WOYWW 312 and 6 Year Anniversary

WOW how time flies.  I have to say I have only participated in WOYWW the last couple of years but those years have been fun and I've made some good friends and have been privileged to see what has been created on them.

I think Julia who instigated the What's on your work desk Wednesday blog hops has done an amazing job in gathering a bunch of artists together who would otherwise not have met.  The internet is great isn't it?  So why not pop on over to Julia's blog the Stamping Ground and see what I mean about connecting to artists from all over the world.

In the meantime I'd like to say a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who visits my little blog world and leaves a comment or two or if you just happen to pass through.

Not much going on on my desk.  I bought these lovely ceramic beads from a facebook friend who was doing a destash and I'm trying to decide what to make with them.  I know there will be several pieces made but that's as far as I've got.  I may use copper or brass wire with them - what do you think?

What's On Your Work Desk? Wednesday #293

Oh goodness well I nearly missed this weeks WOYWW - why didn't anyone remind me it was Wednesday?  Anyway I made it and all by myself hahaha.  Not much to show this week.  I have 3 floral arches made to take to Arizona with me in a few weeks time.  I'm meeting up with some arty friends - approx 40 of us and other than ATC's we'll be trading arches as well.  Oh and if you think I'm making 40 of them think again I can't possibly make that many unfortunately.  I will of course have a load of other things with me so there will be more than enough.  Well that's enough waffle from me.  Here's my desk..............oh and if you're wondering what WOYWW is then pop over to Julia's blog Stamping Ground and all will be revealed.

Before I go I want to share this with you regarding the "NOT A ROBOT" check (I've pinched it from Julia)

HOUSEKEEPING:  several of you are complaining that I (and others) have a 'NOT A ROBOT' check instead of word verification. You're quite right. But not by choice and we can't remove it. If you have a Google account, you can, I've discovered, just ignore it. But its been forced onto us Blogger users and we cant change it.  Sorry. And if you know different, please share!

Thank you for visiting my blog

Anita

What's On Your Work Desk? Wednesday #289

Welcome and good evening to another Wednesday WOYWW #289.  What's it all about?  Find out here on Julia's blog the Stamping Ground.

I hope your Wednesday has been brighter than it has been up here.  It's been a day of constant drizzle and rain and today of all days I decided to visit the Christmas market in Manchester.  It was now or never as it ends this weekend.  It was a nice day out just drifting along from one stall to another.  

Anyhow you're not here to read about my day out.  Here is how I left my desk this morning. What you see on the desk is some magnetic backed frames which I bought from Pound World they were a horrible pink colour (see 2nd picture).  I've applied some black gesso to them to which I'm going to add some metallic paint and some of the gems I bought yesterday which are in the round containers sat on top of the wax crayons on the left.  I'm thinking of putting some of my gelli art prints inside them instead of photographs.  

Here are yesterdays bargain buys from the local Pound World in the nail art section they had these pack of gems which you use on your nails but you know what they're also great for your artwork and you can't argue at the price either.  The large pack of crystal gems (540 approx per sheet) I found those in the stationary and craft items.  The packs of coloured gems were off the local market at 50p each.

Thank you for all the visits and I must apologise for not doing many visits last week as it's been a case of making and delivering stock to Authentic and then a day or so later getting a message saying my stock is running low.  Not that I'm complaining.  I'm just over whelmed with how much people are liking my work.  I'll try to do better this week.

Have a wonderful week Anita

What's On Your Work Desk? Wednesday 284

Here we go again with another look at WOYWW - want to know more and how to participate?  Then pop over to the Stamping Ground where Julia will explain all.

My desk this morning consists of a painting I'm trying to finish for the Flood the Street with Art project - find out more about that and how you can take part on the face book page.  This is how I left it last night after adding black outlines around the flowers and painting the cogs green in the center of each flower - they were stenciled in using texture paste.  To the left there is a female figure cut out and painted in black which is now made up into an altered clothes pin (made this morning while my computer had a hissy fit).  Sitting on the handle of the pots at the back you can see the two dress altered clothes pins I made yesterday.

