I'm finishing up with my favourites, which you have already seen in the launch night post, but which I wanted to display in detail here in my online craft scrapbook, especially since the samples themselves have gone off to be displayed on the PaperArtsy boards, so this will be the only record I have left of them.
I love stories, and I love history, and Lynne's stamps are always full of both. They're like visual poems - already captivating at first sight, with beautiful, intricate images which delight the eye. But their complexity keeps you coming back for more - you're always discovering a fresh detail, a new layer... the stories keep unfolding.
So, we have a pair of jumbo size #10 tags (that's 8.5x4.25 inches, but only approximately, since I cut my own most of the time)...
... and a pair of regular size #8 tags (that's 6.25 x 3.125 inches - wish I could get fractions on here... a quarter and an eighth if anybody's panicking!)...
I love Lynne Perrella's women. Their direct gaze is so powerful. Even though my way of working is to combine words and pictures, I find I use only minimal text with Lynne Perrella stamps - the odd word or two to reflect something I've seen or felt whilst playing - because these women seem to speak directly to the viewer. Whether medieval (as so often with Lynne's stamps) or in these 18th and 19th century versions, they are women with dignity, strength and intelligence.
For the jumbo ones, I started with some Fresco Crackle Glaze over French Roast Fresco paint. There's Snowflake waiting to go over the top once it's dried. It's my go-to weathered crackle combination - a good neutral from which you can head in any direction.
I knew I wanted to echo the leaves in the images with some Tim Holtz die-cuts, so I powdered and spritzed some book pages with Infusions. For some, I used In The Navy...
... and others the Sleight Blue - such a cool combination of tones.
I stamped my images on Specialty Stamping Paper. As you'll have seen on launch night, I experimented with various colours of ink, but in the end I went with Archival Black for these tags. (It's pretty unusual for me to stamp in black.)
Leandra wanted us to use the Infusions for the samples but I wanted more access to blues and greens for all that lovely landscaping and leafiness. So I decided to bend the rules and blend the two.
In places I watercoloured with straight Infusions (spritzed on the craft mat and applied with a water brush), and when I needed more blues and greens I added touches of Sleight Blue to the Fresco paints I wanted to use.
This meant that the Hey Pesto, Hyde Park, Glass Blue and Blueberry paints took on the hues and tones of our sample palette so that everything (I hope) will blend nicely once up on the boards.
I always work with watery washes in any case when I'm "colouring in" an LP image, so it's great to work with the Infusions as watercolours as well as with translucent Frescos and washes of opaques and semi-opaques.
You don't want to obliterate all that fabulous detail, so I build up the colour in delicate layers until I'm happy.
You already know how much I love this landscape woman from LPC 036 - she's straight out of a literary romance.
You remember in those Jane Austen adaptations when a character stands at the window of a stately mansion and looks out on a sweeping vista - the landscaped gardens giving way in the distance to woods and hills, and maybe even a small village? Well, that's what was in my mind as I played with her - she delights me.
But this magnificent horsewoman from LPC 035 runs her a close second. All those frills and furbelows, and the delightfully frivolous ringlets... but in the firm set of her lips, and in that stately plinth on which she sits, you can feel the determination and power she has.
For their skin, I used a light watery wash of Blush Fresco, and then for the additional tinting I added a few granules of our final Infusions colour, Violetta.
I worked out quite early on that the large Movers and Shapers Shaped Arch would work well to frame these images, but positioning it was pretty dodgy given it was a tight fit.
So instead, I cut an arch out of some spare card and drew around it before cutting it out by hand. That meant I could get it in exactly the right place and not risk cutting off parts of my carefully tinted images.
I found that you get a lovely marbled effect with the Infusions on the Specialty Stamping Paper, so I used some at the edges to draw the eye inward to the image.
You won't get this on all paper finishes - it's the coating that causes this particular effect.
I arranged my leafy die-cuts around the "windows"...
... trying to get some of each colour/shape onto each tag.
I like a sense of balance and symmetry when I'm working in pairs.
As I said, I rarely feel the need for lots of words when I'm working with these images.
Just as with the last collection of Perrella samples I made (Through A Glass Lightly), I've simply added the odd ChitChat sticker with individual words which felt right.
The kraft mounting gives everything a nice finished look, as well as providing some extra durability - important when the samples are heading off into a busy life on display.
And I've kept the toppings simple with some twine. No need for extravagance - it's the stamps we're interested in.
Now, finally, on to my romantic Rococo pair.
In my imagination, these two are in some leafy bower or rose garden awaiting an assignation with a lover - that's one bower and one lover each, no funny business!
This woman is even a little impatient - you can see by the clock that her mysterious lover is running late.
Sleight Blue and Violetta Infusions got me just the perfect dappled summer garden look.
These were probably the simplest of all the makes, though they did involve fussy-cutting, something I tend to avoid if I possibly can. Worth the extra effort for these two though, I think.
I die-cut two regular size tags out of white card, and printed one down on the excess ink left on the Harlequins after an initial spritz on an A4 sheet. I then laid the other tag down on top of it, head to tail.
As I peeled them apart, I got myself two delicately dappled backgrounds - one slightly more colourful than the other, but definitely a pair.
And although one of these two images is from LPC 035 and the other is from LPC 037, they feel like a pair to me too.
Look at those leafy flourishes and feathers in their hair, and they're about the same height too (3 inches).
I used the same paint technique as for the other pair of tags... when I added my green Frescos, I mixed them with some Sleight Blue to vary the hues.
And that heart is done using pure Violetta as a watercolour paint, as are the roses in the other woman's cap.
Some leafy tendrils wind their way around the tags...
... a kraft mount frames them, and some simple twine provides the topping.
And then there's just the odd word or two...
... in helpfully kraft-coloured ChitChat stickers.
I don't often indulge in pink, but some of the colour effects of this pairing of Sleight Blue and Violetta Infusions made me pretty happy.
So, that's your lot. Thank you so much for your company and lovely feedback over this trio of posts - three hefty tomes, so thank you for bearing with me. If I've tempted some of you into purchases, then I really look forward to seeing what you get up to with these glorious new Lynne Perrella stamps. Happy crafting all!
It is not possible to find a landscape which, if it is painted precisely as it is, will not make an impressive picture. No one knows, until he has tried, what strange beauty and subtle composition is prepared to his hand by nature.
John Ruskin
One was a lady, attired in an elegant, blue, velveteen riding-habit, with hat and feather to match, and with silky brown hair falling over her shoulders down to her horse’s croup.
From Brighter Britain by W.D. Hay, London 1882
Come into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, night, has flown,
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone;
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,
And the musk of the rose is blown.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Yes, three sets of words because in any sane world this would have been at least three separate posts! There's one for Landscape Woman, one for our Equestrienne, and one for the Romantic Rococo pair to share...
