Postcard Crazed!

I’ve been a crazed postcard paper crafter lately.

All of these postcards have been mailed for Postcrossing .

  Although I don’t get to create a handmade postcard for most postcrossers, I do get pretty lucky sometimes and get to make several to send across the world and across my own country.

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Many of them have been to try out a technique.  This one is watercolors painted using a brick stencil as a guide.  Once I removed the stencil I gave the bricks a bit more fine tuning of color.

    

Then gave the brick wall a collage.  The flowers are die cut from white and painted with watercolors.

Adding a bit of number ephemera, washi tape and die cut numbers.

These city buildings die cuts are always a favorite the way others use them.  I painted them with watercolors...oh, so many times!  A strip of washi tape along the bottom.

I’ve made this typewriter postcard before with a different background.  I love this stamp.  The background is Distress Oxide Spray.  I then added Washi Tape bits.

Sometimes a Postcrosser requests a private swap.  She requested a fabric postcard.

This next card started with Distress Oxide Spray.  I then ran it through my BIGkick inside an embossing folder for texture.  I used a steam roller (brayer) to flatten the texture a bit.  Then I blended over the surface with an Oxide ink pad and blending tool.

    

I used glossy clear texture paste mixed with a red acrylic paint.  Then applied it pressed through a stencil.

I used a graphite pencil to give the letters shadow and depth.  Using a water brush to fine tune the shadowing.

    

White modeling paste was pressed through a chevron stencil.  Water based inks usually will tint the white modeling paste.

The stencil used on this next card is a very thin flimsy one.  I wanted to know how it would work trying to press modeling paste through it.  It worked well enough with care, but I prefer to stick with the sturdier plastic stencils.  

I used modeling paste through stencils on this next card.  I then used a cutting die to cut the circles.  I stamped words on the yellow backing paper before adhering the top card to it.  The flower is a die cut painted with watercolors.



If you’ve stuck with me this far, then you can have a chance of receiving this next postcard in your mail.

This postcard was made with rejected and extra pieces of bits and bobs.  Some art might be rejected for its original purpose, but it can soon become a perfect part for another art piece.  I love this postcard.  I wasn’t able to let it go for awhile.  But it is time now for it to travel to a new home.

Simply let me know in a comment if you’d like to received it.

HAPPY MAIL DAY!

Quiet Music

Music can be seen as well as heard.

Flowers are the music...

I’ve made another art journal page inspired by the theme LANGUAGE at Art Journal Journey .

Also inspired by this Pinterest pin https://pin.it/73QjtTc

To get some color speckles all over my page, I placed my journal inside my spray painting box and lightly spritzed Cracked Pistachio Distress Spray Stain holding the bottle about 18” above the page.

I then used some stencils to direct intense color through the designs.

After the stencils I sprayed very close to the page to get spots of intense color over the page with Cracked Pistachio and Peacock Feathers Spray Stains.

I then embossed the grid stamp with white embossing powder.  That made the ink blobs blend into the background.

(I’ve been using black archival ink to emboss over. I really should get a clear embossing pad.)

I don’t draw well or easily, so I traced a portion of a flower cutting die with pencil then went over the pencil lines with an 8B graphite pencil.

The flower petals were painted with a white heavy-bodied acrylic to give the petals some texture.  It was here the top ink blob looked quite out of place.  I worked at it for awhile using a variety of ways to get it blend into the background.  It refused.

My final attempt before trashing the page was to just add more embossing.  Although I now had more embossing than I wanted, it did save the page well enough.

I wet the graphite pencil with a water brush to outline the flower petals, but it just wasn’t bold enough.  I am new to Distress Crayons.  But they’ve done the job.  And we all know how I love a bit of grunge.

I stamped the words on white cardstock, added hints of the colors and grunged the edges.  I placed them as leaves for the flower.  The original quote says “ Flowers are the music of the ground...”. But I liked the word earth better than ground.

