Rusty Rustic Houses

Hello all!  Thank you so much for the lovely feedback on the ongoing daily leaf studies for World Watercolour Month.  Sadly, that seems to be almost the only thing my creative mojo is up for at the moment.  An exception is when I meet up on Skype with Brenda Brown of Bumblebees and Butterflies and Nikki Acton of Addicted to Art.

We had another of our online gatherings recently and Brenda's husband Ken got involved too!  He generously offered to cut Nikki and me a trio of wooden houses each, like the ones we'd been covetously admiring when Brenda showed us them earlier in lockdown.  And then we each got to play as we chose...

Yup, no surprises about where mine landed up... some delicate wildflower stems and tendrils and some rusty wire, not forgetting the crackle.  It's a long one, so you might want a nice cup of tea or coffee to hand before you continue...







Funnily enough, despite the joy of having the little wooden block houses (which Brenda had kindly posted), it took us two sessions to get these houses done.












For some reason we all ground to a halt the first day, and agreed to meet up again in a week's time and hope that the creativity would start to flow again.

I think you'll agree when you see the other projects that we did not hope in vain!













I'll take you quickly through my creative steps... chiefly so that I have a record so it doesn't take me so long next time to get my house(s) in order.











I forgot to take a picture of the wood blocks completely unadorned (but I bet one of the others will have one).  My first photo here is of them with a wash of white.

I wanted to keep the woodgrain showing, so I used DecoArt's Vintage Effect Wash rather than an opaque acrylic.











Now a little bit of decorative tissue paper - this is one of the Christmassy Idea-ology rolls, but I tore around the overtly festive stuff just to get some nice text and a few leafy shapes.  That also got a wash of white over the top to blend it in.













Next up, some inking.  I used Coffee Archival so that it would be nice and permanent, blended on with a blending tool.












And then (no apologies for inking it up yet again!) I stamped my favourite Rubber Dance Weed Love tendrils in Olive Green and started to add little flower heads... just tiny dabs of PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Paint in Lavender and Wisteria.   (Wisteria only in this photo, I think.  You can see the darker Lavender added below.)











Once I'd added flowers all over, that's when I ground to a halt.  I really, really, really wanted to add some crackle, but I knew that would mean a big pause in my making while I waited for it to do its thing.  And beyond crackle I really couldn't see where I was headed next.  Thankfully, I wasn't the only one struggling and Nikki and Brenda were more than happy to throw in the towel and try again another day!










So we magically jump a week to where my crackle has crackled, and had some dark paint trickled over it to highlight that glorious texture (a dirty wash of Raw Umber, Quinacridone Gold and Paynes Grey). 

I added the same paints to the roofs - delighted that the wash was translucent enough to leave those woody whorls and lines perfectly clear.













It was still slow going, but gradually I fought my way through.  I'd always known I wanted some rusty wire wrappings (of course) but nothing else was particularly clear.

Part of the problem was I really liked the houses in their very simplest form.  I could easily have stopped at the whitewash and inky edges stage!












But these tiny strips of butterfly and script Design Tape over some torn Tissue Tape were a big step forward.  I decided the corners would be my focal focus rather than having the houses decorated flat-side-on.













(Funky, but not so easy when it came to photographing them - if you have to have them at an angle to see the corner, you pretty much always get one side in shadow!)















But once the tapes were on, things started to fall into place more easily.  Obviously the wire-wrapping was next - always a delicious moment - and I kept things simple with a few cogs and bolts and some short Small Talk sticker phrases.
















The largest of the three houses got a Philosophy Tag all to itself.  (I suspect these have been discontinued, but I still have a small supply.)















And I really like the words on the big house too... going around the corner.













I thought it would be too cutesy to have them all going round corners.  Besides, the positioning of the cogs wouldn't allow for it.














So for the two smaller houses the words go on the front side - one high, one low, so that overall we get a nice balanced look.













I'm so happy with my trio of houses now.  The crackle is fabulous, though I do say so myself!















(Such a relief... at first it looked as though it wasn't going to do anything, but I put a bit more of another kind of crackle paste over the top and away we went.)















I love the simple stained rooftops with their slightly rusty undertones to complement the rusty wire.














Of course I love the rusty wire!














