Monthly Archives: February 2013

Octopus card

birthday card, card, octopus

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An octopus may not be the first idea you have when making a card for someone but John has mentioned them a few times when regaling us with stories from his holidays in Greece. This one is an Oxford Impressions stamp from The Deep set.   I brayered the background blue onto silk matt coated card then sprayed with water and sprinkled with salt to get a speckled effect. The image was stamped using black memento ink then using a water brush filled with bleach I took some of the colour out so I could then go back in and use a pinky colour for the octopus.  I used a variety of copics and other pens but couldn’t quite get the blended effect I was after.

Steampunk cards

card, steampunk, steampunk card
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I was in a bit of a hurry the other day to get a couple more cards finished.  I wanted to do a couple of steampunk cards but not in the usual brown/sepia colour so I chose black, white and grey.  The grey colour in real life is more of a warm grey than you see here.  There is a bit of masking, layering and brayering going on here and some small details are highlighted with silver liquid pearl.  The stamps are Oxford Impressions Steampunk and Stampin up (cogs in bottom pic).

Napkin card

card, napkin card

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This was a fun card to do but it didn’t turn out quite as I had expected it to.  Tegan likes this kind of scrapbook/journal type of thing and I found the perfect napkin in my stash for it. It feels like a bit of a cheat really as the artwork is all from the napkin.  I made a base first from a music print along with some acrylic paint and soft gel then I glued the top layer of a (3 ply)  tissue napkin over it.  The intention was to see some of the music print through the tissue napkin but it is quite faint.  If you click on the image you might just see it.  I layered it up with some red vellum and added a punched out red vellum butterfly with some lemon yellow liquid pearl for the body.  Lastly I added diamond glaze to the button.

Tarte tatin sketch

art, sketch, sketchbook challenge, tarte tatin
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To encourage me to try sketching a bit more for practice I have joined the sketchbook challenge and this months challenge theme is ‘Sweet: sugar and spice and all things nice’.  I didn’t know what to sketch so I flicked through some cook books and found a photograph of a delicious looking caramelised apple flan (or tarte tatin) so I thought I would have a go.  I scanned my sketch with a sheet of acetate over it in black and white mode so it is not picking up the subtle colour of the pencil.  I am looking forward to doing a few more of these challenges.