The finished clothes pin "Don't forget me"

That's it from me I'm off to see what everyone has on their desks

Anita

Create Art Every Day November Day 2

So it's day 2 of the create art every day challenge hosted by Leah over at Creative Every Day .  

I've worked a little bit more on the painting I started yesterday for Flood the Street with Art project.  I'm at the messy untidy stage where everything looks flat and has no texture or interesting sections.  I haven't planned this one in how it should look when finished I'm going to let it develop on it's own.  

The messy untidy stage day 2

From Day 1 the start of the painting

Anita

Creating a Picture with Rubber Stamps

Day 10 of #blogtoberrfest - Hello everyone hope you have a wonderful weekend.  Today I'm going to show you how to create a picture using rubber stamps.  In the picture below I have used the Scroll Frames rubber stamp as an edge to a page in my journal.  I stamped it with the midnight ink pad  and then used a damp paint brush to move the ink around the swirls to add some shading to them.  I've added some pink highlights with some neocolor II water soluble wax crayons and added some black dots with a copic pen.  

The trees I made using one of the 2 inch Journal Circles and added colour with the wax crayons.  The dots, edge of the circles and the tree trunks were painted with the black acrylic ink to which I added some white acrylic paint to make them 'pop'. 

For the grass I used the feather stamp from the Big Christmas Collection and stamped it using the spring green ink pad. 

This young lady was a happy accident.  I was playing around with the stamps as you do when you first get them and as I stamped the larger of the scrolls I thought 'oh hello' this looks like curly hair.   I added some more 'curls' with the smaller swirl and hey presto a full head of curly swirly hair.  Don't you love happy accidents?

Happy Crafting 

Anita 

What's On Your Workdesk - WOYWW 277

Time for this weeks WOYWW - What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday.  Want to know more then pop on over to the Stamping Ground.  

On my desk this windy Wednesday is a painting of a face.  I recently bought some acrylic inks from Oak House Studio.  I love painting with acrylic paint but have never tried the inks.  I did find them challenging as they do dry very quickly so you can't blend the colours together.  After a few goes just using them on dry paper I decided to wet the paper I was using and use the inks as you would use water colour paints.  I think this technique worked better but you do have to be careful and let the paint dry first if you don't want it to bleed - like the lips - they were still slightly damp and when I added the water around the face the red from the lops bled onto the upper lip and under the nose.  A lot more practice is needed me thinks.

Want to see what other artists have on their desks this Wednesday?  Then pop on over to the Stamping Ground and follow the links you never know who you're going to bump into.

Have a wonderful Wednesday

Anita

Inky Backgrounds

Happy Tuesday everyone.  Today is all about creating backgrounds with spray and acrylic inks.  For these backgrounds I've used glossy photo paper.  I have a whole stash of them which came with my printer. Normally I would use alcohol inks on them but thought I would have a play with the inks from Oak House Studio.  
You don't have to have photographic paper in fact it's probably better if you can use the glossy paper for encaustic wax.  Why?  well the photographic paper is designed for the ink to dry quickly and ebbed itself into the paper when you print on it and the encaustic from what I can remember isn't as porous and so has a slow drying time.  Having said that I'm pretty pleased with how these backgrounds have turned out.

I haven't done a tutorial for these as there really is no right or wrong way of making these.  I started off by spraying plain water to the paper, then added the spray inks and then sprinkled/splodged/flicked the acrylic ink with an old paint brush.  Carry on adding plain water or the spray inks until you are happy with how the paints have merged and then either leave them to dry or use a heat gun.

Pop back again to see how I use these in one of my projects. 

Well I'll be back tomorrow - until then happy crafting

Anita

Catching Up - Photo Heavy

It's been a busy week with lots of new artwork made for trade, to sell and collaborations.  Those of you who have been following me for some time will know my passion for challenges especially if they are art related.  Why do I join these challenges and put myself through the stress of coming up with something that would be acceptable?  Well it's mostly to stretch myself and see if I can make something outside of my comfort zone.

So my latest challenge started last week on Twinkle Twinkle Like A Star (also see my previous post) called Summer of Colour 4.  I came across this on facebook (as you do) and I knew I had to join.  The colour challenge last week was Aqua, Yellow with a dash of Pink.  

