Tuesday, May 26, 2015

The Crafter's Cupboard April DT


April's DT an ANZAC Tribute

Hello Crafty Peeps,
It's Dannii here again with a little late April Tutorial
April has been a crazy month but hopefully you'll think this tutorial is worth the wait
Once again I have created a double lay-out in my Dyan Reavely ranger journal. I love this new journal. The pages are so beautiful, thick and smooth to work on and can really hold the wet, and the best thing there's no gluing pages together. You can buy them HERE

Now anyone who knows me knows my oldest son has recently joined the Australian Army. This is he's First Anzac day as a service man and I am truly proud of him. Also being that this April we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the ANZAC's in Gallipoli landing I decided that my page should be a tribute to our Anzac hero's past and present.

So I decided to sketch on the right side of the page an Anzac solider. This was drawn in grey lead pencil
 
Once I was happy with the sketch I went over the drawing with a waterproof fine liner this helps me to keep my basic line drawing when I start painting.
 
 
 I made a few adjustments to the port potions on the face and then when I was happy with the drawing I rubbed out all my grey lead sketch lines.
Now was the time to start splashing some paint around using Southern Skies Fressco paint and a credit card. I blocked in the background and then using Tinned peas I quickly blocked in the uniform and slouch hat. I then used SEMCO flesh paint from my stash to block in the face and neck area
 
 
once again I pulled out my trusty fine liner and went over the facial features again and blocked in the eyes with fresco paint chalk and then started to paint in the shadowed areas with Fresco chocolate pudding
 
 
once the shadows are dry another layer of Semco flesh paint is applied over the whole face and neck
and then I painted in the Iris with the chocolate pudding fresco paint.
 
 
 
 
once this layer is dried I pulled out my Derwent ink intense pencils I lOOOVVVE these pencils and are a must have for any serious art journal.They can be purchased at crafters cupboard
I like to use the earth tones in the ink intense pencils to build the shadows and flesh tones.
 
 and then activated the pencil's with an aqua painter. The pupils where then painted in and lips coloured
 

at this stage. I really just like to keep working and building the flesh tones and building up the features on the face with the ink intense pencils and aqua painter.
I really enjoy this process and will keep adding colours until I am happy with the finished face
 
 
More shadows are added with the purple red tones
and then toned down with a touch of flesh paint
 
 
the slouch hat band  and hat badge is painted in
 
 
Then the final details are added to the hat badge and chin strap and details to the shirt.
Once it is completely dry I added white highlights to the chin, nose, checks neck and forehead with a white charcoal pen and white possca paint pen
I am now happy with the finished details of the face
and now it's time to start on the other side of the page.
starting with stamping and masking a poppy stamp from my stash
along the bottom half of the page
 
 
 
the poppies were then painted with silk paints and pit pens
 
 
once the poppies were finished I added the lest we forget ode.
 
 
I am really pleased with my finished page and hope you all enjoyed my tutorial
hopefully I have done our old Digger's Proud and I know
it is by far my favourite page
till next time
enjoy your art journaling
 
 

Saturday, March 21, 2015

crafters cupboard March DT



March DT for Crafter's Cupboard

 
hello Peep's
 
It's Dannii here with another monthly tutorial for the crafter's cupboard.
 
My mum came for a visit last month and we spent a day shopping together. She's such a sweet heart, she brought me a gorgeous hand painted  leather handbag of an Owl. This got me thinking about painting my own type of handbags.
 
So whilst out shopping this week I came across these cheap tote bags and figured it would be the ideal style to give handbag painting a crack.
 
So using some of my new Paper Artsy fresco paints and Jo Sonja's textile medium (thanks Jennifer for letting me know about this medium) for fabric painting from my stash. I mixed 2 parts paint, 1 part textile medium making sure I mixed well with a palette knife.
Then used a credit card to swipe the paint using paper Artsy Fresco Jade over the front of the  bag

 
Then using a fan brush I stippled the paint around the edges, so the background didn't look too blocky.
Then using a soft grey lead once the paint was dry, I used a ranger heat gun to speed up the process and quickly sketched out a face for the front of the bag.

 
Once I was happy with the sketch. I used my flesh coloured paint mixed with textile medium to block in the face  and paper Artsy Fresco prawn to block in the hair.
 
Making sure I gave the face quite a few coats between drying.
Once I was happy with the coverage
I used a Paper Artsy stencil  PS016 and Paper Artsy fresco paint little black dress to decorate the background around the face.
 
I also used a piece of bubble wrap to stamp and a paper artsy Electica stamp set EEV06 to decorate the background.
Once I added the background I used paper Artsy chalk and my flesh paints to add highlights to the face.


Then Irish cream and cinnamon was added for shadows.
 
