Unity Stamps Anything Goes Challenge

This week’s challenge over at the Unity Show and Tell Facebook page is to use any Unity girl stamps to create a card, scrapbook page, mixed media project or anything else, using Unity Stamps only.

I love mixed media so I took the opportunity to play with Donna Downey’s stamp Kit, Calliope.  The girl’s image is 5×7.

This is an 8×11 canvas board that I primed with clear gesso so I could work on the face.  I first worked on the background and left a space for the image.  I used several Unity Stamps after laying down three different colors of Deco Art media fluid acrylics in Pthalo Blue, Hansa Yellow Light, and Liquitex heavy body acrylic in Payne’s Gray.

After the acrylic colors dried, I started stamping randomly using Unity Stamps Numbers, Etc.; the script from the Let it GO & Focus set; Donna Downey’s Peony and She; and Layers of Life kit Paper Hearts.

 I also added some doodles with my white Signo pen.

Then I went to work on the girl’s face and body.  I first stamped her on Rice paper so I could get a good impression then glued her with matt medium.  Some of the colors I used on the face were Americana acrylic in Fresh Tone, Golden Brown, Natural Buff, White and Liquitex Basics in Light Portrait Pink. For the lips, and cheeks, I used  the Tombow Art markers.

While that was drying, I used Donna’s stencil and applied gold and green Art (C) molding paste I found on clearance at Michael’s.  Great stuff, by the way!  It came in three small containers with three different colors – enough to try out!

I used one of Heidi Swapp’s stencils and her glittery silk screen molding paste here…

…and here.  It was the first time I used it and was very impressed with the creaminess and the shine – just like her glimmer mists!

after everything was dried, I stamped the She stamp on regular printing paper so it would have a good impression, cut it out, and glued it on the canvas with matt medium.

Then I worked on her hair, glasses, and dress. I used three different colors of Tombow pencils and ArtDeco Interference to make it shine.  I also added shading to her face and body using Pitt Markers.

I added glossy accents on the glasses and a few white lines to make it appear as the glare on the glass.

Thanks for stopping by to see my project and leave me some love in the comments.

Happy creating you all!

Carmen

Life Book Week 13 with Rae Missigman

This week’s lesson, given by Rae Missigman, was as usual challenging for me because it was about layers and intuitivity – if there is such a word.  (My spell checker didn’t recognize it, but I’ll add it anyway, ha!)

After I finished the project I had to leave it alone overnight to see it with new eyes.  So, it wasn’t that bad after all this morning!

She does lots of layers in her projects and I like layers, but the intuitive part just doesn’t resonate with me, so I thought about it and and made a plan.  I used a stencil without flowers!  I picked two by Claudine Helmuth with different shapes of bird cages and the Love Birds stencil.  The other one by Heidi Swapp that has the bird on a branch which includes the mask and another stencil.

So after layer and more layers, this is what I came up with.

I used watercolor paper, acrylic paints, a black pencil, splash colors, molding paste, and napkins for collaging.

I guess you can say I made it my own because instead of using flower stencils, I used the ones I mentioned above.

Here are some close-ups.  Since I also stamped different birds, cages, and bold stamps, I was surprised to see these birds come out after the layers.

I like the idea of circling the different parts you want to highlight.

I also added some doodling and more stamps to the empty spaces.  I also used modeling paste for the birds.

I stamped this sentiment on tissue paper I used with a gelli page.  I love how all the cages stand out with different objects inside of them.

The only flowers were these on a napkin I added just for fun.

This picture shows the bird on the right side and more bird cages hidden by the acrylic layers of paint.

Thanks for dropping by to see my project for this week and please leave me a comment and tell me what you think!!

Happy weekend everyone!!

Carmen

Unity Stamps Color Challenge

Coincidently, this week I made two cards for some friends and they matched the colors of the challenge at Unity Stamps, yay!

I was actually going to make them for the picture challenge, but I ran out of time.  When I went to the challenge page, the information for the next challenge was already up so I went with what I already had!

I made a banner and added some butterflies and a flower group.  I used the Wish With Your Heart Sentiment Kit which just happens to be on sale this week!  I stamped the wish sticks on a doily also and the round circle in orange and black.

