Old and New with TS {by Katy Norgate}

Hello everyone, Katy Norgate here with you to share a journal page I have created using Tracy Scott stamps, stencils and Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic Paints. I am delighted to share my first 'Tracy Scott blog' post with you. My brief for this make was to dive into Tracy's past releases. I have been fortunate enough over the years to attend several of Tracy's workshops at Art from the Heart in Harrogate, UK, as well as having subscribed to many of her online classes. I am drawn to her beautiful large and colourful designs and as a result now have a decent collection of her stamps and stencils, as well as all her vibrant Fresco paint colours. 

I am going back to Tracy's Eclectica days here, as you can see from the old product number on my stamp set (formerly ETS24, now TS024). This is one of my all time favourite sets of hers and when she recently released the accompanying stencil PS474, I knew this was the design I was going to work with and get playing. I have also used the complementary stencil PS125, in addition to PS160 and PS200, 

For colour, it had to be a bit of nearly everything!! If you have seen my previous blog posts or social media posts, you will know rainbow is my favourite colour! So here is the list, with links, to the Tracy Scott colours of Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic paints I have used - Deep Sea FF198, Coastal FF237, Bermuda FF224, Cerulean FF200, Prawn FF98, Cherry Red FF86, Cerise FF136, Flamingo FF226, Lily the Pink FF218, Berry Nice FF216, Persimmon FF209, Banana FF91, Firebird FF210, Zinc FF235, Pea Coat FF27, and finally the addition of some Snowflake FF15 

In addition I use Tracy's texture stamp set TS065

I decided to work in my large Dyan Reaveley Dylusions journal. The size of these pages work perfectly for Tracy's big designs, and it is the journal I have used for most of her workshops in the past.

I began by creating the background; sticking to analogous colours, in tones of turquoise. I finger painted until the page was full. 

I then applied Bermuda paint through stencil PS125, and then darker tones through PS160 and PS200 to bring these patches of colour together more harmoniously. 

Above is the finished result .....for now.

The next stage was to create the flowers using Fresco Finish Chalk acrylic paints through the stencil PS474, building colours with each layer of petals. Tracy did a fabulous Facebook Free Mini Live demo (TS024 & PS474) for PaperArtsy back in August last year (2025); this can now be found in Tracy's Facebook group: Tracy Scott Creative Cafe  here. If you haven't joined this group, it is a must; there are literally 100's of online classes, free tutorials and her new Release Videos in the Guides section!

I used a sponge to apply the paint through the stencil shapes onto 240gm PaperArtsy smoothy card stock SCA4. Three colours for each flower for the most part, but you will see I only do 2 layers for some. Here I have used Lily the Pink, Cerise and Berry Nice, working light to dark.

The trickiest part is lining up each layer to complement the stamped images, but using the stamps as a reference, I sort of worked it out, not perfectly, but you will see once complete, it really doesn't matter. 

I repeated the process with the colours shown below, so that I had different coloured flowers to work with. 

Below, the paint layers are finished. 

 

These pages look quite untidy, but that is fine, as the flowers will be cut out when they are finished.

The next stage was to stamp and emboss the flowers onto the corresponding painted flowers. This is a great technique to enhance a stamped image and give it a raised texture. 

While I know many of you will know how to use embossing powders, for those that might not be as familiar, please allow me to explain. 

Firstly you are best using a slow drying ink to stamp your image. You could use a clear ink, for example VersaMark, but there are many brands on the market; and then add a coloured embossing powder, or you can use a coloured ink for example any of the coloured VersaFine Clair inks, as I used here, along with a clear embossing powder. Each give a similar result. If I want a bright white finish, as you will see later, I prefer to use a clear ink, and white powder, since no white inks are quite potent enough for my tastes. No reason either, not to use a coloured ink and a coloured powder together, but it seems generally unnecessary to me. The options and supplies out there are enormous!

I used Versafine Clair nocturne ink and embossed with clear embossing powder. Once you have stamped your image, and sprinkled your chosen powder, you then apply heat with a heat tool and watch the magic happen as the powder melts.

This image is with the clear powder applied to the black ink .....

And here is the image with the powder melted. If you look at some of the close up images at the end, you will see the gloss and embossed relief, this technique gives you.

Here are my embossed flowers. I think the stamping and embossing really transforms the flowers. You can see I have mixed up the paint layers so that some of the flowers have white base petals. Now to fussy cut them all out!! Some of the stamped flowers have overlapped a bit where I didn't leave enough room, but again this was easily remedied in the the way I set out my floral arrangement as you will see later.

It is now time to put all these elements together, adding enhancing details to the background and then some flower arranging. I'm not gonna lie, this took the longest LOL!!

Firstly black and white pen to outline some of the stencilling.

White embossing with this swirly stamp as detailed above. 

I then decided to add a bit of a border in one corner, sponging Berry Nice though the random circles of PS474, and then stamping, very loosely, over that with the complementary stamp from PS024. What a versatile pairing these 2 products are!

Some stamping using the snowflake acrylic paint, as well as with black archival ink. Then some painterly splatters of white and purple.

I auditioned the flowers in various poses ... across the middle, down the side, diagonally, but settled on this corner arrangement. I used dimensional tape to top the larger flowers with smaller ones, and kept some of the smaller ones loose for balance to the arrangement. 

I added a few sequins for additional embellishment as well as more painterly splatters. 

There was a bit of a gap in the top left hand corner, so decided to use sentiments from TS028 (Formerly ETS28). I white embossed them onto black card. 

I'm calling this page complete. I really enjoyed the process. I genuinely believe in releasing this stencil PS474, Tracy has made my favourite stamp set PS024 even more versatile. I am now asking “Tracy .....PLEASE can we have a similar stencil for PS025?!!”

Think of the different colour combinations you could use here?!

Here are some photos of the finished page.

Here are some close ups of the finer detail ...

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