And I'm really happy with my little blue flower vines too.  (If some of you are thinking this looks familiar, I was shamelessly CASEing one of my favourite tags from earlier this year, Rusted Hope.)













And given that I'd wanted to stop at a much earlier stage, if I really want things even simpler then I can just turn my three houses around and enjoy them from behind...

Best of all possible worlds!






Well, that's more than enough from me for today.  Just take a look at how differently Nikki and Brenda's houses turned out.  Do hop over to their blogs to see all the magic happening... you'll find Nikki's fabulous trio here at Addicted to Art, and Brenda's adorable little scene here at Bumblebees and Butterflies. 

I'm so grateful that these online crafting sessions have nudged me into mixed media action, otherwise things would have been even more sluggish around here lately!  It's always such fun to chat and laugh and set the world to rights, even when the crafting isn't going well... and even more so when it is!

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  I hope you're finding ways to nudge your creative mojo into action, or just enjoying taking some time for yourself now and then.  I'll see you again soon, either here or elsewhere in Craftyblogland.  Stay safe, stay well all.

Houses are like people - some you like and some you don't like - and once in a while there is one you love.
From Emily Climbs by L.M. Montgomery

I'd like to share these at Country View Challenges for the theme Do What Makes You Happy - all my favourite things, and eventually they made me happy!

The Skype's the limit

Hello all, I hope you're all okay, and I'm very sorry I've been such a poor visitor lately...

I'm planning some catching up this weekend, and looking forward to seeing what creative journeys you've been taking during these strange times.

Like many of you, I've found my mojo is an elusive creature in these circumstances, flitting in and out of reach.

Last Sunday, Nikki, Brenda and I gathered for another Skype crafting session, and at the start I was drawing a complete blank on what to make.  (I was also in a bit of a grump that day... for no good reason, just moodiness.)

But by the end, I'd found my way to this collaged journal page which I have to say makes me deeply happy.  (We're in the large Dylusions journal again - last seen on my Daisy, daisy (daisy) painting.)










We've applied various route-maps or rules for our past Skype sessions (either following the same steps, taking it in turns to offer the next instruction; or working with limited selection of ingredients; or with a time-limit), but this time we played with no rules.












(Cards on table... I said I was feeling too grumpy to follow rules!)  It was really just a chat-with-crafting-friends-while-crafting affair.  The only limit was our imaginations (and mojo-cooperation).












As with my lavender Suffragette, I haven't really got any process photos to share.  At first, I wasn't taking pictures because I couldn't get into the swing and didn't really want to record what was happening.













And then all of a sudden it turned a corner, and then I was too much in the flow to be stopping and taking photos!

This was a topsy turvy process for me.  Usually I start with background layers, enjoying myself tremendously until it comes to trying to work out what's going on top of it all - when things generally slow down quite a lot.











This time, it all started with some of the uppermost layers... a simple collage of a trio of Idea-ology journalling cards, a strip of Photobooth photos and a Paper Doll, and the film strip ribbon (still determined to curl which is why I'm having to hold the whole lot down).

I only took this photo because I knew I'd have to remove them all to do whatever I was going to do in the background and I wanted a reminder of the positioning.












It's fairly easy to see what went on the background - as a whole, the page is not complicated.  I did some stencilling over the gesso'd page with a Finnabair script stencil and some Watering Can Archival ink.











There was some Pumice Stone Distress Ink on the sponge already which is why you get a slightly variegated tone.  (Oh, how I wish for Pumice Stone in Archival form!)













If you look through my recent creations, you would think I only own one stamp (not the case!).  These Rubber Dance tendrils from the Weed Love stamp plate have been twining their way over rather a lot of my work lately.













Here they are stamped in Olive Archival - best to use Archival, as I really didn't know what else might be going to happen at this point.













There are a couple of Crafter's Workshop stencils also in action, this time with some texture paste (probably my favourite way of using stencils).














I'm pretty sure I used the Finnabair artbasics Plaster Paste for this.  It has a nice rough-hewn look to it, and a soft white colour tone, rather than out and out bright white.












On a separate piece of cardstock I did some dipping and dabbing with Distress Inks and Oxides so that I could cut a few Wildflower Thinlits stems.















