Daisy, daisy (daisy)

Hello all!  I do hope you're all doing okay.

I don't think I really registered the start of May - partly because I was caught up in the new Vintage Journey challenge, Beautiful Blooms, which went live on the first.

My lavender tag, The flowers appear on the earth, distracted me from the fact that a whole new month was starting.

That being so, there's a new theme over at Art Journal Journey, and they are also looking for Flowers this month, so I expect I won't be the only one taking advantage of the double floral challenge!

This page is a painting I actually did some time ago, but never shared.













I did a bit of extra shading, some spattering and added the word layers, so let me show you a few close-ups of what's what.

It ought to be a shorter post than some of them have been of late!













The page is done in the large Dylusions journal, so it's 11.5 x 8.25 inches.  (The journal is 12 x 9, but that's the cover... the internal pages are a little smaller.)












The paper in the journal is already a lovely heavyweight stock, good for wet media, but I knew I wanted to play with some watercolours, and for those to behave at their best, you really need proper watercolour paper.












The good news is there's something you can use to turn any surface into a happy playground for watercolour paints... watercolour ground.  You can get it in various finishes, but it won't come as any surprise to the regulars that I like the rough textured version best.

This is Qor's Cold Press Ground, and it is fabulously gritty and rough, mimicking the surface of a sturdy cold press watercolour paper.












I think you can see what I mean in a couple of these photos - that's what I've tried to capture for you, in any case.

It's not a great surface for the PITT pen I used to sketch out my daisies and leaves, but I really only wanted a very sketchy feel to the drawing, and that's what I got.













In fact, the rough surface forced me to let go of my perfectionist tendencies and just go with the flow.

And flow is what it's all about with watercolour.














Having the right surface or ground is what allows the pigment and water to perform its magic (like this bit of "sunlight" leaking out from the flower petals into the sky...).










You can see where the palette knife missed some parts of the paper how the paint sinks in to the paper, rather than flowing across it, and creates much deeper pigmentation.

Talk about embracing imperfection - this might be my favourite part of the painting!

I didn't want to mess with the finished painting much, but I was feeling the urge to add some words.  The Calico Craft Parts Word Element band seemed to fit the bill.  It did take quite a bit of courage to add anything to a painting I was fairly happy with.












It's layered over a torn strip of teabag paper (still with some cinnamon chai leaves attached in places I think!).  I love that you can still see the stems through the translucent paper.












A last little bit of scrumptious texture and soft flowing pigment (and you can see the additional white spatter too), and that should just about do it for today, I think.

I'm sharing this over at Art Journal Journey, and it should also serve as some additional inspiration for the Beautiful Blooms theme at A Vintage Journey. 








Lots of journeying going on... ironic, when we're still in lockdown, but there you go.  Virtual journeys will have to do for now.  I hope you are all staying safe and well.  Have a lovely week, and I'll see you soon.

If I had my life to live over, I'd pick more daisies.
Don Herold

I'd like to share this in the Flowers theme over at Art Journal Journey
I'd also like to join in the fun at Paint Party Friday for the Week 9, Year 10 gathering
The Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge is looking for Spritz and Splatter - there's plenty of my usual white spatter adding dots of light, and plenty of watery spritzing of the watercolour pigment too

Inspiring Herbs

Hello all, and welcome!  I'm on a bit of a roll with my Neal's Yard Remedies found words.  (If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can find out in the previous post, Pace Yourself.)  So here's another journalling page for the Art Journal Journey theme, Words To Live By.  This one heads into my favoured world of wildflowers, but let's imagine there are some herbs too somewhere in the deep layers of the background.

And this really is a very layered background.  I've been doing a series of landscapes in this large 10x10 inch journal from Paperchase.  (I may choose to share them soon - they feel a bit personal, so we'll see.)  In those landscapes I've been playing with a lot of textural paint, heavy body acrylics and palette knife work, and this page layered some more over the top of one which wasn't really working for me.






I don't have any process photos, I'm afraid.  I've been doing my best to stay in the moment, follow the flow of what's happening in my imagination and on the page.  That doesn't really allow for stopping to take a picture!













The dip pen has been in action, working with black India ink.  Black is a rare departure for me, and one that seems to release something of sadness into the work when I use it.














There's some book text transferred into the layers of paint in various places, as well as a bit of script stamping.
















Paint and pen work give a lighter touch of greenery to the black shadowy stems of the flowers.















And the flowers themselves are done with some more of the heavy body acrylic, trying to capture the fullness of the heads of the blooms with all that texture.












They have a very different energy from the watercolour versions I've been playing with in recent months (have a scroll through the Watercolour Birthday pictures if you missed those).












Here are the Neal's Yard words, which I went over with my dip pen and ink to give them a less formal appearance.  I really like the effect, so you'll see it again soon.













I am, as regulars here know, hugely inspired by meadow grasses and wildflowers, but if we're in a garden rather than a wild meadow, one of my favourite things a proper Elizabethan herb garden.