The first photograph shows what I did initially but I wasn't happy with it as it just needed 'something'.  The second photograph is the finished piece.  I'm much happier with that version.  I can't wait to see what this weeks colours are going to be. 

  

1st Version

Finished piece

Finished piece but upside down - I like it this way up or should that be down :)

The other items I made are some Artist Trading Cards for trading in a swap I am hosting at a gallery in Altrincham Manchester UK.  I'm a volunteer there and have been given the grand title of ATC coordinator.  I've found that ATC's are not so widely known in the UK and not something that is known in the art industry - the concept of "trading" art is not understood and 'artists' don't seem to be able to grab the concept.  I think it's a great way of owning an original piece of artwork and the best thing is it is open to everyone and doesn't require lots of expensive tools.

Here are a couple of the ATC's I made this weekend.  The one in the middle I made into a Father's Day card for my dad as they are the perfect size to put onto a card.

And finally I'll leave you with a picture of a canvas I finished this week.  It's not very big and the colour is more minty green than blue/green.  The hearts and 'follow your heart' are both made with air drying clay.

Apologies for the long post but I wanted to do a catch up.  I promise my next post won't be as long.  Hope you've all had a good weekend.

I'm linking this post to Handmade Monday over on Handmade Harbour and Creative Monday's it's been a while since I participated in any blog hops.

Don't Forget Me......

...............is a card made using my original artwork printed onto matt photo paper.  I've added digital elements to it using a free online software called picmonkey.  It's really easy to use and has some neat features.  To the original art I added some rubber stamping to the background and the main body of the artwork was hand-drawn and painted using watercolours.  It's now available to buy in my Etsy shop for £2.50 +£1.00 postage.  The card is blank for your own message.

Don't forget me 

Whimsical Landscapes & Day 7 of #AEDM

Thursdays are late start days at work so this morning before leaving for work I started a couple of whimsical landscapes.  I'm taking part in a daily drawing group on ATCsforAll  and this weeks challenge was whimsical landscapes. Now I can draw a hill and something on it but getting the dimensions correct on multiple hills/mountains is something I struggle with.  After some trawling through google images to get an idea of how other artists were placing their elements I made a start with these 2 drawings.  Bare in mind these are still work in progress and will change as I complete it.  

I also altered the mouth on the drawing from yesterday and took away the design on the dress.  I think it looks much better this way and think I will leave it as it is.  What do you think?

I'm popping over to Art Every Day Month why not join me and see what everyone else has been busy creating.

Anita

Day 5 of #AEDM

Today is a work day so no art has been made.  I had intended to do a quick sketch but it took me an extra half hour to get home so that got put on hold.  However I did receive 2 "faces" in the post - well drawings of faces.  I'm in a round robin type collaboration with 3 other artists who did the 29 Day Face Challenge.  The host of the challenge made up teams of 4-5 depending where in the world you are and each artist starts off a painting/drawing and passes it onto the next artist.  So by the end of of the challenge we should all end up with a face which has been worked on by 4 different artists and their style of drawing/painting.

This is what came today and which I need to add to. Once everyone has got their original pieces back I will do another post showing the whole process.

You can join in the fun with Art Every Day Month or just have a browse through and see what the other artists have to share here 

Have a lovely evening

Anita

Witches, Spelling, Potions and CAKE

So this weeks theme for the Handmade Harbour Design Team challenge is "smile or laugh".

As I couldn't decide which stamps to use I asked Wendy to choose a couple for me..........so she sent me over "The Young Witch with Spelling Book", "One Cake A Day" and "Save Water Drink Wine".  3 very different stamps I'm leaving the 'wine' stamp for another day.

I've used the Young Witch and the "Witch or Wizard Potions on a Shelf" for the first card. I made the witch's hat just little bit bigger than my original print out so it looks like she's playing at being a witch.  Then I added the potion bottles to the base of the card,  added some words correct and mis-spelt.  Some punched out silver stars to finish off.  There's a slight gold shimmer to the edge of the card I used some watered down gold acrylic paint.

