Friday, June 10, 2011

I Ink, therefore I am...

Hello folks,
Just gone midnight...tip-toeing it into Friday! Just spent the evening getting all inked up which thankfully wears off during my morning swim. Signing in to post my Grungy Monday gossip which is an ode to the joy of Mr. Holtz's Distress Inks. At home with names such as Hoover and Omo, Distress Inks have almost become a national institute found on the desk of many. Grunge Guru or Cutey Tooty type, everyone has a little black box somewhere.
As it is all about the ink I decided I wanted to work with just that, paper and minimal embellishments. letting the colours and great tones have the spotlight.
I have made a flora themed triptych of tags, using mainly stamps by Paper Artsy. The tags are coloured with Barn Door/Fired Brick, Stormy Sky/Chipped Sapphire, Scattered Straw and edged with Black Soot. It spent some time building up the layers of colour and as any beautician will tell you blend, blend, blend...! It's not my usual colour choice which is a tad scary at first but now I am glad I took the plunge. I have added water splashes, water-mark stamping and some background detail in Sepia Archival ink before moving onto the main images. I tried some designs out first by roughly stamping on some scrap paper to give me some direction.

I have stamped a fair bit in Plum Archival ink as I didn't want the images to be too harsh. I tried to position the images to make the best of the light and dark tones. My first centre tag looked fine to begin with but soon ended up in the bin as it was just too dark in ALL the wrong places. No fixing that - even with a serious overdose of Mustard Seed.
I used a mixture of Ranger Plum, Olive Green and Sepia Archival inks to layer up the details on this tag. You can't beat a good Archival ink when you stamping onto a strongly coloured background. The flower was stamped in Blue Lagoon for a bit of contrast but still not too overpowering. I've distressed and bent it a little but otherwise still sticking to the pure paper and ink idea and backing away from my embellie Deli.
Just love this flower, it's always willing to adapt to your mood and seems to work in any colour combo. The sentiment is stamped black this time to give it a bit of definition. The butterfly is stamped and cut from a bigger collage stamp. I have shaped the wings a little but I haven't gone for lots of dimension as I didn't want to distract the eye too much from the tag. I given them all a good distressing on the edges to maintain a raw feel, joining them together with wire scraps. I just added some of my favourite gold thread and one simple blue ribbon to the each top.

I had an intense evening of ink and colour and hope I've done justice to Distress Ink-o-rama. Fancy joining in or want to see more great odes to Mr. H's inky clan? Head over to Linda at L3 and take a look. I'm signing off for tonight, thanks for calling by - visits and responses both welcome and appreciated!

Sarah.

21 comments:

Jane said...

Positively stunning! You are SO right - no embellishments needed.

Milla said...

Incredible! The colours are just stunning!

Crafting Queen said...

Stunning creation, love the colours.

PsyPenguin said...

These are really beautiful! I love the colour combination.

Gabrielle said...

These are fabulous! I love the colours and stunning - just shows what you can do with inks alone!

Marjie Kemper said...

Sarah, this is drop-dead gorgeous! I've been staring at it for about ten minutes sitting here reading every word and ogling the coloring. Fantastic job!

Kaz Hall said...

WOW love this trio Sarah the colours/tones just merge beautifully. As you know I love my embellishments but this shows that inks alone work perfectly. You have inspired me to try and do a tag with no idea-ology.....not sure I can go without but I will try! thanks for the inspiration

kazx

craftytrog said...

Great colours & stamping Sarah! Distress inks are simply the best! x

sam21ski said...

WOW these are totally gorgeous. Can see where you're coming from re having the dark and light spots in the right places and you've hit it perfectly.

Sam xxx

http://sam21ski.blogspot.com/

Electra said...

These are gorgeous-you've achieved such depth on them!

Debbie said...

Trying to get around and see everybody's fabulous creations is a full time job! I am thoroughly enjoying it! I just LOVE the colours you used in your tags, Sarah. Awesome! Your designs and techniques are awesome!

donna said...

Stunning tags!!

Craft Addicts - Tracy Evans said...

Beautiful trio of tags, love your depth of colour. Thanks for your lovely comments on my blog and to answer your question yes I did simply score and fold my tags. Tracy x

Lesley Edmonds said...

I just love the intensity of the colours on these tags. Really beautiful! And thank you for your tip on how to merge words into the background using tissue paper and colour washes. I shall endeavour to change my picture over the weekend.
x

Gerri Herbst said...

Such a wonderful GM piece. Your depth of color is amazing. Fantastic use of graphic elements too. take care, gerri

hazel said...

Fabulous colours and stamping. I love them.
xxx Hazel.

Carolyn said...

Beautiful tags!

Kathy Eddy said...

This is just fantastic! I so love the vibrant colors you used and the images are wonderful!

Linda Ledbetter said...

Sarah, you have such a wonderful eye for design, a talent you've shown again with this gorgeous collection of tags! I LOVE the colors you used-- they're so rich and warm, and the stamping and elegant dimensional pieces are just right. Sounds-- and looks!-- as though you had a wonderful, artistic evening!

Von said...

Wonderful tripic of tags and your so right about using the plum I have that and use it a lot, thank you for your comment on my grungy monday :) all good fun isn't it
Von x

Juls said...

fabulous!!! I love the bold colours!! Hugs Juls