August 2014 New Products {Darcy Wilkinson}

Good evening again folks, Leandra here to introduce the latest offering of stamps from Darcy. 

These lovely stamps were used a lot (by me!) when I demoed briefly at Stevenage recently - there are so many really great images which all work perfectly together in numerous ways. That's a winning combo in my book, and many watching the demos commented on how nice both sets are - difficult to choose a leader! {TIP:Just get both!}

Tonight Darcy talks you through both sets, and together with Helen Chilton they present you with some wonderful inspiration to kick start your muse into action! Enjoy!

Hi everyone, Darcy here. At last here it is the official launch night, I can finally share my new stamps with you in full!

These started as always with a page of doodles. I instinctively start with circles, bubbles, spots and hearts, and stamps develop from there. This time, the shapes turned into mainly flowers, but then I found myself sketching the feather... and so the theme of flowers and birds was born.

EDY09

Let's start with EDY09. This plate went through all kinds of changes, in fact I think only the bird, fence and quote are from the first draft. Quite often I have no clear image design in mind, the random doodles come first, just to get my finger muscles working. The flower head on the left was entirely different in early drafts, more of a real flower shape. I really liked the bubbly buds on the stem, but they didn't match with the petals and so taking inspiration from the buds the larger bubbly blooms came into being.

The spikey flower also started out quite differently. Each rendition was sent off to PA HQ for feedback, and over the course of about 4-5 drafts we eventually got close to the final placement, size and shape. My favourite image is the feather, I just love those gentle curves, it was the easiest and most relaxing image to draw. Somehow the repetition of those flowing lines is so peaceful. I do have a special place in my heart for that poor bedraggled birdie, his name is Neville. He is in need of some serious TLC, I do hope that some of you will give him a loving home.

EDY10

On plate EDY10 the heart shaped petals were the first ones that I doodled. If you are familiar with my very first stamp sets you will know my love of hearts, so creating a heart flower was natural. But after some feedback from Leandra, I plumped them out from their skinny early version resulting in a more generous area to colour in and a bigger flower head. I love the flock of birds, this is something I often doodle, so this was a great opportunity to have this made into a stamp. I know it is going to become a firm favourite of mine, both as a background in a muted colour and as a bolder image with black ink.

My favourite images on this plate are the two leaves, both of these contain my own handwriting, albeit very tiny. The text in the leaves is deliberately slanted to give the impression of veins. I have found that if you paint the background first with a bright green and then stamp the leaves, that addition of text really make the whole thing pop. The stones also contain some handwriting and various filler doodles, the shapes are placed so that you can repeat stamp and end up with a wall or border.

'Turn your face to the sun...' is a long time favourite quote of mine, I have used it many, many times; it has been a helpful reminder in difficult times. The other quote is one I found recently and fell in love with immediately, it is fun and quirky and sums up my attitude to art in general.

So there you have it, that is how the stamps were conceived and the amazing team at PA HQ turned my ideas into reality. However it is you guys who truly bring the images to life, you who breathe colour and personality into them, so I hope you have fun with them too.

by Darcy Wilkinson - Metal Butterfly

My first piece is an 8x8 grey/whiteboard, given the 'Fibralo' treatment to achieve a gorgeous blended background. I then stamped the flock of birds and created the top and bottom borders with the dry stone wall stamp.

The butterfly is made from pieces of metal card, each one painted, then stamped and coloured in before being shaped and glued into place.

Large blobs of matte gel support the underside of the wings and the body which give it a bold, dimensional appearance.



 by Darcy Wilkinson: Tick Tock

My second project started life as a pink and silver alarm clock, I rescued it from a charity shop where it looked unloved. I took it apart fully, painted, stamped and glued and then came the tricky part... Putting it back together.

