Tree Poetry

Hello all!  Just a very quick tag for you today.  I wanted to join in with Joan's lovely Trees theme at Tag Tuesday and, although it's been a busy week what with the Blushing Coral Butterflies and the Insect Instructions, if I don't post this today, it might be too late.

The background for this has been hanging around for months... just some Tim Holtz paper glued to a tag and washed with gesso.

I had stamped the Carabelle tree (it's only a partial stamping - the whole stamp is massive) and then ground to a halt, so there it sat on the craft table, just a bit grey and dull.

Then the Trees theme came up and I thought I really must be able to turn it to some good.











It helped when I added some spritzes of shimmering blue to the sky... a combination of Tattered Angels and Lindy's Stamp Gang sprays, but I'm not sure which colours.

I don't shimmer very often, but when I do I think I ought to do it more!










It's that time of year when the browns and oranges kick in, so I'd been spritzing and smooshing a couple of other tags with various autumnal shades.   (You'll get to see those larger leaves in action later in the month.)














I grabbed one of those tags and used Tim's leaf punch to cut some leaves to drift down through the sky...














... and gather on the earth beneath the tree.















On the tree itself I used a water brush and various Distress Inks to add a bit more depth and variation to the trunk and branches.














I stamped one of the quotes from my very first word stamps, PaperArtsy EAB01 Trees & Flowers, on a separate piece of cardstock.














The topping is some Distress-dyed seam binding tied with twine, and the whole tag is mounted on pale card.








And that's it.  I know... pretty short for me, but I did say it was a quick one!  I hope you've all been enjoying a lovely weekend, and I'll see you again soon.

Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.
Herman Hesse

I'd like to share this over at Tag Tuesday where the theme is Trees
At the More Mixed Media Challenge it's Anything Goes with an Optional Twist of Orange

Rusty Alcohol

Hello all, and welcome.  I've got a little MDF tag for you today before heading back into the journal.

I've had a small tag (12 x 6cm, which is not quite 2.5 x not quite 4.5 inches) sitting around on the craft table for a while with a paint-crackled surface already on it.

Today I was inspired by the current Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge to try some alcohol inks over that crackle, and I love where I ended up.

I'm not sure I know any longer what crackle paint that is... maybe DecoArt Chalky Finish over something very dark underneath?

But what I do know is that I love how the alcohol inks flowed over the surface with the help of a little Blending Solution.













I started with some Mushroom ink, and then added Stonewashed and, after that, some Eggplant.













I gave each of them a chance to move alone first and then started encouraging them to join forces using the Blending Solution.














One of the really great things about using the alcohol inks is it means I can mess around with some watery washes of paint over the top without losing any of my inky effects.

The alcohol ink is not affected by the water or the paint, so it stayed happily in place while I added some rusty touches of Quinacridone Gold and Paynes Grey DecoArt Fluid Acrylic paints.












I was even able to spritz the paint with water and dab away to get exactly the rusty cracks I wanted, and all my lovely bluesy alcohol inks were completely untouched.
















You'll recognise the thistles if you saw my post Hoping for some light.  In fact, that pair of tags were also done on this same size MDF tag.













For these thistles I applied Sepia and Jet Black Archival inks to the stamp, using the black to create shadowed areas.

I had to quickly add some clear embossing powder after stamping, as they weren't showing up enough, but the e.p. gives them a bit more presence.













Some rusty wire had to be next, wound around the tag.













There are some words, of course - simple Small Talk stickers, given a touch of their own rustiness with some Sepia, before being edged with Jet Black and a touch of pen work to shade them into the background.













Oh, and in a slight afterthought I added a number brad, altered with some Ginger and Rust alcohol inks so that it would look as if it's been there as long as the wire (which it has, though neither of them has been there very long!).















Some more rusty wire tops us off, and we're done.













I do like working on the MDF tags, especially when using fairly heavy crackle and the rusted effects.












You get a far more substantial artefact at the end of it.  I feel this could be an old panel which has maybe been around for a few decades, and that makes me happy.