Walking down the tiny paths amongst foliage in greens and greys and blues, twisting a leaf between your fingers to release the fragrance of pungent mint or tangy lemon balm - all the senses tickled.













In Stratford upon Avon, on Shakespeare's birthday each year, people parade through the streets wearing sprigs of rosemary in his memory (There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love, remember, says Ophelia), and the whole town smells amazing.














There's a slight shimmer to the teardrops of High Flow acrylic dripping down the page.












And the scribbles and scratches and paint textures all add to the interest which comes from mixing your media in so many layers.

I hope you've enjoyed dipping in to these painty layers with me.  There are some more Words To Live By on the way shortly, and maybe those landscapes will put in an appearance too.  In the meantime have a great weekend (we're nearly there), and I'll see you soon.








Next to the larder, a door led out to our courtyard, which Mamma had kept filled with herbs. An ancient rosemary bush took up most of one side, and the air in summer was always full of bees. Sage, thyme, various kinds of mint, oregano, rocket, hyssop, lovage and basil grew in Mamma's collection of old terra-cotta pots. A fig tree was slowly pulling down the wall, and a tenacious, knotted olive tree had been struggling for years in the sunniest corner.
From Appetite by Philip Kazan

I'd like to share this at Art Journal Journey where they are looking for Words To Live By
I couldn't even count the number of different mediums used here, so I'd also like to play along at the Creative Artiste Blog where they are up to their 50th Anything Mixed Media Goes challenge

Got the blues? Nope - got New Paint!

Welcome all to the third post of the day (do check out my offerings for the new Artistic Stamper challenge - Love Is In The Air (Again!) - and for the new Country View Challenges theme - Drip, Drip, Drop! - while you're here).

But right now it's full steam ahead for a very exciting night over at PaperArtsy.  We're starting a week of New Release posts - full of exciting goodies and lots of inspiration from the PaperArtsy designers.

First up, as you can see, it's New Paint... so many fabulous new colours, and two new Limited Edition sets.  See the whole range over on the PaperArtsy blog right now, as well as creations using them, not to mention Leandra's great video sharing all the inside info... enough to make you salivate, I promise!  And you'll be happy to hear that all new PaperArtsy products are available now from your favourite PaperArtsy stockist.

So, strictly speaking, I've got New Paint and I've got the blues - my two absolute new favourites, Glass Blue and Blueberry.  (Well, since we're speaking strictly, Blueberry falls just over the border into the purples, but who's counting?!)  I'm just sharing one ATC with you tonight, focussing on those two colours - but you'll see me popping up through the week.

Regulars will know I love blue (whether paired with brown or with green), and also how I love translucence and light.  So how happy am I that there are new translucent blues?!

Obviously, I also love blue glass - it simply makes me happy.  I have a collection of bottles of all sorts of sizes and shades.

And I've always loved the PaperArtsy bottle stamps (they bob up all over the place in the Hot Picks range - this one is HP1109) but, up until now, I've had to be content with creating green or turquoise bottles.  Now I'm in the blue heavens!










It's a pretty simple make... the bottles are stamped in Cobalt Archival.

Then I put a blob of each of my two blues onto the craft mat, and dribbled some water on too.






Keeping my brush nice and wet - so that my translucents would be even more translucent - I started by adding pure Glass Blue to bottle 2 and bottle 6.  Bottle 3 is pure Blueberry.  For the other bottles I started to combine the colours to get slightly different shades.

Once they were all painted, I added a coat of Glossy Accents over each bottle to add a glassy shine as well as a bit of dimension.

When the Glossy Accents had dried it was easy to add the background colours.  I used Vintage Photo and Gathered Twigs and some PITT pen work to create the wooden shelf.  Blueberry was part of the deal to create the shadows.  The main colour on the wall is Bundled Sage, but then I brought in a bit of Glass Blue from the top edge.

I found this perfect text stamp -Take Six (bottles obviously) - in the Ephemera Plate #1 from the Ink & the Dog collection.

I clear-embossed the main stamping, but then the repeat stampings were left to take care of themselves.






So that's my ATC - I was so inspired by these translucent colours, and I'm very happy with how my blue glass gleams in the sunlight.

If you hop over to PaperArtsy you'll see all the amazing new colours, and you're sure to find lots of inspiration there too.

On the other hand, if you'd like to hang out here for a bit first, don't forget to check out today's earlier posts: Love Is In The Air (Again!) (sneak peek to the right) and Drip, Drip, Drop! (sneak peek below).











Thanks so much for stopping by today - especially if you've done so in triplicate!!  There are a couple of days to catch your breath now, but I'll be back after that with some more new PaperArtsy releases... hope to see you then.

