Art Journal Journey - Ducks

 Again this is a page in my Pan Pastel Journal but this time I used a stencil with my pastels.  I am sorry but the stencil is one I have had in my stash for quite some time and so I have no idea who made it.  I chose this one as it reminded me of a pond where you might find ducks swimming happily on with some greenery surrounding it.

I have no idea what the ducks actually are but no doubt someone can tell me.  They came from my stash of magazine cut out pictures but they are obviously different species.

This brings my time as Guest Host with Art Journal Journey to a close and I hope that you have found this theme, "It Must Have Wings", exciting to take part in and derived as much enjoyment from it as I have in making so many pages.  I would like to thank all of you who have entered into the challenge, it has been a joy to see so many of you bring 'wings' into your work in so many different ways and I have enjoyed looking into how you arrived at your final pictures and commenting on my thoughts on your work.  I hope I did not sound like a teacher but someone who enjoyed art as much as you all do.  I can get carried away commenting lol.

Finally thanks to Elizabeth, Erika and Mia for trusting me with their blog for a month, it has been hard work, but pleasurable and getting most of my work ready well in advance meant I created lots - and derived so much pleasure from doing it.  So many many thanks to the moderators, your work with bringing Art Journal Journey to us is much appreciated.

Art Journal Journey - King Crow

This is a page in my Pan Pastel Journal.  To begin with I scrunched up some tissue paper, opened it up smoothing out but leaving some creases evident and then stuck down two pieces.  Next I coloured all over the page with various Pan Pastels in blue, green, yellow and pink allowing the colours to overlap in places making a secondary colour.

Then I began stamping various images - with the bird from Tim Holtz being just off centre and a crown on his head.  Clock face stamps are by Non Sequitur as is the branch which I thought, at first,  looked very much like lightening in the sky, and as are the birds.  All others are Tim Holtz stamps.

Using an eraser I made a circle in the sky to represent a sun or is it a moon?.

This is my entry into Art Journal Journey where I set the challenge "It Must Have Wings" for this month.  I do hope you can join in with something that has wings - I have given you some ideas if you check the home page of AJJ.

175th WOYWW

Thought I would change the heading around a bit and put the number first.  Can I please ask that WOYWW'ers put your number alongside your comment, it makes life so much easier to find you and  comment back.  It is especially difficult if you have more than one blog and we have to sift through them all to find the right one.

What is a WOYWW'er?  Well it stands for What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday and a group of us get together and show our work desks, courtesy of the boss Julia, and then have a nosey at what everyone is doing.  Join in, it's good fun and you make some lovely friends. Speaking of which lots of them are joining up for a GIANT CROP this coming weekend.  Sadly I cannot go :(   If you, dear reader, are planning on attending - have a whale of a time!  Sending my love to you all.

Just a reminder too that when I reach the double zero in followers I will be sending out a gift to someone (clue, it has pages).  Just one of my lucky followers will get the gift.  No need to apply by doing a comment to any posting - will just take a random person from the whole lot when it gets to 300.

Now to the real business - my desk - or as it was on Tuesday night:

My Tiny Stash of things bought at Harrogate

My bag that fits my Grand Calibur (new from a friend)

Shades of Bet Lynch?

Some of the Pan Pastel Diecuts 

Now this is really how my desk is/was earlier (10 minutes ago) - once Harrogate had been cleared away I once more tipped out my parcel of goodies from Jan (LLJ to you WOYWW'ers) and here are lots of trimmings for me to play with.

Sorted into colour families for ease of use when I get around to it. Well kind of sorted as some were so colourful they fit into more than one category.

And finally, here they are bagged up and ready to be put away. Thing is, I am so tired now that I think it will have to wait until morning.  It's almost midnight, I am shattered (five early morning get ups in a row) and bed is calling.

Night Night, God Bless.

Artful Times Layers it Up ...

... this time with Acetate.  It's Sam's choice and I think I was in the mood for doing weird things the day that I made this card.  I had recently bought myself some Octopode stamps, had an idea what I wanted to do with my acetate layer and set off using a totally different stamp to this (in my head) but as soon as I got in the box I chose this one.

