2015 #10: Bottles {by Leandra Franich}

2015 Topic 10: Bottles

Hi everyone Leandra here, actually doing a blog post for a change! 

If you have been following me on twitter, FB or Pinterest lately you will know that I have been playing with Craft stuff quite a bit of late, just trying to catch up with you all!!

Over the last few weeks I have gone back to a journal I started a few years ago.... well.... I did the cover, and that was about it! Sound familiar??!! For me journalling is like doing altered books, except flatter. About 15 years ago my creative life evolved around altered books. However, now the main difference is rather than a dimensional page I really want to master my control over drawing faces, so I've been adding those to my pages of late. Quite a few years ago I did a Suzi-blu class, and that got me started on faces, but I have not spent any time practising, so that time has now come.

To be perfectly frank, I am no expert at this! There are many of you out there who are far more adept at this process than I. For those of you who are still at the thinking-about-it-but-don't-know-how-to-start stage, then maybe my simplicity might help you jump in too. I just follow my instinct, and have no idea how to 'do' it, I just take it slowly trying to think about proportion, shape and shadows. I often use Pinterest images as a reference, there are many fabulous journal entries there, and having a guide to refer to certainly helps a lot.

I'm sure there are numerous methods, but at some point you need to just jump in. I know I need to improve my shading skills, but it's one step at a time, and perhaps if I share a little of how I get started, you might be brave enough to try too, and we can get better together!

Step One: Outline
So first up I started with an outline...Now DON'T LAUGH....but she was certainly going to end up as an alien if I kept going with this option!! Maybe I have a talent for alien faces! LOL

OK so you can see what's wrong can't you?

- The eyes are too high

- The face is too long

There's probably a lot more that is wrong, but I'm not aiming for perfect! Just a recognisable face would be good! So to fix it, rather than move the eyes, I rubbed out the pencil and shortened the face! Yes its OK to do that, you can't always get it right the first time!! So don't expect to! And pencil easily rubs off Fresco paint. Yay! You can also see the grid thing. I like to do this as it helps me get the lips and nose in the right place, and that is even more important if the head is tilted...so for me that helps.

As far as the shape of the eyes goes, the lower lid tends to be flatter, and the upper a curve. The more you platy around with this, the more expression you can add, or you can move from whimsy to realistic in style. But I'm not bothered too much with that, for now its all about 2 eyes that match, so I'm going with basic!

Yes, I know...dodgy eyebrows right??!! Very Brooke Shields circa 1980...I ended up ditching them and covering that issue with a fringe!! 

Then I went over all the lines with a Black Pigma Fineliner micron pen (#4). This is the first time I have done that, usually I just paint over the pencil. Not sure it makes much difference, but the pencil is easier to adjust moving forward, so stick with your pencil if you wish! Once heat set the Pigma Pigment pens are permanent (nice alliteration there), and the set of 3 gives you fine .02, thick .08 and medium .04, so I like them a lot. Always make sure the paint is totally dry before you use them or they will stop working!

Step Two: Shadows 
So from the basic sketch, add colour. And that's it!

My go to paints for the initial face-tones are all the pale white-skin tone Frescos eg Snowflake (white), Chalk (white-cream), Nougat (off white/cream), Buff (very rich beige-cream), Vintage Lace (hint of pink), Mushroom (pinky-beige), Blush (skin pink), Rose (very pink), Taupe (like it says on the tin).

The concept is:
1. Put a dark shade in the shadows, then 
2. Come over the top with a 'blender' or lighter shade
3. ...and repeat...
4. ...and repeat...
5. ...and repeat...until you like it!

So I used mushroom down the sides of the nose and I will then take it up into the eye socket cavity. Blush (under left eye) and Blush then Rose on the right cheek/ under eye. On the whole, I added Blush in all the shadow areas, above/under lip. Then the white/ highlight areas are done in Chalk/ Snowflake or Nougat (nose, above eye). For the rest I then move into the mid tones (Nougat, Vintage Lace, dash of Buff) to blend from the shady areas to the highlight areas.