This one is for a friend who is a little under the weather. I used the same stamp kit, but stamped the wish sticks in black only.

This week I’m working on a baby mixed media project and I’ll post that one soon!

Thanks for stopping by!

Carmen

Life Book 2016 Weeks 11 and 12

Hello my artsy friends.  Did you survive Daylight Savings Time?  Oh, it took me a week to get over it and I’m still taking my naps to catch up!

Arizona is the only state in the Union that doesn’t follow DSM.  I guess it’s a rebel thing!  LOL.  We lived there for about five years and enjoyed it very much, but we couldn’t stand the heat.  In the summer it was impossible to enjoy the outdoors because of 115 F heat, so we moved to Las Cruces, NM.  Our family was in El Paso, TX, just a short hour away. Unfortunately, my dad, hubby and I all got Cancer and we decided to move back to El Paso to be closer to the family and closer to the hospital where we had our treatments.

Anyhow, we are having a blast here, the weather is pretty much temperate – we have hot summers and cold winters, but loooong Springs and Autumns.  Love it here.

Now on to  Life Book!

Week 11 – Roots & Ground, Wings & Light with Tamara Laporte

This week Tam gave us a lesson on mixing colors for dark skin girls.

I managed to use my Caran D’ Arche and Tombow artist’s markers to come up with a fairly dark skin girl.  I wanted to make her a cool angel so I gave her a rainbow hair do.  i really like how her eyes came out!

Here are some details:

A closeup of her cute sunburned face and green eyes.

For the background I used some napkins with birds and flowers and this birdie wanted to come out, so I outlined it.  I also used some zentagle stamps to fill in all the open spaces.

For these flowers I used a stencil and modeling paste and outlined them with a black pen.  I also added white and black stars and gave her wings the same colors as her hair.

Here are more stenciled/modeling paste flowers and more stamps.  I mostly used the crayons and some acrylics for the background.

I added more zentangle stamping on her dress and a heart to fill in the blank space here too.

Here you can see more zentangle stamps in between her wings.

Now on to:

Week 12 – The Simple Things With Angela Kennedy

If you go to her page, she has some sweet-faced girls done very simply, but beautiful!

This was a bonus lesson to give us a chance to catch up with our projects and time to breathe in between.

All she used on this project was a stabilo pencil and a few pastel colors and a quote that has to do with grounding.

Here is my interpretation:

I didn’t have a good Stabilo pencil so I used the black Inktense watercolor Block, but it came out a little bit purple and brown, but I still like the effect.  I used orange and red for the flowers, and two shades of green pastel pencils for the leaves and branches.

Sorry about the light, I was fixing it up in my loft at night, hence, the sepia color. I found out I misspelled the quote, so I typed it using one of my favorite fonts and glued the paper to cover up the misspelling.  I was thinking about my daughter, a masseuse, and how she really heals through her hands after grounding herself on her feet.

Here’s a closeup of the flower in her hair.  The trouble with pastels is that they come off easily on your hands, so I applied a fixative when I was done.

A closeup of the face.

and a closeup of the left hand side flowers,

Alright friends, thank you for sticking with me through this process of sharing my Life Book projects.

Until next time,

Happy painting!!

Carmen

 

Unity Stamps Sketch Challenge

This week the challenge at Unity Stamps is to make a card using this sketch:

I decided to make a sympathy card for a dear friend who just lost her mother last week.  She is loved by many people so this sentiment is perfect for her.

I used watercolor paper because I wanted to use my Brushos color crystals.  They are intense paint powder that is water-based. The colors are brilliant and transparent.  They’re mainly for impressionistic work, but I love the way they run on water color paper when I use the wet-on-wet technique.  You can also do sprinkling, spritzing, and other techniques.  I’m still getting used to the intensity, and at first I was getting mud.  I’m getting closer to liking them much more now that I can control them better.

I started out by brushing gesso on the paper and after it was dry I then used a stencil and modeling paste with this awesome stencil.  I let it dry, then I used the Brush powder adding a little water on my palette and coloring the branches.  Then I just spritzed the paper with water and threw a miniscule amount of the crystals on the background.

