Helen Chilton #1.... Warped Windows

Here is the amazing Helen Chilton to inspire you with Lynne Perrella stamps, and Portfolio Oil Pastels water soluble Crayons. There is a lot of ideas to get your teeth into this week, so get your crayon stash out and play along when you find a spare minute or 30! 
So, without further ado, here's Helen ...

I'm so excited to be a Guest Designer for PaperArtsy - hope you enjoy what I do this week - it's full of bright colours, so get your sunglasses out!

I've gone for the Portfolio Oil Pastels, Fresco Paints and Lynne Perrella Stamps in this first week and have been looking at how to build up backgrounds on large, Size 8 Manila Tags which you can then use for stamping projects.

First of all I took two tags and painted them white with the Snowflake Fresco Paint - I gave them 3 or 4 thin coats to get a really good base.

Next I've worked out the colours I want to use: you can see I've scribbled them onto scrap paper to see what will work.  All these colours blend well together so you don't have to think particularly about where you're putting them on the tag.

I like to get my colours sorted out in my head at the start of a project, then I can coordinate all the inks if necessary.
 

Then just go for it. I've taken the paper off the crayons and laid down a thick layer of colour.

These pastels are very soft and blend beautifully with your fingers: Pull them into each other for added interest.

Next I've taken my Mini Harlequin Stencil, placed it partly over the tag (I don't want to cover the whole thing) and painted through with the Snowflake .

Then quickly flip over the stencil and press down onto the other tag to get the reverse image - for me this links the two tags up.

You need to be fast as this is a quick drying paint. The first time I got distracted (doesn't take much!) and was a bit slow and the pattern didn't transfer as well as I'd have liked. I just quickly coloured another tag. 

Next sharpen your yellow pastel with a craft knife (and keep the shavings for later), lay the stencil back down over the white painted diamonds and draw round left hand edge with crayon.

Take a baby wipe and gently pull the yellow colour across some of the diamonds (this works because the pastels are water-soluble).

Place stencil on other tag and draw round the unpainted diamonds applying pastel quite thickly to get some texture. 

Finally use the stencil bumping technique from Lynne Perrella (Leandra's got a great video on the PaperArtsy YouTube channel) to add some red outlines.

Stamp faces (LP013) in StazOn black onto acetate, turn over and sponge white paint over back of face so that it shows up against the background.

LPC013

LPC011

Turn over and trim to fit. Note I've left bits of acetate sticking out. I used a stapler to secure the acetate. I've decided I love staples - sort of industrial looking and efficient, yet you can also decorate them.

Next I was going to use the leftover sharpenings from the yellow crayon to make a seal. I pre-inked my stamp, put the shavings on the tag and heated it thinking it would react like wax crayon. Of course it didn't! It just ran off everywhere and I didn't like the black - Help! Disaster! 

What it did do though, by happy accident,  was to bend and curl the acetate which I'd forgotten wasn't heat proof. I liked that, so I heated it a bit more to create dimension.

To solve my mini disaster, I stamped the postmark in white Fresco Paint instead - this worked much better and hid my mistake!

 I will be back on Wednesday to show you how this project came together, please leave a comment, and I'll see you again tomorrow night!

If you want to join in this week's challenge and be in with a chance to win some rubber stamps of your choice, go here to Helen's Intro page from Sunday night and use the inlinkz tool to link to something you have made this week inspired by Helen.

Leandra Says: Ever since reading Teesha Moore's Pink and Orange colour choice in the Stampington True Colours Publication, I was hooked on this particular combo, and it's such a good idea to start with a white tag so they really pop, the virgin cream manilla can really suck the colour out. And that's a great tip to use the white paint on the back of the acetate. I can take my sunglasses off now....LOL

Gillian Says: I'm a long time admirer of your work in Craft Stamper Helen, this has been a wonderful explorative post into how you create such wonderful backgrounds. The colour combo is striking!