In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay. And unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it.
Ernst Fischer









I'd like to share this at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge where this week's theme is Alcohol, Drinks or Inks

Anything Goes (as long as they can see the stamping) at the Fashionable Stamping Challenges, so I'd like to join in there too, after far too long an absence

I'd also like to play along at the Mixed Media Place where this beautiful January Moodboard with its dusky purples, hits of rusty brown and orange, and natural elements have all inspired me

Anything Goes for January at the Bleeding Art Challenge Blog too, as long as you've got at least two mediums involved - crackle paste, alcohol ink, fluid acrylics, and Archival inks should squeeze in okay!

Hoping for some light

Hello all, and welcome.  Well, the tax return is done, so I thought I'd celebrate with some time at the craft table, but with the shambolic chaos that's going on politically everywhere in the world at the moment I didn't feel very celebratory.  No prizes for guessing my state of mind from this sombre little pairing which turned up on the table in front of me!

They're done on two MDF tags, considerably smaller than the standard size #8.  They measure 12cm x 6cm (that's not quite 4.5 by not quite 2.5 in inches).  I like working on the MDF substrate - it has weight and substance, and it can take pretty much whatever you throw at it.  I had planned to get all mixed media and textural, but as it turned out they ended up in a very different, much simpler place.









There's some Tim Holtz design paper in the background - you can still just see the subtle harlequins under a chalky wash of white paint.















The paper already had some darker shading in places, but I intensified that with some watery washes of DecoArt Fluid Acrylic in Raw Umber. 













I sanded back around the edges after adding the paint, so that you get nice pale borders.















Then I fiddled around for a while with paper scraps (including some die-cut pine trees left over from the Winter Journalling) and photos and wire mesh, but I couldn't get happy with any of it.

So I reached for the meadow flowers... of course!














These exquisitely delicate stamps are by Carabelle.  I adore the thistle - just look at those tiny thorny hairs around the head.  It's stamped in Watering Can Archival.













And the grassy stem is equally detailed... the slightly smudgy bit is just from me wiping away some over-enthusiastic white spatter.

This one is stamped in Ground Espresso Archival.  (I got a Ground Espresso re-inker when those came out a couple of years ago, and a blank ink pad so I could make my own.)












The words, as I'm sure you've spotted, are from my own PaperArtsy quote sets.  This one is by Pythagoras (he did more than just triangular theorems!), from EAB02 Darkness & Light, and seems to come out when I'm in melancholy mood.









The second one, digging deep to find the resources to deal with all the nonsense, is from EAB03 Music & Silence, and is by Lao Tzu.  (I'm a bit cross that the black pen I used for some edging has gone slightly blue somehow, but I'm embracing imperfection.)













There's some leftover Raw Umber spattered around in the background, some white paint spattered around in the foreground, and the simplest of toppings in the form of some white twine finishes the pair off.
















It's interesting that with both quotes I'm reaching back more than 2000 years for wisdom with which to survive the present day.

















In fact, the two men seem to have been born very close together (close in time, not geography)...  Pythagoras in c.570 B.C. and Lao Tzu in 601 B.C.










I worked on these with the tags one way round (as in the photo at the top of the post), with the shadows crowding in from the edges.  I really love that sense of gathering darkness - it suits my mood perfectly.  But now they're done I also like them with all the plants in the centre, reaching outwards into the light.

I think it's just a little more positive that way round, so I thought I'd share that pairing with you too.  I don't want to depress you as well as me!  Thanks so much for stopping by today.  I hope the weekend has lovely things in store for you, whatever you're up to... and I'm looking forward to having some time to hop around and visit at least some of you.  Happy crafting all!

When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they can seem invincible, but, in the end, they always fall.  Think of it - always.
Mahatma Gandhi

I'd like to play along at Mixed Media and Art where they shared this lovely January moodboard celebrating Coolness.  I'm always inspired by meadow flowers, the moonlit spatter is right up my street, and I love those sombre neutrals, suitable for my chilly mood










At Try It On Tuesday they are looking for Something Old, Something New.  You can do either old or new, but again I've got both - the papers and paints are old, old, old, but the Carabelle stamps are new (or at least never-before-inked)

I'd also like to join in with the Simply Neutrals Tuesday party over at Apple Apricot - a lovely place to find like-minded lovers of the neutral tones