I started by using my Pan Pastels in a very light shade, then I stamped a PaperArtsy stamp in the corners with Versamark and went over with a darker shade of green.  Then I stamped the main image with my Black Archival Ink and also the words (don't know who they are by).

Then I prepared my bigger background - again PP's but in darker greens - some background stamps with Versamark again and then darker greens and some brown over the top.  A quick run through my Grand Calibur with a cogs and wheels embossing folder on the thick acetate and it was ready to be put together.

I assembled it with eyelets in each corner and then realised it also needed some down the side.  Two jump rings attached some chain to the card and the whole was mounted on to a base.  There's Steampunk Flo ready to go off to find her 'cap'.

Hope you get as much fun out of thinking what to do when you use 'Acetate as a Layer' for this challenge of Sams.  See you at Artful Times, and thanks for the super entries we have had for our other challenges to date, I was surprised to see so many Mona entries - and gorgeous they were too.  We love looking at what you do.

And Still the Birthdays Come

Today it is Von's birthday and so to help her celebrate I made her a birthday card.  As Von has bought some Pan Pastels and is struggling a bit with using them I have made her card using PP's.

The tag is a Manilla one and the background is done in a mixture of Spray Inks and PP's.  For the background  card I used a semi-shiny cardstock (just to try a different one) and stamped a large background stamp in Versamark first of all tearing a large hole in a sheet of scrap paper and stamping through it so the edges became irregular (didn't fancy a rigid rectangle).  Then I went over it in Yellow first and then Orange PP's and finally finished it off with a quick spray of Fixatif (yes, it is spelled that way on the can).

I just thought this would be another two surfaces that Von could see work quite well with the Pastels.

Happy Birthday Von!

Europe on a Tag

It was my turn again to choose the theme and so because it is holiday time I thought it would be appropriate to do something to do with going away on holiday.  I thought about it and decided that it was about time we did a "tag" and that, as most of us holiday abroad, I chose for us to go on a trip to some part of Europe.

Now you can go anywhere you want within Europe, money is no object and the weather can be whatever you want it to be.  You can sightsee, you can loll out on the beach or you can go adventuring - Europe is your oyster.

I started off with a mixture of Italy and France but quickly changed it to a tag with Paris as its main destination.  I just love Paris.  It is such a romantic city and the French language is the language of love, or so they say.  You only have to utter the words "je t'aime" and they come out all sultry and sexy (am I allowed to say that word on here?).

So here is my tag - all hot oranges and yellows with some deep reds mixed in - what a great time I had with my Pan Pastels - with a vista of the famous places of Paris and a face looking wistfully down at the postcard from a loved one ...  I do hope she can join him soon.

I hope you too can jet off somewhere nice in Europe and join us in our quest for a bit of sunshine and a change of scenery.  Please remember to read our guidelines, we do get the occasional entry that cannot go in the final count for a prize and it is such a shame when so much effort has gone into producing such lovely work.

Now where have my friends Sam and Von gone to?

See you over at the Artful Times.  Toodle pip!

The Hatters on Holiday

Over at Out of a Hat Creations the girls have got Postcards as the theme for their challenge this week.  Funnily enough at Victoria Stampers I issued a challenge of my own for members to make a postcard for us to swap the following month, which will be tomorrow. Not sure if we will be actually doing it as there are a lot of members on holiday but we will have to wait and see.  If not they can sit and wait for another month.  (That's the postcards, not the members) Anyhow, the Hatters spurred me on to think about my postcard (I am making it suffice for both) and here is mine.

Years ago I was really into doing Postcards for swaps and so I must have found a website that had lots of different styles for the back of them on it.  Luckily I copied them onto paper which I found a while ago and so I chose one with Asian writing on and decided to revisit my Asian stamps.  I love the one with the lanterns on, have four of the ones with the words on and always like the flying cranes so those were the three I chose - all mounted - so unlike me!

First of all I used Post-It notes to mask areas off and then proceeded to stamp the three images, then I went over them with Pan Pastels to create a background colour.  The one on the right I erased the clouds at the top to bring them back to white, then coloured the dragon and the two corner pieces in with my Caran D'Ache watercolour crayons. Did the same with the lantern image but left the cranes as they were.