 
A touch of Prawn and flesh was added to the checks lips and throat for blush
and the eyes were worked on with the cinnamon and Irish cream
 
 
Once I was happy with the flesh tones
more work was added to the eyes using Jade for the Iris
and adding more highlights to the face and hair using paints, ink intense pencils and pitt pens
 
 
the face is nearly completed at this stage just a few more details to the eyes adding highlights
and brighter colour to the lips using Posca pens and pitt pens
 
Once I am happy with the over all look of the face. It's back to the background
stamping with prawn and chalk and adding a butterfly from Dina Wakley stamp set
 Scrbbly insects - MDR44499
 to the hairline and colouring it with silks
which is also ideal for painting on fabrics
 
I am pretty happy with the out come of the bag and the textile medium was great to work with as it kept the paint wetter longer so I was able to blend well with the paints.
the paint with the help of the textile medium has stuck down well and appears to have set in to the fabric. I don't know if I will give it a coat of mod podge or not I really don't think it's need.  I have given it a good scrub and wiped it down with a wet sponge with no paint peeling or lifting. So hopefully this tote will be quite useful in carrying my products to art journal class as well as being an original and pretty bag to look at.
All the materials I have used can be purchased from Crafter's Cupboard here
I am off to the shops now to buy a  few more of these bags. There going to be great presents for family and friends
Give it a go this was really an easy project to make
I hope you enjoyed it and don't forget to leave a comment
I love to hear from you all
Until next time
get out there  play, create and enjoy with mixed media.


 

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Crafters Cupboard Dt Journal page for Febuary

Crafters Cupboard DT

Hello Crafty Friends!


Danni here today to blog my first DT Tutorial with Crafter's Cupboard.  A tad excited I might add, and hopefully you'll find it inspiring as well.
Unfortunately I have been tied up with work this month and haven't been able to get down to the Awesome Crafter's Cupboard shop to check out all the lovely new releases  from Paper Artsy.
You can check the new releases here. I cant wait to get my greedy little hands onto some of those exciting new stamp plates and the wonderful range of paints. Till then, I will have to make do with my last purchases at the Crafter's Cupboard which were a few of Dyan Reaveley's Dylusions stamps.
I 've been pondering over them for quite a while. I would say that they have been calling my name every time I enter the Crafter Cupboard shop, but they are just a little out of my comfort zone so I had been resisting them.
Last month I found myself in front of Angus's perfectly arranged shelf of the Dylusions stamps, and once again wondering what I would create with them. So, this time I bit the bullet and brought a few sets home with me!
 
Believe it or not, todays post is all about these wacky and fun stamps. I managed to create a fun double journal page and I quite surprised myself with the finished project.
 
Now I know there was quite a few Dyan Stamp set's left on the shelves at Crafter's Cupboard shop that I will now most definitely need to get!
 
So my journal page started as they all do -  blank. I picked a few stamp sets that I wanted to play with

 
Bits of these -DYR34605, Ruby Rainbow-DYR34377, Shrooms-DYR44529



And I had a few more stamps on standby just in case .

 Next was to pull out my Dylusions spray's -  another product that's a little bit out of my comfort zone, but that I am pushing myself to use as I quite like the effects.


 
 Once colours were sorted, I grab my handy dandy spray booth - a chips box from Aldi


 ( a wonderful tip I got from Jennifer)
and sprayed to my hearts content also adding a water spray over the top to help with the blending of the colours

 

Once I was happy with the coverage on my pages I whipped out a stencil


 
as I wanted to give ghosting a try.

 This is a method that Dyan is well known for when using her Dylusions sprays. It involves spraying your background, placing your stencil down and spraying water through the stencil. This causes a reaction to the dylusion inks so when you lift your stencil and dry the area with paper towel you are left with a ghost print of the stencilled image.
as seen here


This was a really cool technique that I would try again . But next time I will make more of a feature with the technique.


 
The next step once the page was completely dry was to stamp the little flower stems from the elements of Shrooms-DYR44529 stamp set with archival ink.

and then using other stamp elements that come from the stamp sets to compose my lay out
Once I was happy with the overall lay out it was time to try another technique!

I had been hanging out to try this one which involves colouring with aqua painters.  I filled each one with the Dylusion ink sprays straight from the bottle so that I could use them to colour my stamped images.

The colours are so vibrant and are not watered down so you can get direct colour into small paintable areas


Once all the images were coloured, I stamped out the crazy little bodies and heads, mix matching from one stamp set to the other onto 300gsm water colour paper.
 I then used the aqua painters to again colour the images up.
 

For the skin tones I used my copic makers E50, E51, E53 and E93

Once they were completely dried, I fussy cut around the stamped images using a craft knife for the really small areas.
 
The larger figure  needed hair as her head finished at her eyes. I had contemplated using the leaves but that would have just gotten too busy with the leaves that were already stamped around the boarder of the pages.
So another dig through my stamps and I pulled out
Dyan's Surivor- DYR44550 ...

and stamped the survivor head straight down onto the journal page

I then proceeded to matt medium the fussy cut stamped images down onto my pages


Once they were in position I felt the page needed a bit more black as the bright and intense colours were a little too overwhelming.
 
Another dig around in my stamps and I found Clearly doodle parts 

which has a few solid leaf stamps.  This was stamped around the boarders of the page to frame the figures and to also pull all the colours together.
 I actually think the extra black on the page makes the Dylusion inks pop

So now nearly finished … .. I used a posca fine paint pen to make highlights on the leaves and to put a Dottie pattern through the hair of the larger figure and
then finally, using another  Dyan stamp- Clearly quotes 
(Who Knew I had so many sets!) I stamped out two quotes that I liked and thought were appropriate for my images.

 They were stamped onto white cardstock and then I cut them out and used matt medium glue them to the pages…..

and voilĂ   a finished double spread.


I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial as much as I enjoyed making it
if you have any questions please leave a comment I would love to hear from you
Until next time enjoy what you do and keep on creating
crafty hugs xxx