Craft Stamper Magazine Challenge Feb 2015

 Hi there, well this is my second entry for The Craft Stamper Magazine Take It Make It Challenge

 http://craftstamper.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/take-it-make-it-challenge-february.html

Xx

You Are My sunshine.

I have done a picture tutorial to make it more interesting than all my waffle ?? But I have to say I was excited to see that this Challenge was about Stencils. I have been playing with stencils since the days of Changing Rooms with Lawrence Llewlyn and Linda Barker. In fact I have a signed book by Linda - she was my hero because she was all about colour and so was I but in a kind of opposite way.  In those days I used to buy stencils at B&Q but I also used to make my own. I got quite a reputation And lost count of how many Kitchens I stencilled ? mostly with Ivy!! But I did enjoy blending the leaves with shade and light, not an easy thing to do with "stencil paint"?? Do you remember that? Anyway I am not new to stencils. So you'd think I would go a bit mad Eh ?? But I didn't because sometimes just one or two simple images with a good stencil is all you need. Like the ones I used from Clarity Stamp. I love these images  - and the striped stencil is one of my favourites, it's so versatile. You can easily change the feel of a card, tag or Canvas with a Stencil like that. From Pretty to Arty, from Messy to Organised, because its a directional Stencil  it forces the eye to follow it but if you did it in both directions it would just calm everything down. Like these Tags here, I used the same Stencil. The one on the left is telling you to look all the way to the bottom and back up to the top - or to look at the whole item at once?  right?  The one on the right is telling you to stop at certain points because it is blocking your eye from looking at the whole thing at once.  Well that's the way I see it anyway.  So sometimes if I am a bit stuck as to where I am going with a project I pull out my Striped Stencil.

 

 

Anyway about the no waffle thing???

 

So I got a Canvas Board out - you can buy these from Clarity Stamp along with the Grunge Paste and Two Stencils that I used.

Coat it in Paint with a Sponge, you might want a few layers because obviously canvas is thirsty for paint. I used Dina Wakley Media Paint - Magenta

Next I got out the Dina Wakley "Night" Media paint, if two colours were made for each other, its these two!  So two ways you can do this, make your "rain" marks on a gelli plate and then pick it up and slap it onto your Canvas Board using your Gelli Mega Mount from Clarity or get a sponge and/or flat paint brush  and have a go at flicking the paint down-over - to give the effect of movement.

Get your Stencil and Grunge Paste out and spread the GP through the Stencil.

If you add rough lines at this stage it gives you more play for shadow or the look of texture when you ink or paint it later.

See, If you look closely I have left the girl on the left with a textured skirt and the girl on the right with textured hair.

Let them dry - about 10 minutes but if you are going to play straight away I would give it about half an our because the ink and paint wet the GP again and if it wasn't totally dry it could easily be dented or rubbed off - it is water soluble so if you really get it wet like I have done on occasion  it just disintegrates  altogether leaving you wondering where it went ??? 

So here we are 1 canvas board and two stencils later and we have the base of the picture - well I say picture, it isn't really meant to be a picture its just a bit of Mixed Media abstract!!

So here you can see the effect now of leaving the Grunge Paste a bit uneven, but it is pre-thought unevenness!!

So now I just started to play, I inked it up I wiped it off I painted it I sanded it - that's what Mixed Media is - play see what you get and if it doesn't work stick another medium on it and see what happens. Isn't it???

So I went from too bright to too dull and then too bright again ........ you get the picture, but this is the norm for me.   So I decided what was really needed was a bit of pattern.  Hence the Punchinella blended through the Line Stencil onto the GP using Ranger Inks and Sponge (I bought mine at Clarity Stamp -  these Ranger sponges are perfect for blending.

So what a mess eh??? But you can see that the pattern breaks it up a lot, and the girl on the left is starting to get a skirt that suits her and the little girl on the right is starting to look girly girly,  don't you think?  I love colouring GP with inks or paint. 

 

So here I wanted to stamp some words but my verses were too long for the size of words I have. So I shortened the verse and hand wrote the wording - which now isn't a verse at all just a few song lines.  I would have much preferred to have used a stamp, my hand writing isn't great so its another reason I love stamps and I have some great letters and words, so next time!  For the background I just blended some ink through my Clarity Circles Stencil (so 3 stencils used) and some punchinells.  

Here now I was just playing with the positioning of everything, this is all too spread out and so I fitted the words in more with the GP

 

I sanded back the clothing and umbrella a bit and this gives more of a muted look.

I struggled with the colouring on this little lady but only because it was the skirt that didn't fit the rest of the canvas colours but it was the bit I liked the best, so I just played till it worked, well I think it worked??

Ta Da - my Take It - Make It Challenge piece for the Craft Stamper Magazine.

So black frame or white frame???
 

I hope you like it?  Any nice comments are always welcome thank you.

This is the link to the Challenge

B y for now

Sam xxx