Tim Holtz Summer of Creative Chemistry 2016 Weeks 1 -3

Hello my creative friends!  I took Creative Chemistry 101 with Tim Holtz about four years ago and I’m getting a refresher this summer.  Here are the tags I created for the challenges.

Week One

Friends, you just have to take this class.  It covered so many things you need to know about Tim Holtz products – it was amazing!

  Day 1 –  Tim is a wonderful teacher; he discussed the characteristics and properties of the products; dye vs. pigment inks, translucent vs. opaque, solvent, oil, or water based vehicles and porous vs non-porous materials.

Day 2 – This day we learned techniques for blending, stamping, and layering with Distress Ink.  Also, the wonderful way they react to water.  It was fun going back and create these tags, but with some of the colors from the 2015 releases.

Challenge #1

Blended Spritz & Flick

Brushless Watercolor

Wrinkle-free Distress

I think I went a little crazy applying all the different colors and got the tag too wet; but it is wrinkle free!!

 Week Two

Day 4 – We learned techniques for coloring backgrounds using re-inkers and how to store our ink creations.

Day 5 – Tim showed us some wonderful techniques for creating background, stamping, and using stains for marbling effects.

Day 6 –  The techniques Tim shared with us for coloring and stamping with distress markers were awesome!!  He also discussed the features of the markers and why they are different to other markers, but I didn’t have time to make the tags.

Challenge #2

After going over days 4, 5 & 6, our challenge was to make tags using the techniques we learned.

Day 4

 Watercoloring with Reinkers

Layered Misting

Creating a Custom Pad

Day 5

Stained Kraft Resist

Stamping With Stains

Marbled Stains

We skipped a few days and went on to

Challenge #3

  This week’s challenge was to make tags using Perfect Pearls and Distress Inks or Stains.

Day 8 – We made some awesome distress crackle objects and paints and learned how they react.

Day 9 – All about Perfect pearls and Pearl mists we made ourselves.

Day 8

Paint Dabber Resist

 

Crackle Paint Resist

Shattered Stains Technique

 I also made a card for the Unity Stamps Masculine Challenge

Day 9

Perfect Distress Mist

 

Perfect Distress Technique

Perfect Splatter Distress

That is it for now, my friends, Thanks for sticking with me until now.

Have a wonderful week and don’t forget to make something awesome!!

Happy crafting,

Carmen

 

Life Book Week Seven

The Art of Black and White with Donna Downey

This was a bonus lesson from Donna.  She said it was a challenge for her not to use any other colors, but she did great in her example.

I cheated a little because I remembered I had painted some sunflowers in black and white and never finished so I took that painting and refined it a bit.

I just added the shadows and made the right side where the light was shining lighter than the left.

I still think there is something else I needto do to this painting because it doesn’t look finished.  Maybe add splashes of white and black paint all over.

What do you think?

A closeup of the sunflowers

The Teal Bridge:  Build Your Dream and Affirmation Board  Bonus Lesson With Tamara Laport

This lesson was my favorite so far because it made me step out of my “comfort zone” and try new things.

First of all I used my own picture and did a transfer technique to the watercolor paper, and I made my own skin color using only four primary acrylic colors – blue, yellow, red, and white.  I learned this from a free class on the Craftsy blog.  You can get many free classes on a variety of subjects.  I have also taken several jeweley, greeting card, and mixed media lessons when they go on sale.

But, I digress! I wrote out some words I wanted to use for the Affirmation Board as if I was actually carying them out, then I used my computer to print out the words.  Here is the finished project using this picture of me!

Yes, I know, I look so young and fresh!  That’s because I did not add all the wrinkles and shadows!  But, that’s OK.  I know it’s me and I’m very happy with it!

Here are a few more details.  When I was cutting papers for my collage, I saw this quote and had to use it.  It says “Find the Beauty Within, Love with your whole heart.”

I used a variety of stencils, watercolor crayons, acrylics, scrabpook paper, and gesso for the background.  This shows the dolily stencil I used for the first time.  I cut out the flowers and the butterflies from papers I had in my stash – I think they were from a Donna Salazar paper stack – perfect!  I arranged the flowers and glued them around the top of my face.

This is a stencil I used with Faber Castell gold dimensionals.  The flowers on the left and bottom I stenciled through some paper flowers from Heidi Swapp.

On the upper right hand side, I collaged a peacock and didn’t cover it up as much as I usually do my papers.  I also took a piece of the paper flowers and added it to the edge.  I used red acrylic paint through another stencil to match the red on other parts of the painting.

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On the left hand side I used one of Tim Holtz stencils and magenta acrylic paint to add texture.

The stencil I used for the hearts on top of “Family is Everything” is also Heidi Swapp.

And here is a closeup of the face.  The paper I used to cut out the butterfly  on the upper left hand only had half of it, so I used it in the corner.

This lesson inspired me to make a photo transfer of my mother on her wedding day.  Mom’s picture came out too dark so it didn’t show her left side.  She was also leaning on my dad, so the body was a little wonky.

She was very artistic and craftsy also.  She used to make flowers out of bread dough and make earrings, pendants, and home decor with them.  She loved canaries and always had them in the house singing away, and yellow roses, so I added all those elements to the painiting.

My sister, as well as some of my close friends and relatives said it was a close resemblance, so I’m happy with that.  I will make my sister another painting using a different picture because I have all the family photos.  She needs one of her own.

That is it, my friends!  The next lesson is all about Mandalas and I will share again here some time this week.

