tried wax paper- do NOT do this....it stuck and i was picking wax paper off of my new stencils.

i asked what to put the glue on and parchment paper is the answer. MUCH better! your hot glue stencils will almost pop off and be ready to use.

you can also write words on your parchment paper and then, trace over with the hot glue...so be brave. i used my gelli plate to add some additional texture to the top.

i have to say that this print below if my favorite one thus far....it was a multiple print off of gelli plate with several colors and a ghost image that is the blue circle and the top layer of white was a print off my gelli plate with burlap and a stencil. the bottom layers were bright and almost overwhelming and the white really tames this down. love the texture....

 the next challenge was carved stamps.....you know how i hate those....wrong! love carving stamps!! so i went to town the night before and carved up several new stamps to use.

you can also see my cardboard stencils in the background. i tried stamping with those and that did not work the best; but i did discover that they are fun to spray around and at angles with inks.

i had a page in my art journal that had several layers of colors and prints- so i added another couple of layers and one of my new stamps to finish this page. you can see my homemade stamp on the edge there.

if you are not playing along you are missing some great fun and a great book! ordering my book.....

#printmakingunleashed

have you seen Traci Baustica  #printmakingunleashed 31 day challenge? playing along?.....

i decided to give this a try- always love her work and this just sounded so fun.

the first day you were supposed to print with found objects. i collected a nice little eclectic pile of stuff only to discover the stuff i collected maybe was not the best pile for actually printing.....felt a little like an epic failure- but, a fun one at that. here is day one: my cool little pile...

i did use my gelli plate for the initial printing using the little wooden pieces in the left hand corner, the red string and the gauze with the first print and working from there.

i was not sure how to play.....and not totally sold on what i made....but, what the heck?! i did get to play for a bit outside of my apparent comfort zone- so it is all good.

day 2 brought a bit more confidence in my work; however, again i was not sure what i was doing....the only i did know- i again, was having a good time. i had found this super cool leaf with a very long stem and knew i wanted to use that for day 2's challenge.

again, i started with my small gelli plate starting with golden cobalt teal and using a homemade circle stencil to feature my leaf. the next layer was the green gold and my leaf. my top layer was the leaf itself and to print that- i brayered on the fluorescent magenta onto the actual leaf itself and then laid it on my art journal page. i then used a sheet of paper and my brayer to print onto the paper.

i cannot wait for today's challenge. i have wanted to try this challenge of making a hot glue stencil, and just have not made time yet...but, today is the day. so stop back to see how this next challenge goes.

oh- and if you are playing along- let me know so i can see what others are making!! happy thursday!