My guess is that Bundled Sage and Peeled Paint are in the mix, and maybe a touch of Old Paper.  I wasn't concentrating very hard, just reaching for what felt good.















The stems hopped around the layout for a while before I settled on their final positioning.














One of the delights of this page for me is that strip of Photobooth photos.  I very often use these little snapshots on tags and pages, but I think in the past I've always gone for just one at a time.

But this time the long vertical line of film strip (which I do use quite frequently - it was a vital ingredient in my Winter Journal pages a while back, and since then it puts in regular appearances) demanded another strong vertical element.













This trio of faces just seemed to be right for the purpose.
















It's also rare that a whole strip appeals to me.  But here, every single one of the three faces seemed to be speaking to me.














Together the film strip and the photostrip give the whole page a really strong spine for everything else to hang off.














I love the filmstrip for its transparency - love to see what's behind - and of course for its light-capturing glossiness, but of course film is all about storytelling too, and that gives it such a strong connection to my day-job (more about that at the end of the post).













It's stapled in place.  I did that quite early on, as it was annoying how it kept rolling itself up, which meant I then had to slide everything else in and out from under it from then on, but it all worked out in the end.












Oh, I almost forgot the other person who was involved from the beginning - this fabulously intense Paper Doll.

She's actually from one of the Halloween collections, but I love her just as she is on this springtime page.  Such presence and force of character.














And she has a firm footing in the world too, courtesy of some tissue tape fragments.















I'm quite sure that she will keep on exploring, as the Quote Chip suggests...














... and that she will keep careful journal notes about all the curious things which attract her attention.












There's a butterfly perched ready for flight.  Yes, it's back again.

The butterflies are a definite motif at the moment, appearing all the time, like those tendrils seeking a place to put down roots... symbolic of where I'm at in my life's journey - about to take flight and create a new home (as soon as I'm allowed to leave, that is).












Funny how I've only just realised what those repeated vine-stampings and butterfly-embellishing are probably about.  That's the subconscious for you.














I suppose the tangled thread is maybe about the tangles and obstructions getting in the way at the moment... or maybe I just like how it looks!












Nearly there... I roughened up the edges of the journalling cards with the blade of my scissors before sticking them down.

And right towards the very end I added the delicate splodges (splodge isn't a very delicate word, is it) of ink around the edges.












It works nicely to highlight some of that texture as well as adding to the overall greenery.

So from a very grumpy start, this conversational Skype crafting turned around my day into something far lovelier... big thanks go to Nikki and Brenda for that, and to my mojo for turning up in time.

This flowery page can also serve as some extra inspiration to come and play along with the Beautiful Blooms challenge at A Vintage Journey this month.






I hope you'll be tempted over to see what the other two got up to during our limitation-free Skype session.  These two sneak peeks ought to whet your appetite.  You'll find Nikki's project here at Addicted to Art and Brenda's here at Bumblebees and Butterflies.

Well, that was another photo extravaganza!  But there aren't many words on today's project (if you discount all the vintage script, which you can't read so that doesn't really count) so I've got an alternative focus on words for you if you fancy it.

If you'd like to know a bit more about what's involved in my "day job" as a theatre text and voice coach (or if you're just curious about what I look and sound like!), then you'll find me in conversation here on youtube, talking about my passion for voice/breath/imagination and Shakespeare.  If you think I talk a lot here at Words and Pictures, just wait til you see this!!




Thank you as always for your company on the journey.  Now more than ever these online connections we share are such a force for good.  As I said at the start, I've set some time aside for some Craftyblogland visiting and I'm looking forward to catching up with you all over the next few days.  For now, stay safe, stay well and I'll see you soon.  Happy crafting all!

If you're not in the mood, you can't do that stuff right.
From The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Creativity doesn't wait for that perfect moment. It fashions its own perfect moments out of ordinary ones.
Bruce Garrabrandt

To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.
Kurt Vonnegut

I'd like to share this at Art Journal Journey where the subject for May is Flowers
I'd also like to play along with the 60th Anything Mixed Media Goes theme at the Creative Artiste Challenge Blog
Still no pink, I'm afraid, but it is optional at the More Mixed Media Challenge where this month Anything Mixed Media Goes + Optional Pink
I'd like to share this with the Anything Mixed Media Goes theme for May at the Bleeding Art Challenge