I love these colors.  I attempted to make a postcard in a similar fashion but I ended up with color all over.  That worked out fine to white emboss, add modeling paste through a stencil and a white die cut  to decorate all the color.

If you’d like to receive this postcard in the mail, let me know in a comment.



When I see the beauty of flowers, I can’t help but feel happy.

Abstract Bird Art

My painting is for the birds lately...literally.

I found a tutorial on how to paint an abstract bird on Pinterest.

https://pin.it/5dQpcQ9

I received a very nice gift of Prima Marketing watercolors for my birthday.  This set is Essence.  I wanted to give them a real try.

And here is my result.  Although I struggle to work correctly with watercolors, I am pretty pleased with my fuzzy bird result.  I used Vermilion Neocolor II crayon for his bright color beak and legs.  White and black acrylic paint for his eye and spots.

I left him this way for several days not knowing what to do with him until I was inspired to give him some ground to stand on.  Again I’m surprised to be pleased with this painting.  There is a strip of Washi tape at the top of the painted ground.

But my journal page remains like this as I don’t know what else to do for his background.

But I loved trying to paint him and wanted to do another.  This next one is a postcard size.  I added a defined wing with a portion of a flourish rubber stamp.

Still fun, so another postcard size.  I’ll decide what to add for greeting when I decide where he goes.

And then I thought I wanted a tag size bird.  With very long legs.  And I drew his wing.  That was brave of me!  This tag bird’s body was painted with Neocolor II crayons.  I found a YouTube tutorial on how to use the crayons like watercolors.

I outlined these smaller birds as they felt like they needed it.  After I do that I question whether they need it or not.  I still don’t know.

I used some gold watercolor paint to give their wings a bit of glitz.

I have had the best time painting abstract birds.  

Tweet, Tweet!

Language Art Journal Page

The theme this month at Art Journal Journey is LANGUAGE.

As I played around with this page, I thought about people who talk in circles.

I stamped a large stamp on a mixed media paper.  Aligned my circle dies over the writing, taped them with Washi tape so they wouldn’t move,

then ran them through my die cutting machine 

To get a variety of circle sizes.

I glued the circles to my page using a spray glue.  When the glue was dry, I wet the circles with water as well as parts of the page outside the circles.  Then added watercolors sloppily around the circles in light and dark tones.

When the paint was dry I stamped writing in the two largest circles with black Archival ink.

Using a circles stencil I drew circles around the outsides of the paper circles with a black Zig Writer marker then added scribbles over the drawn circles.

Lastly I scraped modeling paste through different stencils on the page outside of the circles.

I thought the modeling paste would take up some of the watercolor but it didn’t.  That was a surprise but I liked that it remained white.

Of course I kept thinking what should yet be added.  I liked the page as is so I decided not to ruin it with overkill like I usually do.  It is so hard for me to learn to STOP!

I didn’t intend it, but I now see the scribbles as noise vibration (that could be heard along the telephone lines way back when) of those who can be so good at talking in circles.

Yakety yak!

Lady Butterfly Tag

The theme is still Anything Goes at Tag Tuesday

I was inspired by Sandra’s Tag to pull out a couple of face stamps to try her background technique.  Which for me, eliminates the need to paint the image.  I am pretty pleased with the front of this tag.

Both stamps are by Stampington & Company

On the back.  I failed at choosing colors for the backside as well as bad placement for the face (which I tried to correct with Gesso).  This entire tag was a learning experience anyway, so I kept it.

I used my Neocolor II crayons.  I scribbled across the tag with the crayon then wet my fingertip and rubbed it over the colors.  I did the same technique with the seam binding.

   

I wanted to tone down the colors around the images so I brushed some Gesso around the image with kind of a dry brush technique.  I hoped the Gesso would take up the color underneath.  I stamped some IndigoBlu images around the outside edges.  To finish I tinted the edges with Walnut Stain Distress Ink and Black Archival Ink.

April 2021 is already over!  It was another month full of fun and art.

I’m hoping May will be full of the same.