Here it is all back as it should be, though much more colourful now. Yes it does still tick, and there were no leftover bits... though at one point I thought I may have killed it and the bag of assorted screws, washers and other bits did look daunting...who knew horology was so complicated lol

I really do love it now, it makes me smile. (Even though the first 2 days of loud ticking were a true test of my patience)



by Darcy Wilkinson: Miss Veronica

My third project is a big haired girl, I think you have come to expect seeing them now. Let me introduce 'Miss. Veronica' , she is painted onto heavy weight smoothy. Some of the images are stamped directly to the card and others are stamped onto painted tissue paper, cut out and glued on.

The sunglasses are made from metal card, lightly painted and stamped. As the piece is tilted the metal card really catches the light.

by Darcy Wilkinson: Bum Bag

Finally, I made this bag. A bunch of us recently went to V-festival, Chelmsford for a weekend enjoying loads of bands and comedy acts. While these bags are a blast from the past I did think it would come in handy. The whole thing is painted with Fresco paints and stamped, with a mash up of mine and Sara Naumann's new stamps. 

I love how my flowers change just depending on the colour used. This time they are done in Cherry from the new JoFY limited edition #2 paint set; this makes them look like poppies.

Painting the fabric does make it a little harder to manipulate the fabric, but not impossible, as you can see I managed to get in 3 pockets, all with zips.

I hope tonight's projects have given you some great ideas to explore. Next week I will share on my blog how I made them in more detail.

Darcy x

Next up to support Darcy is Helen Chilton who has been a regular contributor to the blog over the past 2 years and beyond! We love her style and explorative attitude to creating, always fun, always trying new things just because...check out her superb samples below.

by Helen Chilton: Flower Power Bird

Paint the bird all over in Snowflake and then the colours of your choice. (I've used Guacamole, Tinned Peas, Zesty Zing, Haystack, Hey Pesto, Orchid, Candy Floss and Sky.) When dry, stamp the script over the body, beak and legs in contrasting colour paint.

Whack some paint onto white card (mixture of the above plus London Bus and Very Berry) overlapping where the colours meet. When dry, stamp out loads of leaves, flowers and feathers and cut out. Stick buttons to the flower centres and stick to wings and base, the more the better, Place two of the flowers back to back for the head plumage, sandwich with a cocktail stick and push into bird's head. Stamp the grasses in a row on some green painted card, cut out and layer round base. Add a bird or two and a couple of birdhouses from EDY09/EDY10.

by Helen Chilton: Out in the Fields Canvas

This uses a 6x6 deep canvas, reversed. Scrape some Grunge Paste onto the edges, bit by bit, and stamp the bricks into it. When dry, paint with Mushroom, Stone and Nougat Fresco paints. Then over stamp the bricks using brown and grey inkpads. Finish off by rubbing over with Treasure Gold, as many colours as you like (I used Florentine, Sapphire, Spanish Topaz, Green Amber and Royal Amethyst.)

Using glossy white card, cut out a square to fit in the aperture and colour with Seedless preserves and Wild Honey Distress inkpads. Stamp over some script in the same colours, followed by the grasses and birds in black. Glue into canvas.

Stamp the flowers, grasses, leaves and bird table onto glossy card and colour with Distress inkpads. Cut out and layer up.

by Helen Chilton: Meadow Card

Take a square of glossy white cardstock and stamp the various flowers and grasses in black, masking if necessary. Colour with Picked Raspberry, Evergreen Bough and Squeezed Lemonade Distress inkpads.

Stamp script over the background and flowers in the same colours, and then in black round the edges. Using Distress markers, colour in the flowers and stems. When dry, add highlighting with a white pen. Add gems and layer onto coloured card.

NB. ALL these techniques could also be achieved with Fibralo pens by Caran D'ache, also water reactive felt pens.

Wow, what a great array of artistic inspiration tonight! I adore all the colours, so bright and cheery! Darcy's stamps are so much fun to work with, and it's great how they so easily mash up with other PaperArtsy Stamp Collections  too! 

All Darcy's stamps are available now from your favorite PaperArtsy stockist. Get on the case and get your now!!

We'll see you back tomorrow night ....

~Leandra