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  • Mixed Media Fun!

    Yeah! – at last, I got to play mixed media!! I had so much fun!

    I finally got the courage this year and signed up for 21 Secrets 2013. As I have never really done any proper art journalling, I treated myself to a smart Strathmore Mixed Media Journal – it was a dream to use, and just the right size!

    The Gift! - 21 Secrets 2013, Carissa Page's Mixed Media Class

    This is my play page, which I’ve titled ‘The Gift’, inspired by the class from Carissa Paige. I played with acrylic paint, ink sprays, stencils, foam stamps, staz-on ink pads, collage, and graphite pencils. I found the girl in green holding ‘The Gift’ lurking in the painty mix. Thank you Carissa for the gift of freedom you inspired with your class. I know I had fun – I’m still picking the paint and gel medium off my fingers!!

    I made an interesting discovery when I tried to scan the finished picture – my scanner does not ‘see’ luminous acrylic paint, and as I used rather a lot, it left the colours looking a bit flat! So I spent ages trying to get a good photo which didn’t have too much reflection! Has anyone else discovered this problem?

    Postcard #9 - iHanna's Postcard Swap 2013

    Last but not least – I received my ninth postcard this morning all the way from Australia – a wonderful hand drawn mandala from Lulu – beautiful! Thank you so much. Only one more postcard to go – then it’s all over for this year – it’s been so much fun! I’ll have to hunt around for another swap to take part in. Anyone got any ideas?

    Now I’m off to play mixed media in the next part of Carissa’s class!

    By on Thursday April 11th, 2013 at 19:58 in 21 Secrets 2013, Artistic Ramblings, CED, iHannah's DIY Postcard Swap 2013, Mandalas, messy craft, Stencils - Comments Off on Mixed Media Fun!

    Beautiful Postcards

    I had so much fun in March making 10 postcards to send out around the world as part of the iHanna Postcard Swap 2013, but this month has been just as much fun seeing what the postman has brought me every day.

    Beautiful Postcards

    These are the postcards I have received so far – aren’t they beautiful! And they came with lovely messages from all around the world. Thank you so much Hanna for all your hard work to make such a swap possible.

    Yesterday I had every intention of getting messy and grungy and playing mixed media games, but life decided otherwise! So instead, I created another Quirky Bird. This one’s called Freda!

    Quirky Bird Freda

    I painted her on calico, after using clear gesso to seal it. My original intention was to paint her using the natural calico colour as the background, but I made such a mess of drawing her, and the pencil lines wouldn’t rub out, so I ended up painting over the background to hide the mess!!

    She’s painted using acrylic paint, neocolour crayons, Edding 780 paint marker and Pitt artist pens. Despite the early disaster, I don’t think she’s turned out too bad.

    And now your must excuse me – I have an overdue date with some messy mixed media grunge!!

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    Handmade Postcards

    Last Sunday we travelled to Harrogate and visited the Great Northern Papercrafts Extravaganza – great fun! I got some really cool stencils, stamps and dies which I have been playing with this week.

    On Monday I signed up to take part in the iHannah’s DIY Postcard Swap 2013. (There’s still time to sign up if you’re interested, you just have to pledge to post 10 handmade cards by 30th March.) So I have been busy this week making my ten cards for the swap.

    Handmade Postcards

    I started by creating a set of coloured backgrounds using Inktense Watercolour pencils. Next I added a contrasting colour using Acrylic paint and an Artist Cellar Stencil followed by a stamped image from IndigoBlu using a mixture of distress ink and staz-on ink pads. I followed this with a layer of gel medium to seal everything and to stick on the word definition tags, which I created using more stamps from IndigoBlu and a Creative Expressions stencil, and the die cut letters from memory box. Lastly I added another layer using the same stencil with acrylic paint.

    Handmade Postcard Backs

    I created the backs of the postcards using a free postcard backside from iHannah which I had to resize to fit my postcards, then added a digital stamp which I made using a scan of another Creative Expressions stencil, some hand drawn bird shapes and a quotation from Friedrich Nietzsche.

    The completed postcards are now sitting waiting for their recipients addresses to be added!

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