2016 #17 X Marks The Spot{ By Emma Godfrey}

 2016 Topic 17: Making Marks

Hi everyone Emma here.

Tonight I'd like to share with you this evening with a post about mark making.

As you know, my recent range of stamps for PaperArtsy are aimed at art journaling, and therefore they have a lot of mark making designs amongst them. Using stamps for mark making is a lot easier than having to do it all individually by hand! Tonight I've made a paper bag collage to go inside a frame - and I kept the mark making quite random and loose on my collage pieces.

Step One: Tear up a brown paper bag and add Fresco Finish Snowflake paint to each piece with a brayer or through various stencils (I used The Crafters Workshop Mini Circle Grid, some sequin waste and PS018). I also brayered some white paint onto the book text.

Step Two: I added some coloured paint on the pieces with a brayer and an old loyalty card (Fresco Finish Zesty Zing, Bubble Gum and Caribbean Sea), and then I sprinkled some Infusions onto the pieces and sprayed them with water. I used Lemoncello, A Bit Jaded and Are You Cerise. I dried all the pieces with a heat gun to keep the intensity of the colours.

Step Three: I started to add my marks using various stamps from EEG13, EEG15, EEG16, EEG18 and EEG20, using Archival Ink Pads in Coffee, Garden Patina, Buttercup and Cactus Flower.

EEG13,

 EEG15,

 EEG16, 

EEG18

Step Four: Scrunch up a couple of the pieces (including the book text). Open them out and apply Treasure Gold Brass over the creases.

Step Five: Cut a piece of Heavy Smoothy slightly larger than the aperture of the mount for your frame. Tear the paper bag and book text pieces up and then stick them down onto the base card. Apply Fresco Finish Snowflake paint with a bottle top, and add a few dots of Ranger white Enamel Accents. Allow to dry. To finish, stamp a quote on a piece of card and trim. Stick the background to the mount, and then position and glue the quote in place.

Here's a close up of the finished project...

I really loved using a paper bag for this project - I like the background colour it gives, the way it contrasts with the white paint, and also the flexibility to scrunch it up to get some texture. I think that I'll be using this in lots of projects in the future! My mark making was fairly random, but there's no reason why you couldn't be more controlled and regimented with the patterns.

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Fabulous layers Emma, brilliant to see the paper bag colour still peeping through too. although your torn pieces became random the use of similar stamps and shapes keeps continuity over the entire piece. ~Darcy

We would love to see how you interpret this Making Marks topic by linking what you make to our 2016 Challenge #17: Making Marks, on this page HERE.

All of our bloggers love to see your twist on their ideas,  particularly if you were inspired directly by their post. 

All links go in the draw to win a £50 voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Making Marks link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Sept 18th 2016. The winner will be announced 2  hours later at 19:00.