Blue colour is everlastingly appointed by the deity to be a source of delight.
John Ruskin



The deeper the blue becomes, the more strongly it calls man towards the infinite, awakening in him a desire for the pure and, finally, the supernatural... The brighter it becomes, the more it loses its sound, until it turns into silent stillness, and becomes white.
Vasily Kandinsky

Past and Future

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

It's just gone midnight.  It's a brand new year, and time for a brand new challenge at The Artistic Stamper.  We're looking for projects with the theme of New Beginnings - and you can interpret that in any way you like - so come and play along.  You don't have to use Artistic Stamper stamps, but if you do you'll automatically get two entries in the prize draw - and you can play as many times as you like!

I've created a pair of ATCs marking what's past and what's to come, complete with some rusty bells to ring in the New Year.

I seem to plunge into really vivid blues and greens in January and February, and these ATCs take full advantage of that.





The backgrounds are from the Family Values plate, and are the perfect size for ATCs.

I applied lots of Distress Inks - Salty Ocean, Peacock Feathers, Mowed Lawn, Broken China are all definitely in there, plus maybe some others - direct to the stamp, and then clear embossed the resulting image.

I also added some Vintage Photo Distress Embossing Powder around the outsides, over some Versamark ink brushed directly onto the edges of the ATCs.












The months and years come from Katy Leitch's Dates set, and are stamped in Vintage Photo and clear embossed.

I then cut them into tiny tags and arranged them with some of my rusty jingle bells to ring out the old year and ring in the new (yes - an echo of the current Vintage Journey challenge theme there, and more than a few echoes between these ATCs and my offering for that, Ring In The New!).

I couldn't resist adding a bit of my favourite rusty wire to the mix.










And the Chitchat stickers capture some of my thoughts and feelings about the year going out...










... and the year coming in.

So those are my New Year's ATCs on the theme of New Beginnings.  I hope they'll inspire you to come and play along at The Artistic Stamper this month.

I'll be back later in the morning with the new Country View Challenges theme...  Until then, don't drink too much champagne (is there such a thing as too much champagne?!), and Happy New Year!!




Remember tonight... for it is the beginning of always.
Dante Alighieri

Artistic Stamper stamps used: Katy Leitch Dates, Family Values

Butterflies for me!

Hello all and welcome back to the second post of the day.  Yes, it's the first of the month and it's challenge time!  If you're looking for my Christmas is Coming offering for Artistic Stamper, just click to visit it.





But now it's over to the new theme over at Country View Challenges.  This month we're looking for  Bugs, Bees and Butterflies.  You can use any or all of them on your project… no prizes for guessing which way I decided to go!


For this tag, I reached for something old, something new and something blue.  If there's anything borrowed, then I'm afraid the owner can't have it back!


The blue obviously is there in the colour palette - blues and browns, probably my all time favourite combination, though one can always ring the changes with the precise shades used.












The "something old" is one of the tag backgrounds I made using Tim's June tag technique.  At the time I made four or five different colour variations as I was having such fun with the technique.  It was finally time for this one to take centre stage.

The "something new" are the French Flight Framelits butterflies… my first time of using the stamp-and-cut die set.









I love the inky stencilled print effect on the watercolour paper, but since you can read all about the background technique in the words of the master himself, I'll just fill you in on a couple of the additional details.










For the butterflies, I inked up a separate piece of card and stamped them in a combination of Cornflower Blue and Aquamarine Archival inks, blended the inks on the stamp.


When you cut them, you lose the labels and the antennae, so before gluing them down, I also stamped them directly onto my lettering background in Cobalt Archival.

So once they were stuck down, they had their bits and pieces back in place!









I edged the wings with Florentine Treasure Gold, as the metallic glow was becoming a bit of a feature elsewhere…

Here, for instance, in the couple of pen nibs attached as embellishments.












And on the altered Muse Token at the top of the tag… just a touch of Treasure Gold can really zhuzh something up!











I used some Chitchat Stickers to create my sentiment, outlining with a fine PITT pen to bed them into the background.













And because I stuck down the watercolour panel a bit too high up the tag, it needed something extra at the bottom.

I used some Idea-ology Long Fasteners to create a row of studs.  A burnishing of Treasure Gold to make them tone in, and we're pretty much there.










Oh, not forgetting the Distress Ink-dyed ribbons of the topping, of course!








So there are my first Bugs, Bees and Butterflies.  Do hop over to Country View Challenges and see what my fantastic team-mates have been up to, and don't forget there's ongoing inspiration there throughout the month.

I'll be here in a few days with my second Bugs, Bees and Butterflies offering, but I'm off to the theatre again now.  As well as new challenge day, the 1st November is also our first Preview, so today we find out how the show goes down with an audience… fingers crossed.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  I've just over a week left in New York now, so I should be able to visit Craftyblogland more regularly again soon.  Happy crafting all.

The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
Marcel Proust

If you're after seasonal inspiration do check out the new Artistic Stamper challenge too.  Christmas doesn't usually start this early at Words and Pictures!