Believe - OMMM

Still in the middle of #ICAD2017 so other challenges are overlapping to save time.
This one is also for Our Mixed Media Moods, inspired by this mood board.

I chose to focus on the colours, using a geli print and then layer with golden Payne's grey, golden high flow and Paper Artsy Infusion 'In the Navy'. Waiting for the gold acrylic was too much for me so the heat gun got very close! I knew I would like the bubbling that happened - I think it's my favourite part.

I found some magazine images that matched and layered these with this with sari ribbon and stamped the sentiment on calico.

Twelve Month Challenge - May

Tine for The Craft Barn Monthly Challenge for May and again I have tackled the season for both hemisphere's. I'm not really a drawer (yet!) so was grabbed the lamb napkins I found in my local dollar store knowing I could use them for this challenge.

I used Golden fluid acrylics in gold green and light umber for the background, applying it with an old bank card as this gives more texture. As the background was quite dark, I found it showed through when I glued on the lambs from the napkin, so had to add another layer. I thought I had been quite careful with the placement, but seem to have some ghosting - not a problem really. I then went over the lambs with white Posca pen to make them whiter and also used a couple of flowers from the napkin.

Now for my Southern Hemisphere page. I had been to Wellington with a school trip in the second week of May and these are the amazing blue skies we encountered. This is actually a combination of two photos taken at the waterfront. The top one shows The Michael Fowler Centre and pole sculptures on the 'Taniwha Bridge', with another sculpture and cafes in the lower photo. I really didn't want mess with them or cover them up so all I did was add some glaze and glass bead gel to the top image and some silver foil and gel markers to the sail-like roofs in the bottom image. While my couplet about May reflects the amazing day we had, sadly I will have to admit that during the last two weeks of May, it has done nothing but rain!! Still we are lucky here, as we really do see the sun, and skies like this all year.

Twelve Month Challenge - April

This is my journal page spread created for The Craft Barn Twelve Month Challenge - The Months.

The April challenge was to include primroses or daisies as well as the lines of the poem.
As usual I have created my Southern Hemisphere version of the page a part of my journal spread.

I was going to be away from home for a few days and so quickly laid down some paint for my backgrounds, keeping them similar but using Golden High Flow acrylic in silver to highlight the Spring side and gold for the Autumn side. I punched some shapes from patterned paper, with the primrose/daisy shapes coming from some scraps of geli prints. The scraps left were used to stencil some flowers. I also coloured a piece of watercolour paper so I could create the acorn.

So once I went to create the pages, I stuck on some pieces of gold patterned tissue, then drew and cut out the acorn. I also had some paintings of some hyacinths from some watercolour play and these seemed to fit well. Once I had placed and glued all the images, I chose matching Inktense pencils to outline them.

Stars & Heart

This page was created for Viva Las Vegas March Challenge. Some of the inspirations were twilight & dusk, the northern lights, dancing and twinkling stars.

I started using Distress Markers sprayed with water to create a light wash effect. As I knew this would move I sprayed it with a fixative. The drips and splatters were made with Golden fluid acrylics. I then stamped two VLV stamps - the stars and heart The heart did not stand out as much as I wanted so I went over this with a Derwent Inktense pencil and activated with water. I hand stitched the muslin with embroidery thread, dabbed with the leftover paint and then added Golden mica medium. The stars have been dotted with Golden Glass Bead Gel.

I had no sentiment in mind so finished with some journaling.

Mixed Media Moods - February

This challenge group is really growing now and I do enjoy the creations and inspiration from Deedee and Jenn.

My first page uses inspiration from the mosaic/grid effect in the bottom left. I cut up a brayer roll-off page from Gelli printing for the collaged pieces, with a turquoise glaze over the top. The heart is the inside from the heart in my other piece for this month.
Check out my video below.

Explore, Dream, Discover

This is another piece inspired by Our Mixed Media Moods by DeeDee Catron & Jenn Engle. I love what they do in their art and have finally been brave enough to film a short clip of myself creating. I wasn't brave enough to speak yet, but it's start.
We know how these challenges often overlap and I found that what I created also fitted perfectly with the latest Paper Artsy challenge, Pink & Orange. Traditionally we probably wouldn't put these colours together but in art they look amazing and I loved this piece and the colour combination is sure to appear again. I was especially drawn to the boldness of the Dina Wakley piece, but also the subtleness of Elise Engh's feathers, as posted on the PA blog.

Here is Our MMM inspiration board. My inspiration came from the cloours, top left, and the roses, botton middle.

Let It Snow!

One of the new challenges from The Craft Barn this year is the song challenge. The first one is based on the song Let It Snow.

The piece of art has to have the title of the song and artists who have made it popular.

Now I know I have mentioned the fact that being in the Southern Hemisphere puts me out of sync for many of the challenges online, but this Summer has not been so great so far and, can you believe it, there was snow of the mountain range to the west of my town last week!!

I did not take the photo - it was on our local news website. I kept this quite simple, adding a border this pattern paper, some bronze Golden hi-flow and artists who had sung the song. The snow flakes are die cut with some silver glitter gel pen added. I also used Golden pearl hi-flow on the actual snow. In hindsight, I could probably stamped the title directly onto the page, but the tissue does help add some texture and interest. I added the sun, also a die cut and also coloured with Golden hi-flow, which dry with quite a glossy finish. 

So this in SNOW in the SUMMERTIME!!