I always work with a damp (not sopping) flat small brush, and only the tiniest bit of paint on the brush. Apply the paint, wipe the brush onto the paper towel, then blend the applied paint into the nearby area. Leave it to dry before you decide what is needed next, bearing in mind, the pale paint will often dry a tad darker. So I move to a different part of the face, then come back. I don't use the heat gun because if you dry the paint too fast, you can get those tide marks, so it's better to just move around and work on a different bit.

Brushes. I use mainly the small flat one on the left, and the 2 on the right. Far right is great for the eye detail, finelining the eye etc. You can find them online here, less than £1 per brush, so cheap as chips.

Step Three: Warmth 
So you just keep working it until you like it. So how did I warm her up?? Once I had a base over the entire paper-face of various shades, I like to add some Pumpkin Soup. It's a translucent, so she immediately goes from vampire to the living when you add Pumpkin Soup! Again, go over the top with Nougat, chalk, and your shader-tones to soften it back, then it will look more natural and blended.

Step Four: Eyes
Again, it helps to find a template on Pinterest, and do the eyeball style/ expression you like. I am not good enough yet to do eyes from a blank page/ mind, so I find a guide to refer to eliminates anxiety. This also helps with the shading discussed earlier!

Eye Tips:
1. Draw 'brackets' ( ) in the eye socket.
2. Draw a pupil, but leave a hole in it to 'catch' the light. I find the pupil looks better if it is semi obscured by wither the upper or lower eyelid. Then she looks like she is looking up or down, in fact I always do them looking up or down and to one side, for me I find the eye ends up much softer, and less goggly.
3. Add more white to the white of the eye.
4. Add colour to the coloured bit (I used Limelight and Hey Pesto, and I even mixed South Pacific into the Hey Pesto to create a deeper green-blue for the very lower-right bit)
5. Colour the pupils. I used French Roast (a brown-black), 2 layers. Then Little Black Dress around the outer pupil edge. Then I Stippled nougat for the catch-lights.
6. Fine liner brush with French Roast on the bracket bits (  ) of the eyeball, and both lids.
7. Repeat 5 with LBD if necessary

...so you see you don't need to use a pen at all! Oh hang on....I did...

8. Used  the fine .02 Pigma Pen for the eye lashes once it was all dry.

Hair Tips:
Again, look online for ideas. I had to cover the dodgy eyebrows, so I used Pumpkin Soup, Brown Shed, French Roast, then Little Black Dress using the fineliner paintbrush to draw squiggles. That was way easier than I thought curly hair might be! I finished with the .08 thick Pigma Pen to do a few more black defined squiggles.

Step Five: Page Background

Once you have the 'face' its easier to make a background to suit the tones. I decided I would go dusky.

The entire Spread was painted direct to the paper (no gesso!) with Buff, then I added patches of Lake Wanaka and Rose with a wide flat brush working fast. I wanted it to look scruffy, so I added the paint, then wiped the brush clean, and literally scruffy- scrubby style blended the colour into the Buff as fast as I could. (total paintbrush disrespect!) I then came back over again with nougat to soften and blend all the patches, and finally I added some chalk patches which I finger painted/ rubbed in.

I tinted Grunge Paste with the left over Rose and Lake Wanaka, and randomly applied it through the new Numbers Stencil (PS021) that Mark has been hiding from us all!

Step Six: Facing 'Bottles' Page

I had some brayered 12x12" HeavyWeight Smoothy paper 

made with EEG07 which was left over from yesterday's project...

.... Yesterday I made a 6x8" canvas with Clare Lloyd's face stamp ECL03 ...

...so I used the stamped face instead of drawing one myself.... See if all else fails you can still make it look like you've drawn a face!!!

While we are here, here is the face close up... 

See how she has a nose ! Clare didn't define the eyeball or nose...so it was kind of tricky for a newbie like me to go from white eyeball to mushroom shadow of the eye socket...but I tried to subtly give it a go!

Where were we???...oh yes...bottles...I wanted to use the green paper that I used for the coat above for the bottles, the green colour would mimic the eye colour of the face.. So I stamped HP1109 row of bottles onto the brayered BG. And then made square flowers...as you do! Actually looking at it now...they could be balloons!!

