GD: Ellen Vargo #2 Abstract Cards

Hello and welcome back! Ellen Vargo here again. I hope you enjoyed yesterday's tag project. Scroll down to the next post if you missed it.  

Today we'll be using many of the same techniques to work on one large piece, and then cut it down to make four cards. So let's begin ....

We'll start with a list of supplies:

- Smoothy A4 card

- Fresco Paints: Snowflake, Limelight, Yellow Submarine, Tango, Autumn Fire, Beach Hut, Inky Pool, London Bus, Little Black Dress

- brayer, any size

- Stamps: Mini 22, 23, 62, HotPicks HP1004, HP1009, Eclectica Lin Brown Quotes ELB05, ELB06

- dictionary paper for collage

- Ranger Glue ‘n’ Seal (matte) – or other matte medium of choice

- Ranger Cut ‘n’ Dry foam

- Non stick craft sheet

- Mini spinning tops stencil (6x6)

- Smoothy Heavyweight White card – 4 pieces cut to 8.5” x 6” – we’ll be making four cards

- paper adhesive of choice – I used Scor-Tape.

Take one sheet of Smoothy White Stamping Card, a brayer, and some paints. Here are the colours I chose:

Starting with Limelight, apply a small amount of paint to your craft sheet (or paper palette like yesterday), roll it out on your craft sheet with a brayer, and apply it in two sections to your card.  Please forgive the state of my brayer... I'm *horrible* about cleaning it.... 

We'll do the same thing with the other colors, overlapping a bit each time... Next up is Yellow Submarine.

And Tango ...

And London Bus...see the depth building as we work to darker colors?

The small strips of London Bus were done by using very small section of the brayer - roll it just a little bit and then move over and do it again and again until you have a long skinny strip of color. Next I added some Inky Pool, as well as a small strip of white next to each skinny strip of London Bus. I used a small flat paint brush for the white.

Next we'll add some stamping to our background ... I tend to do tone-on-tone stamping for backgrounds, so that nothing stands out more than the main focal image (eventually done in black). I selected a few Mini Stamps 22 & 23 along with co-ordinating paints ...

I thought the background still needed more ... so I chose Mini Stamp 62:

Oops - went a little "wonky" with that stamping - don't worry - we will fix that with some collage ...

I used some vintage dictionary paper, tore it into random strips and shapes, and used Ranger's Glue and Seal (matte) to apply it to the page. See how we've covered up the wonky stamping?  Problem solved ... I trimmed the excess collage with scissors.

Now... confession time... I wanted that vintage dictionary paper to blend into the background a little more, and I *could* have done the collage first... *before* the painting ... so instead I just used my finger to apply the paints right over the collaged elements to push them back into the background again...you could also use your brayer to roll a small amount of paint over the collage elements. This effectively knocks them back to blend a bit more with the rest of the background.

At this point, it's time to cut our big A4 paper into 4 sections, for the four cards we'll be making.  Use your paper trimmer to cut the piece in half, and then cut each of those pieces in half again. 

Another way to incorporate collage into your background is to do some stamping that overlaps the collage. I chose this target/bulls-eye stamp using Snowflake.

I stamped it in horizontal and vertical patterns, overlapping the collaged elements, pushing those collage pieces back even further, since there is now another layer on top.

I wasn't happy with the backgrounds quite yet - still a lot of untouched space ... so I decided to do some stenciling. I used Autumn Fire, some Cut N Dry foam and the Mini Spinning Tops (6x6) Stencil and applied the paint in random areas on each background.

This is Joe... he decided that he just *had* to help with the stenciling.... LOL! 

I'd say he did a nice job! HA! Just kidding ... no painty paws for Joe ... but here are the results ... The stenciling helps bring each section together since it runs the length of each card front.

Now it's time to choose our focal image. I wanted my cards to be a set of 4, so I stamped this gorgeous flower on each card using Versafine Onyx Black Ink ...

I then added some grasses to the bottom of each card with this lovely stamp - one of my favorites!

HP1009

I used some Little Black Dress and Cut N Dry foam to apply around the edges of the four card fronts. It's important to give a "frame" to each card.

No card is complete without a greeting... so I chose 4 different greetings, some old and some of Lin Brown's new quote stamp sets...available soon!! I stamped each greeting on white card, outlined each greeting with Little Black Dress paint, and adhered them to the cards with some foam squares for a little dimension.

And to finish up, I mounted each card front on to a white card base. Cut 4 pieces of white card to 8.5 " x 6" and fold in half. Adhere each piece to the card front using your adhesive of choice (I used some scor-tape - double sided super sticky tape). And here's our card collection!

Here's a closer shot of one card ... 

Thanks for dropping by, and I hope you'll have a go yourself this is so much fun! I'm sure you'll enjoy yourselves!

See you tomorrow

-Ellen

Leandra Says: Fantastic development of last nights idea, and how cool is this for multiple cards. Great use of colour too. I can see this could be addictive!

Gillian Says: Gorgeous collection of arty cards Ellen. Love the "pops" of white against the zingy colours.

If you would like to join in this week's challenge and play along with Ellen's techniques, then do link up your creativity here, and go in the draw to win some PA stamps of your choice! You need to link your entry by 17:00, Sunday January 26th 2014.