I will write a little message on the reverse and probably pretend I am in Xian which was one of my favourite places when I was in China all those years ago.  One of my friends is going later in the year for her tenth (China - get it) anniversary.  Wish I was going with them but can't play gooseberry on an anniversary can I?

Using My New Stamps

I just had to make a card for my friend Jo last week so armed with Zapain (tablets) and a hot water bottle at my back I set to and began thinking about Jo's card.  As she makes the most fabulous cards herself I really wanted to make something special but couldn't honestly get my head around anything so instead she ended up with a plain and simple one but I felt sure she would like the Lynn Perrella stamp I used.

A bit quirky if you study it - it shows a lady in full sail like a regal galleon with one on her head and various other "sea" things about her. I honestly thought this was mounted very straight but looking at this scan I don't think I quite managed it did I?

First of all I made a background using my PP's, didn't do anything else to it but stamp the lady.  Then I used a tiny eraser to take out the colour on her face, hands, overskirt of her dress, shell umbrella and bag, dangling watch and the sails of the ship.  Apart from the sails on the ship I coloured the others in with various Pan Pastels and the small pointy tool and then sprayed it with Fixative.  (As what anyone says I do think you need to use something to fix the colours)

Then I sprayed a piece of card with my new Dylusions sprays, turned out rather more green than anticipated,  and stamped another LP stamp down the side.  Once the main image was affixed I coloured the circles in with gel pens and then found a piece of cardstock that matched the main image and made more circles with acrylic white paint and a couple of bottle tops.  The last thing was to put some Glossy Accents on the watch face and then when dry I assembled the whole thing and put a starfish brad on.

Thankfully Jo said she liked it and, as turns out, loves the Lynn Perrella stamps.

Oh I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside

Thank you one and all for the lovely entries to our last challenge, my choice, we had some lovely work as always and we now have a resource to draw upon when we have to make a card for a man.  Always good to have somewhere to go for inspiration and quite often these cards do cause us a bit of a headache.

"Oh I do like to be beside the sea,
Oh I do like to stroll along the Prom Prom Prom
When the Brass Band's Playing Tiddley Om Pom Pom"

Gosh that takes me back a bit - to being a child and having an ice cream whilst strolling along on a sunny day in my best cotton dress, white ankle socks and new sandals.

Thanks for that Von - yes, it is Von's choice today and she chose "Oh I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside" as her theme.  I have used the Victorian seaside stamps with the children on several times so I thought I would use something different this time.  Von had used Michael Powell's quirky bathing huts a short while ago so I plumped for his harbour scene.

Both Jo and I fell for these stamps when we saw them on a recent trip to Manchester but I didn't realise just how much colouring there was to this stamp.

I decided to use my new Pan Pastels and gaily went along smudging Blues, Magenta and Yellows into the sky and then, using the tiny tool, proceeded to colour in the houses along the front.  Not sure how I should have been using these but declined from using them on the boats and chose to use my Caran D'Ache watercolour crayons instead.  I was going to use my Gel Pen to colour the buoys in but opted instead for my Aquarelle pens - I must use them more often as I realise just how veratile they are now.

Hope lots of you are in the holiday mood and raring to go with Von's challenge.  It has been lovely seeing all the wonderful artwork that you all come up with week after week so here's to meeting up with you all again at the Artful Times.

I Like Playing with PP's

The back was a little easier yesterday, today not so but have just taken the tablets so fingers crossed I might get some crafting done.

Taken the opportunity to show you what else I did with my Pan Pastels so here are the last two samples in my book - now what can I experiment with next with them?

This first one was using them all over and then using a mask and spray ink on top.  The first one I did was a complete mess and I am not keen on this second one.  (I am not that good with spraying inks - doh!)  Then I  put some tissue tape in strips on top and went over with PP's.  Remember this is just a background and needs a focal picture on - perhaps I should have put one on in my book!