The final step was journalling, and as I started with Buff paper, I drew circles on a bit of Buff painted book page, cut them out, cut them in halves, and journalled on them the story of how Barbara Streisand ....she does look like her I think.... wanted square flowers!

Might be a tenuous link to 'bottles' for the current topic, but we got there in the end!!! Finally I added a shadow with my Scribe All Pencil. 

It writes on glass etc, and comes in a set of 2 (Black and White and with a pencil sharpener) and it's water soluble. So you apply it, then blend with water to get the soft shadow around the things on the page. This technique makes things pop off the background too.

Lastly I scrawled some journalling about the process in a white sharpie paint pen, and talked about how its not that scary after all to draw and colour a face!

So, I hope you have had a lovely weekend, and perhaps this week you might be able to combine the bottles Topic with faces too! And share your work in the challenge that closes on Sunday Night?

Don't forget, if you are up North, this coming Sunday we are at the Doncaster Dome Stamp Magic Craft Show. Darcy will be there demoing with me, and mark and our eldest Courtney will be running the stand. We very much look forward to seeing you there!

~Leandra

Pinterest: https://uk.pinterest.com/leandrafranich/
Twitter/ Instagram: @PaperArtsy
FB: https://www.facebook.com/pages/PaperArtsy/117458844966531?ref=hl

We would love you to join in with challenge #10: Bottles If you are inspired by any of our guests who blog with us over the fortnight, then please join in and link up your creativity HERE. 

All links go in the draw to win a voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Bottles link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, June 7th, winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.  

2015 # 10 Wish Upon A Star {by Emma Godfrey PA Signature Designer}

2015 Theme 10: Bottles

Hi everyone Emma here, joining you this evening with a post showing you how to make a bottle photo holder.   When I found out the topic was Bottles, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to try the 'painting inside of glass' effect that I keep seeing pop up on my Pinterest board.   I love seeing the muted colours encased in the glossy glass.   My bottle is nothing fancy - just a Tonic Water bottle from our local pub.

Step One: The first thing I needed to do was get rid of some black type on the outside of my bottle (the expiration date etc). I was really pleased when it came off easily with Stazon Remover. Now for the paint.  I used Concrete Fresco Finish paint and dribbled some into the mouth of the bottle.   I then patiently (not like me at all!) moved the bottle around to cover the inside.  I did have to add more paint a few times - but just small amounts as I didn't want a huge puddle at the bottom.   I found tapping the side of the glass helped encourage the paint into little holes and nooks and crannies.  Leave your bottle to dry. .

Step Two: My first thought was to use a cork with some wire to hold the photo in place, but as I couldn't find a cork that fitted, I just used wire in the end.  The wire was 24ga, so nice and flexible for wrapping around, and also thin enough to thread some tiny glass beads onto it too.   I used several lengths as I found it easier to control the wire in shorter pieces.  One of the lengths was wrapped through one of the holes in a Tim Holtz Idea-Ology bulldog clip and then wrapped around and over the mouth of the bottle to create some balance for the photo.

Step Three: To create my decorations I cut four strips of Smoothy cardstock to just slightly longer than the circumference of my bottle, plus an extra piece for my stars.   I stamped one of the sayings from EEG02 repeatedly along one of the strips. Two of the strips were painted with Haystack Fresco Finish, and another with Lake Wanaka Fresco Finish. The final piece was painted half and half with each colour for my stars. Once the paint was dry, I stamped the scalloped border from EEG07 repeatedly on the single colour strips, and the outline stars from EEG06 on the mixed strip.

EEG02

EEG06

EEG07

Step Four:   I cut my scalloped borders out, layered them up and stuck them together and then onto the bottle using Ultra Clear Tape. The stars were also cut out and stuck on.   The finishing touch was to add a little gold Stickles (glitter glue) along the strip edges and on the stars.

I'm really happy with how this came out, especially as it's the first time I've used a bottle for any kind of art. I can't believe how well the Fresco Finish paint coated the inside of the bottle. I'm now hooked, and on the lookout for bottles of all shapes and sizes ... think it would look really good with a group of these in different colours on a shelf.   
What do you think?  

