Monday, August 6, 2012

Life is a canvas....

Throw as much paint at it as you can. I thought I'd start with a little motivational therapy on this Monday morning. Well, August has hit town, the Olympic spirit is high and QVC is selling Christmas decorations! Monday also means a new challenge theme over at Simon Says Stamp & Show where we are painting it up...
l'm just slowly getting back into my design work as I discover life with my new daughter, so any crafty time is very precious indeed. My brain is also still pretty frazzled from all the sleepless nights, so when I sat down to work on this weeks challenge, I had no idea what to make at all. Nada, zilch, nuffink!
Know that feeling? Ready to rumble but devoid of inspiration... So I did what I normally do when this happens. I surrounded myself with lots of my favourite crafty goodies and just started playing. I was toying with the idea of creating a masterboard from Kraft cardstock, to then cut into sections, but once I got going I decided to leave the background whole.
I've been doing a bit of dabbling lately with an Art Journal and really enjoy the freedom it brings... So I thought it would be a good idea to explore the same techniques and the fab Claudine Hellmuth Studio Paints to create my cards. I started like this... DO REMEMBER TO DRY BETWEEN EACH LAYER. I roughly swiped yellow paint over my base with my Craft Scraper. Then I applied a layer of texture through a dahlia stencil with white gesso, stamped the Mixed Media dots in red paint and then the mini-mum flowers in yummy teal.
I wanted to add a bit more detail and contrast so I went for a bit of stamping in Archival ink... so as to create both thick and thin layers of ink, paint and colour. I grabbed my word and number stamp strips from Stuff to Say and then added some lettering with Alpha Grunge. Don't be too fussy about the stamping. Use the rubber stamps without an acrylic block. Just hold it in your hand, bending the stamp slightly and roll sections of the stamp over the surface for a more random effect.
As the background is quite busy I decided to keep the embellishment simple by using just some wording and die-cut butterflies. I stamped the wording in Saffron Yellow for the first card and Monrach Orange for the second. I didn't use all of the first sentiment... just a section. That way you get a lot more mileage out of your stamps!
The flutter-bys are cut from book pages and thickly coated with gesso for texture. I stitched around the edges before matting the cards up with three bright layers of card. A wrap of trusty parcel string and a bit of distress work and I was done!
And great fun it all was too. So why don't you join in the painty antics and creativity? Just get your favourite crafty goodies out and just start playing around... Who knows where it will lead to? Hop over to the Design Team Blog and take a look at the fab makes from the rest of the team for more inspiration. There's a great $50 spree to be won and the top Three Artists crown too! Well, that's all folks, as Bugs would say. Thanks for calling by... Sarah.

25 comments:

Annie said...

Absolutely colourful fabulous piece. Can't believe I just posted a painted piece yesterday....so will need to get my creative juices flowing again. Thanks for sharing. Annie x

Inkypinkycraft said...

Love the vibrant colours and the fab sentiments....great painty pieces! Trace x

Linda M. Cain said...

Terrific! LOVE it!

~Linda

Annie said...

Good to see you being creative and what a fab job you made of it too :-)
Hugs,
A x

Sunshine Girl said...

Its lovely - nice and bright!

Von said...

Gotta say it's fab !
Von ♥

JoZart Designs said...

Fab pieces of art and I love the balance of colour and the quotes.
hope life's on a good phase... you are certainly creative...
joZarty xxx

Anna-Karin said...

Fabulous piece! Love all the layers of colour and the great sentiment. TFS!!

Redanne said...

Hi Sarah, a beautiful, vibrant piece of art - love it! A x

Helen said...

Brilliant!! You'd never know you were struggling for ideas.

Craft Addicts - Tracy Evans said...

I always love your use of book pages and I always love stitching in artwork, it adds so much interest to your background. The background is fabulous, so much interest and texture and wonderful layers of colour, love it. Enjoy your week Sarah and big hugs to Ruby. Tracy x

Candy C said...

Sarah, I love your pages. You always add so many little details to your pieces that give them so much character. I love your stitching. I love your use of the bright colors and your design. I love that dahlia stencil! That may have to be a "need" thing for me. :) Love your sentiments, too. <3 Candy

Sandra said...

Very beautiful! Love that you use bookpages in your artwork. And those colors are so bold and I love it! I know that feeling when you have the time to go play, but your inspiration is doing it's own thing and leaving you hanging. I do the same thing as you and it works perfectly!

bohemiannie! art said...

Sorry if you've heard me say it before...but you've just proved once again that the muse comes to the moving brush. Oh those precious moments of babyhood. I didn't make art in those days...but NOTHING much else got done other than enjoying my children.

Janny Jager said...

Very colorfull and nice piece Sarah
Love it.

Greetings Janny

Craftychris said...

Love it. The colours and quotes are fab xx

Kezzy said...

Hi Sarah, sorry I haven't been in touch, kept an eye out on my phone for you and was really worried when you missed woyww. This is amazing, love the colours and the journal effect it gives, I know it's not a journal piece but lately I have loved to see these types of random art :-) Great to see you slowly getting back into it. I bet it's hard to start with, my kids where older 7 and 9 when I started so it was a little easier. Ruby she is absolutely gorgeous, I really wished I had your address as I would have loved to sent something and did see you had received lots of gorgeous bits. I did another project for the mojo monthly yesterday as I thought it was for July and August but the linky has closed :-(. Shannon at coeliac clinic on Wednesday, think she is lacking in something as she sleeps loads, 18hours yesterday for a 15 year old it seems alot, she went wrong on something as Friday night she had a coeliac attack and she was in agony for hours. I really felt for you when you was saying about Ruby not eating and hubby was away, that must have been a difficult time, but looking at her in the pictures your doing fantastically. I was single with both my children when they were babies and for me the only thing that kept me going was routine and mates to call on the phone when I needed some calming time lol. Meant to put all this on woyww and only how fab the creation was on here but I have got carried away oops. Take care, lots of crafty hugs and a big coo coo ahh ahh to ruby lol Happy woyww :-) Kerry xxx

Words and Pictures said...

Oh, looks such fun to do, and looks so sensational once done! Gorgeous detail and technique in every inch -makes me want to play!
Alison x

Suzanne C said...

Swoon! Love those colors together and the touches of paint and the jumbo letters perfect design! Sweet!

Kate Yetter said...

Loving the various patterns and colors of your canvas! Miss seeing more of your work but I know how busy newborns can be. Hope life is treating you and your precious little Ruby well. Hope to see new pics of her soon! She is so beautiful.

Marjie Kemper said...

Really fab way to use Tim's stamps amongst all your painted goodies... love these! Hugs to Miss R.

Anita Houston The Artful Maven said...

Man is this awesome! The color and textures look fabulous!!! I love the stamps and added fibers...so cool Sarah...WOW!

Hettie said...

This is gorgeous Sarah! So colourful. I do wonder what would happen if you were deep into paint and Ruby starts...do you clean up first or see to Ruby?!! Hee Hee. There would be some lovely coloured babygrows! LOL!

email: Steph@SimonSaysStamp.com said...

Really cool project, Sarah! I love the primary color palette and the sentiment is lovely :)

*mwah*
Steph
Simon Says Stamp!

Marlena M. said...

I love the look of this Sarah! It's good to play and just see where the project leads. Therapeutic, I'd say!