The second one was where I stamped some script on first of all and then went over in a very light colour.  I then added some bits of torn masking tape letting them overlap the script in places - it doesn't obliterate it.  Next I came in with other colours of PP's and finally stamped the flowers on.  This has to be my favourite of all the pieces I have done to date - but maybe that is because of the colours.

I have some stamped images left over from my workshop at Art from the Heart so I might do some experimenting with them - if I can think up some different techniques that might work with these chalks.

Hope these give you some ideas to get going with your PP's - remember to check out the previous ones by using the Pan Pastel link to my other work in my right side bar.

ps remember at 6 pm tonight there is the Artful Times blog entry on here and that used PP's again.

PP's Again

As I have not been crafting this week due to my back being bad I thought I would upload another couple of pages from my Pan Pastels experiments.  These are pages within my Pink Pig Book which I hope will carry lots of ideas in the end.

This was just using Versamark on a stamp and then going over with another colour on the top.  It was quite exciting to see (as in the top leaf) where one colour touched the edges and gave a variation.  If you use the lighter colours (tints) you get quite a nice shadow effect. I love doing this with them.

This was where I used Versamark and a large background stamp.  I really do like this idea and it will make for lovely mounts, especially if you experiment and tie in the colours with something in the main image.  I then stamped the poppies and just coloured them in with one of the pointy tools and sleeves. Don't forget that you can erase the PP's quite easily so any smudges when colouring in like this can easily be taken out.  It was a bit too intricate to cut out all the stems but it does look a little strange with the white showing.  Still I used the excuse that it is only in my 'experimental book'.

I will leave it there for today, tomorrow is an Artful Times blog entry which is scheduled and funnily enough features PP's as well.  Then on Saturday I will upload my final two pages (final as in how much I have done at the moment, not as in finished book) of experimental work for you to see.

I would love to see your experiments with the Pastels.

Di Day

On Thursday I went with my friend, Lorraine, and met up with Sam and her friend Maz (who had the most incredible nails) in Harrogate when we went for a Pan Pastell Taster Session with Di of Art from the Heart.   I won't say how much it cost us for one session (we had two - one in the morning and one in the afternoon although some people only did the one - personal choice) but we got the whole amount back in materials and therefore we got Di 'thrown in' for free!

I won't tell you much about the sessions in case she is repeating them but when left to our own devices (ie left to "play") I am afraid I got a bit carried away with the Dylusion Sprays and now know what everyone is talking about.  Bright, fabulous colours and no clogging!!! Some of my bits that I brought home have got Pan Pastells on them but to be honest the sprays are taking over a bit.  Here are some of the bits and pieces I did - just as brought home and not worked on any further (that will come later):

Now for our friends over the water and anyone else who has not visited her fantastic Alladins Cave (ie shop/studio) here are some photographs of the corridor you walk down to the work room - I did ask permission!

Fabulous tag of tags

Just love these tiles (and the Ranger goodies)

Some of the HUGE canvasses

The workroom where we had our Taster Session

My friends with Pastelly Hands

(Sam, Maz and Lorraine)

and me with Di

Hope you enjoyed this little peek and maybe in a few days time I will have some more of the brilliant images I stamped with worked on so that I can upload them to my blog.  In the meantime I have a fabric book to work on as I was on another workshop yesterday and am on another tomorrow.  No wonder my heart has gone tickety boo again!

Pan Pastels

Last week saw me busy playing with what Pan Pastels I had bought and doing some experimenting in a Pink Pig Book.  The only way to learn how to use them is to do some experimenting and here are a couple of my tries.

This one has Mica on it and there is some gold embossing.  Cannot remember what the script stamp is but I know I like it.  The other two background stamps are two from Cath Wilson from when she had the shop and did her own stamps.  Not sure if you can get them now but they are great for backgrounds as fillers.

I think most of these are Tim Holtz stamps

This saw me experimenting with some tissue paper stuck on over the Pan Pastels and you can see I used an eraser quite a bit on this page. Loved this, try it where you erase the whole image and also where you just erase part of it.

Well, I am going to leave it there.  Will upload some more for you another day but right now I am tired and I am teaching all day tomorrow so an early night is in order.  

Hope you like these two playabouts.