Emma

Blog: www.imaginethatpapercraft.blogspot.co.uk 
Twitter: @emmaimaginethat

Thanks Emma, this is such a cool idea.. how brilliant would this look in a Christmas scheme too, ready to hold Christmas cards. The beauty of the clip is that the photo can be changed, while the fresh colours will go with whatever photo is chosen. 

We would love you to join in with challenge #10: Bottles If you are inspired by any of our guests who blog with us over the fortnight, then please join in and link up your creativity HERE. 

All links go in the draw to win a voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Bottles link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, June 7th, winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.

  

2015 #10 Blue Bottle {by Sue Carrington}

2015 Theme 10: Bottles

Hi everyone Sue here, joining you this evening with a post about decorating bottles ! When I saw the theme for the current challenge I decided that the first thing I needed to do was find a bottle and take it from there ! It was the shape of this bottle that attracted me, though I knew I wasn't going to be able to stamp directly on it so I would have to come up with a plan!

Step One: First of all I taped the lid handle out of the way with some masking tape to make it easier to paint. I then used Blue Oyster and painted the bottle, giving it two good coats.

Step Two: I grabbed a piece of tissue paper and started to stamp using the Darcy EDY13 and EDY12 sets using black Archival ink. 

EDY12

EDY13 

Step three.I flipped the tissue over and then used Limelight, Hey Pesto, Blue Glass, Banana, Tango and Bougainvillea to paint the stamped images.

 Step four: Putting tissue on to the bottle in one go wasn't going to work so I tore it into strips before painting the back with Blue Oyster then sticking the tissue to the bottle.

Step five: I painted the lid with China then used Crackle Glaze and Blue Oyster for the top coat. Love those crackles !

Step Six: I put some twine in watered down Blue Glass and left it to soak for 24 hours. I then wound the twine around the neck of the bottle. I also used some of the twine to attach some flower heads from the Darcy EDY12 that have been stamped on to Smoothy card painted with Blue Oyster then colour added with Tango, Banana and Blue Glass.

To finish the bottle I've given the tissue wrap a coat of Satin Glaze to protect it. The close up shot below shows the tissue wrinkled slightly which I loved as it's given the bottle texture.

There's lots of different ways to decorate bottles, you don't have to cover the whole thing like I've done but you could keep the decoration to a minimum and if you use something like a glass jar the addition of a tealight makes a great home decor piece. I hope you've enjoyed my project tonight and you accept the challenge to decorate a bottle !

Sue Carrington 
Blog: Stamping Sue Style
Twitter: Ink_and_me

Ooo we love those crackles too! This is such an effective technique, and that Blue Oyster background is the perfect base to make the other colours really pop. Thanks Sue. 

We would love you to join in with challenge #10: Bottles If you are inspired by any of our guests who blog with us over the fortnight, then please join in and link up your creativity HERE. 

All links go in the draw to win a voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Bottles link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, June 7th, winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.

  

2015 #10 Message in a Bottle {by Bracken Sparkes}

2015 Theme 10: Bottles

Hi Guys, My name is Bracken and I'm 14 years old and been arty for over four years. 

I experiment with all types of art and craft and love messing about with colour under the name ArtymeB!.. My Nana was a HUGE influence on me from the word GO and has continued to be very supportive in my many ventures. 

I chose this theme because there are SO many different variations you can use with a bottle to get a pleasing result...like your own little message in a bottle!

Paint the entire box frame with Chalk using a flat paintbrush avoiding the glass. In the roof of the frame and an inch in from the right (approx)  fix a mini screw eye.

Onto a slab of Heavy Grey-White Board distress with Ranger Distress Ink almost the whole board (leaving a white space in the middle) with Squeezed Lemonade then again with Spiced Marmalade layered around the sides and then with a smidge of barn boor..this time only on the edges.

Using Jet Black Archival Ink, stamp the large flower head from ELB 16 and a sentiment from EEV 10 onto the board and flick watered down Tango also. Paint the flower in this order with watered down...Yellow Submarine, Tango, Autumn Fire and London Bus. The watery green paints used were... Sage, Hey Pesto, Tinned Peas, Hyde Park, Guacamole and Limelight.