With this card I used "Witch or Wizard Potions on a Shelf".  The celebration glasses is actually just one rubber stamp that I have stamped twice with black Stazon.  I've added a few 'squiggles' in the glasses to look like earth worms (that was my intention anyway).  The edges of the card has been coloured with inkpads in a direct to paper technique (simply just rubbed the ink pads along the edges until I was happy with the colour.  Over that I have used a slightly darker shade to stamp on some 'bubbles'.  To finish off I've added some glitter to the bubbles coming out of the glasses.

Finally to my 3rd card..........well what can I say I really think this is a 'smile' card.  I LOVE cake, making, baking and eating it so it seemed apt to make this one to.  I've kept this one simple because I wanted the main focus to be the ladies trying to look innocent while eating cake.  On the main picture I've used frosted glitter as the icing on the cake - it's been cut out and mounted onto foam pads to give it some dimension and texture.  I also printed and cut out some smaller cakes but cut out 'chunks' to look as if they had been bitten into.  

You can find all the above stamps over in the Handmade Harbour shop.

If you like to create things with paper then why not join in the fun with the weekly Papercraft Party  and if you use one of Handmade harbours digi stamps in your design you could even win yourself a prize.

I hope you've enjoyed my process into the world of digi-stamps.

Until next time keep crafting and creating.

Anita

   

Flutterby, Butterfly

So it'a a bank holiday weekend over here in the UK which means a lovely long weekend to play with all your crafty items without feeling guilty about not doing the more tedious jobs around the house.  

These butterflies were stenciled onto fabric a few weeks ago but I've not had time to do anything with them.  So with the long weekend I decided that this was the perfect time to finish them and to catch up on some movies I've been meaning to watch.  

Here they are my textile butterflies with lots of sequins and beads.  I can't decide which one I like the best.  I'm drawn to both as they have different aspects that I like.  Which one do you prefer?

I'm including this in the Handmade Monday blog over on Handmade Harbour.  Why not pop on over and see what the other lovely crafters have been up to.

Happy Crafting 

Anita

Flowers on the Hill Inchies

After some much needed clean up in the studio - mainly paperwork I had a play with another of Wendy's digi-stamps.  This time I used Flowers on the Hill #59 and made them into inchies (1 inch square pieces of art).  

I've used Derwent inktense watercolour pencils to colour them in.  I added some glossy acents glaze over the top and once that had dried I applied some micro-beads to add some texture.

This is the original stamp. You can get it from Handmade Harbour

#59 Flowers on the Hill.

Happy Crafting 

Anita

Bathing In Gin While Bowling

Yep that's the name of this digi-stamp - cool isn't it?  My very clever artist friends over on Wonderstrange Arts  create these drawings every week and post it on their blog for you and I to use for free..............yep that's right free :).  If you like quirky and different then this is the place to go. 

I know digi-stamps have been around for some time now but its only in the last couple of weeks that I've actually played with them and I have to say I do like how you can manipulate the designs to become different sizes or reverse images etc.  

Here are 2 cards that I've made with them - 

Very simple card with resized images 

A very quick experiment using printable transparency sheets

 The original image - Bathing in Gin while Bowling

Happy Crafting 

Anita

Accordion Card

I've been wanting to make one of these cards for some time now and finally I had the the time today to sit down and play.  The idea and design isn't new to me it's just that I've not made one in a long time.  Don't you think it would make a lovely Valentines gift?  

I made this lovely lady again as she always proves popular when I make her.

Purple Butterflies

I love butterflies!!!  They are so pretty and delicate.I made this card with two of my favourite rubber stamps.  I have many butterfly stamps but I keep going back to these two.  I've embossed the cluster of butterflies directly onto the base card -you can just about see them.  The tag has the same cluster of butterflies and the larger single butterfly has been stamped, cut out, glittered and wired.

Moo Houses

I created these for trading at www.atcsforall.com.  These will be on their way to new homes soon.  I'm really pleased how these turned out and I think I will make greetings card with them - well prints of the houses as I won't have the originals.  This way I can mix and match them.  If I get time I may even make some more and sell the originals.

Christmas Card Designs for 2012

New designs for Christmas 2012.