Feeling Distressed !!!

Morning my lovelies, Tracy here with a new post for the 'A Sprinkle of Imagination' design team....

Most of the art I do nowadays involves acrylic paints but having recently been on holiday and not being able to take my beloved paints with me I was forced to step out of my 'comfort zone' and experiment with other mediums. I loved the challenge of using things I hadn't used before and whilst the first couple of pieces weren't the best they did give me the opportunity to play and get a feel for the materials.....

Anyway this got me to thinking about when I started out with mixed media art and one of my favourite mediums was distress inks (of course I brought as many colours as I could afford) and how I hadn't taken them out and played for a long long time !!!!

So I decided to get them out and dust them off and see if I enjoyed playing with them as much as I remembered.....

I cut 3 ATC cards and a 7x5 postcard from a piece of 300gsm watercolour paper and started to add colours from the distress ink pads with a sponge distress tool. I used pickled raspberry, peacock feathers and mustard seed as my starting place.

For the postcard.....

I then used a Dylusions flower stencil and a Dina Wakley alphabet stencil to add interest to the background again using the distress pads and an inking tool. I used a small script stamp and stamped with black archival ink. 

I stamped one of the Dina Wakley's 'Face in the crowd' girl stamps directly onto the background using black archival ink and then coloured directly over the top using crayons blending with my fingers. 

I added some white acrylic dots, a sentiment stamp and then finished it off with some machine stitching. 

For the ATC's.......

I started with the same background process, layering the distress ink pads and adding some stamping. I then cut out hearts from some vintage French magazine pages and added to the cards

I stamped onto a scrap of card with the fabulous dylusions quotes stamps and coloured with watercolour crayons. Cut them out and added to the cards. To finish off I machine stitched around the edges and also around the hearts.

I had so much fun playing with my distress pads. The colours are amazing and so easy to work with...... I will definately be using these again very very soon !!!

I hope you are inspired to give distress pads a try and have as much fun as I did this week

Tracy

Xxx

Documented life - Watercolours!!!

Well what a stroke of luck that this weeks Documented life prompt was to use watercolours !!!!

As I'm on holiday that was pretty much all I brought with me and have been experimenting and playing with them all week, it just goes to show that you don't need lots of supplies to make art, I felt like I was gonna have a breakdown not having my beloved acrylics to play with but with practice and perseverance I feel like I'm starting to get the hang of them and creating art I'm pretty pleased with.....

I used my tube of black acrylic that I brought with me to do the outlines, making sure they were completely random and not thinking about it too much, I then too a wet paintbrush and went over the lines to create a grungy grey look in places.

Once this was completely dry I used my neocolour watersoluble crayons as my watercolour medium and started to colour allowing some of the paint to be stronger causing shadows, I took a creative impression Rex stamp and stamped with black archival ink inside some of the circles and did some random stamping around the page using my paperartsy ink splatter stamp and my artistic stamper bubble wrap stamp. I added a few dabs I'd white acrylic with my fingers to create dots...

I then cut out some shapes from a scrapbook pad I had with me in complimentary colours and stuck these down, outlining them with the stabilo black pencil and activating with a water brush to blend them into the rest of the page.....

To finish of i scribbled some outlines with my ranger fudeball black pen and used my pilot parallel pen for the zebra stripes. 

I'm really pleased with the final result and reaffirms to me that it's all about the practice and perseverance with a medium 'if at first you don't succeed ' springs to mind. 

Here are a couple of practice pieces using the same technique......

Thank you for stopping by and visiting me. You can also follow me on facebook at www.facebook.com/myjournallingjourney 

I hope to see you there

Have a great day

Bright and painty hugs

Tracy

X

Dina's Art Journal Courage !!

I recently purchased Dina Wakley's new book Art Journal Courage and have been saving it to take on my holidays (the temptation to have a sneak peak has been huge but I have resisted....yay me for self control lol !!!!)

Anyway........the book is full of ideas to get you art journalling and dispelling all those common myths....

I can't paint, I can't draw, I can't write, I don't like my handwriting etc !!!

With fabulous step by step guides it really does open up endless possibilities.

So I decided to take the bull by the horns and get to work, however being on my holidays and having only brought 3 tubes of acrylic paints with me I had to start improvising right from the start and get out my watercolours ( using my art journal courage right ??)

Used my only 3 tubes of acrylics for the background on this one and then used the stabilo 'magic' pencil to sketch and shade the face, not my usual bright colour pallet but I love the dark slightly moody feel to the finished page !!!

Another one of Dina's lessons again I substituted the acrylics for watercolours, I really like how this one turned out and I used my neocolours to emphasise the colours...

Great lessons and the fact that I tackled the projects without the 'correct' materials proves Dina's point ......

Once you grab hold of that 'Art Journal Courage' nothing is impossible

Go and grab your courage and create happy art !!!!!

Bright and painty hugs

Tracy

X

Out of my comfort zone !!!

So what art supplies do YOU pack when going on holiday......

Usually most of my work is done with acrylics but as I was only taking hand baggage on the airplane and the airline had mentioned paint in their banned items I didn't want to take the chance of having my gorgeous Dina Wakley paint tubes confiscated........so what could I do, I couldn't possibly go on holiday and not take any art supplies !!!!!!

I chose to take watercolours.......

I picked out a selection of watersoluble colours that I had and decided to step out of my comfort zone.....I did pack a cheap white and black as well as a flourescent red acrylics paint as well and luckily was allowed to keep them !!!!

So here I am sipping sangria in the sun and experimenting WAY out of my comfort zone........

I struggle with the watercolours but am determined to get to grips with them before I get back to normality.......

It's definately a learning curve for me...I would never normally reach for the watercolours but am happy to give myself the challenge whilst I have plenty of free time to practice !!

Just a few of my practice pieces experimenting with this new medium for me and although I am not comfortable with it I have found that I can create pieces that I am reasonably satisfied with, always room for improvement but that's the point of practice right ???

So next time you go on a trip why not think about packing supplies that are out of your comfort zone.......it'll be a challenge but you just might surprise yourself !!!!

Bright and painty hugs 

Tracy

Xxx