Artist of the Month

For September the A.O.TM. is Claudine Helmuth. I have not signed up for the swap yet, but thought I would play with the technique.

I took a sheet of watercolour paper and painted it with watercolour paints. I glued the head and shoulders on then cut a skirt out of scrapbook paper and glued it on. Painted the top of her dress and then made some shapes with a pen. Cut some balloon shapes out of other scrapbook pieces and attached them then drew the strings. Found a dog image on the net and painted the body and attached him and cut out a hat for him

Drew a fence, houses and some trees in the background along with some clouds.

I am not sure I am entirely happy with this and think it is the flowers that are not "quite right". Will leave it for now and maybe do a different one, then decide if I want to do the swap.

Artist of the Month

This month on CCSwaps we are having another Artist of the Month swap. This time around it is in the style of Zana Clark of Stamp Zia. As usual, I jumped in with both feet with no clue as to what I am doing.

For this swap I had to improvise as I do not own any Stamp Zia products. She uses her own line of sprays on watercolour paper and I don't have any bright ones. I did do one piece using some sprays on watercolour paper but it was a disaster.

I decided to use glossy cardstock and dye inks, which is one of the techniques she uses. My first two attempts were also disasters, but at least I can salvage some of the backgrounds for future use as ATC's.

I used Vivids (Clearsnap) and Seabrights (Rangers) for the background swirling them on with cotton buds. Then I stamped some ferns (Hero Arts) with Stazon white. I used a gingo stamp from (See-D's from Sugarloaf) with Ancient Page Coal and stamped it around the background.

On an extra piece of background paper, I stamped the dragonfly/waterlily (Pedlars Pack) in permanent ink and coloured the lilies and dragonflies with twinkling H2O's, then edged it with a black marker.

I stamped some waterlilies (Sunshine Designs) on some scrap pieces and coloured them with the H2O's. Stamped "magic"(Stamp Oasis) on another scrap and layered it on black glossy cardstock.

This one I was finally happy with, although wondering if I should have forgot about stamping the ginkgos. Unfortunately, when scanning the intensity of the colours does not show up well.

Artist of the Month

We have had another Artist of the Month swap in CC Swaps and this time it was Beryl Taylor style. I, as usual, jumped in with both feet since I was positive that my DH had bought me her book. Well, when I started my project I discovered that I did not own the book, so had to "wing it" when working on it.

I made the fabric paper using cheese cloth, wrapping paper and tissue papers (knew this part from a previous project). I then adhered this to a piece of felt and then to a piece of watercolour paper.

Since my sewing machine is out of commission I had to use glue and double sided tape to add all the elements.

I started by punching out circles from another piece of fabric paper and stamped them with platinum paint. I then punched a hole and added brads to the centre. I punched a second circle out of watercolour paper, sewed them together with metallic thread and added batting to puff them up.

The sides of the piece are lace, the top is a piece of metal tape which is coloured with various mediums, the bottom is a piece of eyelet fabric which I coloured with fluid chalk inks. I also coloured the lace flowers with the same ink and added some gems.

I punched out some heart shapes from a Cuttlebug embossed piece, which was coloured with the fluid chalks and highlighted with Goldfinger gold. I attached the large hearts to gold punched hearts, and the small ones I left as is.

The centre piece was another scrap of the darker fabric paper which I embossed with gold embossing powder. The heart is a doily coloured with the fluid chalks and highlighted with the Goldfinger gold. The final touch was a paper flower with a flower bead as the centre.

I drew Adrienne as a partner for this swap, and I must admit I am a wee bit nervous about it. She has done several items in the Beryl Taylor style so I hope she will not be disappointed with my effort.