ELB 16

EEV 10

Cover the flower petals head in a thick layer of Glossy Accents and allow to dry.

On the cork of a mini glass vial, twist in a mini screw eye and attach a jump ring along with a length of chain. Fill the bottle with small black beads and stick a sign with 'seeds' (Dovecraft mini alphabet set) onto the bottle. Fasten the chain and vile with another mini jump ring to the screw eye mentioned in Step 1.

Finally glue the completed board to the frame. 

Thanks, Bracken.

Blog... ArtymeB

Pinterest... Bracken Sparkes

This is just wonderful Bracken, and it is a real treat for us to have you joining us. Your attention to detail is superb. Seeing someone so young entering the craft world and enjoying it so much  is so encouraging to us. Adding this little bottle to a framed piece is a brilliant touch, a really great way to add dimension and interest. 

We would love you to join in with challenge #10: Bottles If you are inspired by any of our guests who blog with us over the fortnight, then please join in and link up your creativity HERE. 

All links go in the draw to win a voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Bottles link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, June 7th, winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.

2015 #10 Home Decor {by Anneke De Clerck}

2015 Theme 10: Bottles

Hi everyone Anneke here. I have a fun clean and simple project for you tonight. I altered a few glass bottles and decorated them with whimsical paper flowers. I created this 'home decor' project with only one stamp set and 3 beautiful PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics. I love the colorful outcome, perfect to brighten up a tired space!

Throughout the year I'm collecting all kinds of mason jars and bottles that come my way (from jam, juices, yogurt, olive oil) I dug up 3 identical bottles from my stash but this project would look nice with 3 (or more) different bottles/jars as well. Next  I picked some colors from my collection of Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic Paints. I went for Candy Floss, Snowflake and Limelight.

Candy Floss and Snowflake are opaque paints. I added 2 layers of paint to each bottle and used a piece of Cut-n-Dry foam to apply the paint. It's important to let the layers (air) dry well in between. 

It's perfectly possible to paint the glass with translucent paint as well. Therefore I applied an undercoat of Snowflake first and then added 2 coats of the translucent paint, in this case Limelight.

While the paint was drying I cut 3 strips of vellum and stamped on it as shown with a flower from the ESN14 set using paint. On one of the strips I added the word 'bloom', stamped it with Archival Ink 'Jet Black'.

ESN14 

When dry I wrapped the strips around the bottles and 'closed' them at the back with double sided tape. 

I added scrappers floss and beads to further decorate the bottles.

To create the flowers I painted sheets of tissue paper with Candy Floss, Limelight and Snowflake. I punched 1 1/8" circles out of each sheet. {Tip: I've put a sheet of regular paper underneath the tissue paper, this made the punching much easier}.

I looked for some pink, orange and fuchsia colored scraps and punched small circles out of it.

I cut pieces of wire and sandwiched the wire in between 2 tissue paper circles. On the front and the backside I added layers of small circles with glue dots           . 

I stamped text from the ESN14 set on the outer circles with StazOn Fuchsia Pink.

The bottles look nice on our side table, don't they :) 

Here I replaced the paper flowers by the real 'stuff' :) Ready to brighten up the garden party table...

I went for the powdery look of the chalk paint but I would recommend you to apply a layer of Matte Glaze on top of the paint. This would make the surface more durable. I love the tone on tone effect of the stamped vellum, the perfect technique for the CAS project I had in mind. At first I had my doubts about the simple paper flowers but I think they fit the vases and they look attractive on the photos anyway :)

I'm sure you have some beautiful bottles or mason jars somewhere on a shelf, so why not give this simple technique a try? I would love to see what you come up with!

See you soon!

Anneke

http://somefiddlingonthekitchentable.blogspot.be/

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Beautiful Anneke, the soft subtle colour hues would adorn any home gracefully. The stamped vellum also softens the overall look. Love the punched circle 3d flowers. Thanks for sharing your creativity.

We would love you to join in with challenge #10: Bottles If you are inspired by any of our guests who blog with us over the fortnight, then please join in and link up your creativity HERE. 

All links go in the draw to win a voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Bottles link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, June 7th, winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.