Thanks for coming over and leaving me a comment.  I read all the comments and they make me very happy to answer them.

Have a wonderful week!

Carmen

Life Book Weeks 47 and 48

Life Book Lesson 47 –  Intuitive Painting With  Chris Zydel.

 I didn’t feel at ease with this lesson because of her philosophy, but I did the homework nevertheless by following her prompts because I want to be open minded, but not so open minded that my brain falls out.

I get the part about using the intuitive painting as a vehicle for getting more deeply in touch with our own intuition and our muse, but my muse was out on vacation.  LOL

In other words, it was hard for me to grasp the concept of her teaching style by not demonstrating her painting process, so I was truly grateful that Tamara stepped in to demonstrate her take on this lesson.

In the first segment, she said to use five minutes and just throw paint on the paper without thinking, and that’s what I did.

 Kind of looks like a couple of a stick figures.

The next segment was to paint something in 30 minutes without thinking and this is it…

I looked closely and sea creatures appeared,

a whale, and a porpoise.

And a seahorse or female figure, and a mermaid that I sketched in pencil.

Life Book 2015 – week 48 – Bonus: Smush-Book – 9 Muses – with Donna Downey and Bonus: Playful Word Fusion with Lynzee Lynx and a combination of the two with Tamara.

Had so much fun working on these three bonuses.

Donna’s video was showing us how to use left over paint in a ‘smush’ page, although this is not the page I used, but I wanted to show you what a smush page would look like; I’m going to use it on my next project and make more silhouettes.

After adding acrylic paints and stencils, I created this page.  the silhouettes reminded me of aliens so I added three planets on the right hand side.

I used my 6×6 Urban Landscape stencil by Ronda Palazzari by adding white acrylic paint and outlining it with a black pen.

I added the three circles and which became planets and added the words on the stencil “Wander and Explore” and where the planets are “Travel and Journey.

 and Lynx had us work on a word fusion exercise.

The fun part was combining both smushing and fusing and bringing them together in a very fun way!

Tamara’s video I introduced us to the gelli-plate (which I have already tried and love) and then create a painting like Donna’s and used the fused words too!

 I hadn’t used my gelli plate in a long time, so I had so much fun creating these prints.

Then I took one of the plates I created and made a smush page that didn’t turn out as beautiful as Tam’s but I’m already thinking about the next one I will create.

This is on an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of cardstock which held up pretty well even after I added all the acrylic paint, splatters, and black ink.

 Mh, butterfly wings, another insect wing, or angel wings like one of my friends said – you decide!

I used the word fusion for this one – Playmily and Funting using my interlocking stamping letters.

Stay tuned for more Life Book 2015.

Thanks for visiting!

Carmen

Life Book 2015 – Weeks 36 and 38

Week 36 – Finding Strength with Donna Downey

This is one of the many class I’ve been waiting for in Life Book 2015.

Donna used one of her stencils and a different substrate to teach us several techniques, but if we didn’t have the stencil, Tam shared a step-by-step PDF to create our own figure.  You can also google it and find the instructions to draw one.

I did both and loved how they came out, so I made several because I’ll be participating in a craft show on Sunday, the 25th and I’m going to sell them!

Donna usually works on canvas or a journal, but she chose to work on a piece of fabric, which she first primed, and then stretched to create her own canvas.  I couldn’t find the wood stretchers, so for this one I used canvas paper.

I wrote a few words in the background with India ink and then transferred the image using the stencil.  I’m going to staple it onto a flat canvas and frame it.

I created this one on an 11 x 14 canvas following the PDF instructions.  I was going to frame it, but I just finished the edges.  If anyone asks about a framed one, I’ll have to quote them a higher price to cover the cost of a frame.

“She colored her thoughts with only the brightest hues.”

I used Flex and Fill paste which I bought at the hardware store to add some texture on the corners and painted them with Golden’s Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold.  The quote is one of Donna’s stamps:

This is the Blue Girl.  I created her after I saw Picasso’s.

“Your beauty comes from within like a lotus flower unfolding.”

I added some hearts on the upper left corner because it was lacking something.

I also used a stencil with the paste for the bottom right corner and a Lotus Unity Stamp.

This is Donna’s girl project done in orange and green.  I added more texture to this one and a Donna Downey stamp.

“She pursues BIG dreams instead of small realities.”

Week 38 – The Journey to Acceptance with Jill Berry 

Jill had her journey earlier in the year when she found out that she had a huge heart aneurysm and had to be rushed to a hospital to have open heart surgery! She’s been on a journey of acceptance about her new path ever since.  Her video was very touching and she shared a couple of poems with us.

Her technique was really exciting and interesting.  She is known for her collages using maps and other interesting papers. She showed us howto make “multi-layer gel skins.”  It took me a week to make the gel skins because I had to wait for them to dry in order to add more layers.  Also, how to make backgrounds using artists tissue paper.  I didn’t have the tissue paper, but I used rice paper I bought to make another project which I will share in the next post.

This is the Egyptian Goose I drew on rice paper and collaged onto an 8 x 8 canvas.

On the top of the canvas I glued the gel skin which looks like a tree branch.

The stones by the stream, are a circles stencil I painted with different acrylic paints using a sponge on rice paper.  The green paint that looks like it has flowers is a gel skin also.

A close up of the gel skins and the rice paper.

I hope you enjoyed looking at my creations and if you’re in the El Paso, TX area, I hope to see you at the craft fair which will be at the Marty Robins Recreation Center.

Thanks for dropping by and see you soon!

Carmen