I used a Unity Stamp that came with one of the Kit of the Month collection, What Lies Within Us.  I wanted the girl to be walking in a field of grass so I masked the stenciled branches and stamped her directly on the watercolor paper using Memento ink.  I also used the Brusho crystals.  I then went back and used a pen to outline the scarf, the branches, and the hair.

For the sentiment, I used printed vellum and outlined the edge to make it stand out, then I aded a few sequins.  If you look closely at the vellum, you can see it has faint leaves all over.

I hope you enjoyed looking at my sympathy card.  I want to give it to my friend personally, but she leaves on the west side and there is construction going on, so I’ll mail it.  Be sure and stop by the Unity Stamp store this week, they are having a FUNtastic sale!

Until next time,

Create something awesome today!

Carmen

Unity Stamps Anything Goes Challenge

 Unity Stamps is having a challenge using any girl stamp and I jumped right in using one of Angie Blom’s girl stamps.

I was really limited on what surface to use because this stamp is only  2.5″ x 3.75″ so I cut a piece of watercolor paper just an 1/8″ smaller than my card.  I used an 8.5″ x 11″ piece of black cardstock folded in half.   I used acrylic paint, stencils, gesso, and my Tombow Dual Brush Pen Markers to color the image.  I popped up the wagtercolor paper with mounting tape.

Isn’t this tatoo girl amazing?  I added a sheet to cover up her bottom 🙂

I also used the script stamp from the “Let It Go And Focus” stamp set.  It is the perfect size for greeting cards.  This is a close up to show detail of the sentiment.

Sure had fun making this mixed media greeting card, now to find someone to give it to.

Hugs, and create something today!

Carmen

Life Book Weeks Nine and Ten

Hello my crafty friends, I combined two projects because they didn’t take any time to finish.

Week Nine – Five Minute Flowers with Martha Lever

“Martha is a whizz with watercolours,” according to Tamara Laporte and she really is! She showed us how to create flower in a pot very easily.

I just started working with watercolors and the way she taught us to paint the flowers was the easiest way I’ve ever tried!

They really took five minutes to make and so let’s ge to it!

Once again I worked on a 11×14 watercolor pad using only four watercolors from Qor Modern Watercolors.  These colors are fantastic!  They are very rich and smooth because of the special binder called Aquazol.  They make everything look like you’re an expert. I separated each pot to look like tiles and added some arrow stamps on each corner.  I also dripped some of the colors to give them some texture.

These are Tulips, if you can believe it!  I just dropped some paint on the paper in the form of tulips then went back with my caligraphy pen and outlined the flowers and the stems.

I really meant to make blue bells in this pot, but the pen (ha ha) just made petals that looked like orchids, so I went with that.

These Irisis came out looking good, don’t you think?

And finally the roses which I love!

I made each pot different in shape to give the project a bit of contrast.

Week 10 – With Prise for the Present with Mary Beth Shaw

Mary Beth is the owner of the amazing Stencil Girl Products, so you know she has unlimited resources.

The first thing we did was to collage some vintage papers and highlight some words that we liked.  When I went to my old books looking for paper to pull out I found this amazing saying “What Will You Do With This Day That’s So New?” so I made it my focal point.

After we highlighted the words we liked, we wrote them on tissue paper for use in a later step, then we covered everything up.  As you can see I used acrylic paints, and stencils, lots of stencils!  I like that I’m finally learning not to be so heavy handed with the paint so some of my collage can be seen through it.

Mary Beth chose a word that was highlighted in her piece and then using alpha stencils, she used the different letters in different positions.

In this closeup, you can see some of the words I chose written on the tissue paper and glued on to the watercolor paper and my focal point quote.

I then used my alpha stencils using black ink and wrote the same quote all over the piece, but kept the some of the words I wanted to highlight in answer to the quote.

This was supposed to be a journaling page so there is a block on the left bottom side where I journaled and then covered up with gesso and more stencils.  I think it’s a fabulous idea to do that.  You can show your work, but your inner thoughts are hidden from everyone’s eyes.

So to answer the question:  What will You Do With This Day That’s So New? My answer is:

Have gratitude, have fun, play, love, have faith, laugh, kiss, and live.  The number seven is for the seven days of the week.

Thanks for coming over.  Hope to see you back very soon!

Carmen