2020 #13 Circle Minibook with Lin Brown Stamps {by Dounia Large}

 2020 Topic 13: Lines

Dounia's gel plate has been in overdrive creating some incredibly intricate pages. She takes us through the process really clearly and the layers are really well defined and finished with some contrasting lines. Her explorations have resulted in such a lovely project and we'll have to ask her for her home-made gel plate recipe, which works so perfectly!
~ Keren

Hi everyone, it's Dounia with you today, and I'd like to share with you a project mixing gel printing and line art.

Smooth lines on clean paper are always striking but I also like them popping out of a busy, even messy background. I therefore used this opportunity to mess with my gel plate then play mix and match on the theme of circles.

There are hundreds of ways to use a gel plate but after some experimentation, I found I prefer to build layers on the plate and on the paper. Among my favorite tools for that are rubber stamps as they can provide both background patterns and focal images. Lin Brown has an amazing line of stamps designed just for that! For this project, I used ELB29 & ELB34. The leaves are gorgeous and my lazy self likes making found objects textures without having to find the objects!

I like to start by adding color to the clean plate using the stamps with Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic paints. I don't worry too much about placement or colours, I just try to be fair and distribute patterns evenly. Here I had a blue palette in mind but I began with accent colours Butternut, Autumn Fire and Brown Shed.

(Don't mind the color of my gel plate, it is homemade and has been melted down and recasted a few times). Over that first texture, I brayered a layer of my main colours: Sargasso, Paua Shell and Smurf. I then used the stamps to take off some the paint layers.

I always try to mix bolder stamps with finer ones for more texture. The holes in this paint layer will let the third one appear. As the previous paints are opaque, I can use a selection of darker blues and greens for this last step before the print: Hyde Park, Space Cadet and Midnight.

Here are the prints. They are quite busy but I like trying lots of techniques, colours and stamps on the same plate. It gives me an idea of what works together and what doesn't. For example here I think I used too much of the contrasting colours, which muddled the palette.

I then repeated the process with new combinations and had fun! I like to keep my selection of colours relatively tight. That way the prints will form a coherent ensemble and can easily be used in the same project. In the next round, I focused on a cream look, using Buff, Sand, and Haystack, with a brown contrasting final layer of Toffee, Mud Splat & Chocolate Pudding.

Again, the prints are quite busy but they are only backgrounds so that's fine! They can of course be used as such but for something with a bit more focus, I like to print a separate, contrasting layer on top.

Of course I want to still see the beautiful background I worked hard for, so after brayering the paint on the plate, I take off as much as I can with the stamps.

Here is the result on the blue backgrounds. (But not using the layer picture above because I was focused on the time sensitive printing and forgot to take pictures consistently, sorry!) A good contrast between the background and the top layer is crucial for the focal image(s) to be visible. I had some struggles with that... (that's why you won't see the cream and brown background again).

Finally, it is time for the actual lines! I think they really play well with prints as they can isolate and emphasise the focal stamps that would otherwise be lost in the texture. I tend to stick to simple designs that will work on a bumpy surface: winding lines, hatchcrosses, simple geometric shapes... (little circles count as lines, right?)

Also, if the background is not that interesting, the line can be the focal point. I used that trick in some of the following pages. As I was planning to bind them together in a book, I chose a common theme for my lines. I went with circles, because they are quite versatile and go well in square pages.

I am really pleased with these even if some are, in my opinion, more interesting than others. I had some difficulty choosing the paint colours for the lines as I had no real way to know or test how contrasting they would look. In the end, some choices were not quite right, too stark or too different a hue. I think that for medium to light backgrounds, black would be a safer bet!

Here is the finished book. For the covers, inside and outside, I used by-products of my printing session: Papers here I "cleaned" my brayer and my stamps with. That way I am sure they will color match!

I hope this encouraged you to try lines on a busy background. It doesn't have to be on gel prints (even if those are fun!). I know I have pattern papers or scraps from masterboards with hidden gems that could be "revealed" by some contrasting lines, and you probably do too! They can make an easy focus element on a card or an embellishment on scrapbooking project so don't hesitate to give it a go!

Stay safe and creative

Dounia x

2020 #13 My Home Canvas with Kay Carley Stamps {by Jenny Marples}

2020 Topic 13: Lines

Intro
This gorgeous Cottage is dripping with pretty flowers, perfectly summery! Jenny has come up with great 'line' ideas embedded in the background too! And the little key embellishment is perfect! Frescos and stamps combine with serene harmony for this delightful creation.
~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Jenny (Pushing The Right Buttons) here today, and I'd like to share with you a home decor canvas featuring, well, a home! And not just any home. Kay Carley has designed this very special, magical home complete with whimsical flowers and quirky windows. To add some detail without overpowering the image itself I decided to use the page from an antique French book about architecture as it's backdrop.

The photo below shows how I got started with working on the book page, stamping Kay's image from her EKC40 stamp set centrally with a stamping platform before painting it with diluted Fresco Finish Paints. Water was added to the paints to ensure some of the text could still be seen through the colour. It was easy to select coordinating shades of brown for the body of the house since they all came from the same 'family'. Then I went with muted cool tones for the flowers and vines to compliment the vintage look and used less water with the paint to cover the words more fully.

With the current theme being lines, this became the main focus when working out the composition for the finished canvas. I covered an A5 canvas in Grunge Paste, dragging it down the surface to ensure parts were left uncovered. Lines were then scored into the paste using a (dirty!) ruler to act as a guide for lining up the elements that would be layered onto the canvas.

Back to the paints and I gave the canvas a coat of Chalk Fresco Finish Paint before applying a dilute layer of French Roast Fresco Finish Paint. Just before it was completely dry I rubbed a clean cloth over the surface to ensure the deeper shade would be left in the crevices. By sanding back the top layer a little in some areas some of the Chalk colour was revealed again.

Moving on to the painted page I folded it along a line and cut along that line, leaving the overlapping areas in place. The book page was then backed with some off cuts of mount board to give it stability and dimension.

You can see below from the first of the close up photos that the cut page is mounted onto the canvas up against a textured strip of paper - it's actually the leftover strip from a paper pad once the pages have been ripped out. Next to that I added a couple of lines of burlap string, frayed at the ends to give them a softer finish.

Before adding the cotton lace I realised added the other side to the page used for the main image which gives the illusion that the page remains in one piece. The lace that was then added has been coloured with the leftover dilute Venice Blue and Forget Me Not Fresco Finish Paints, brushed over with the Chalk Fresco Finish Paint to catch the highlights. The little brass key sat on the torn paper edge fit well with the theme.

To complete the canvas I added some mounted Tim Holtz Clippings Stickers to tell a 'story' with the piece. You may also spot the inclusion of some stamped grass at the bottom, one of the images in the stamp set. That corner felt a little bare so I masked off the edge of the house and added it carefully.

I hope you've enjoyed the tutorial and seeing the finished canvas with its textured design lines, lines of script and of course the lines drawn by the hugely talented Kay Carley. If you haven't experiment with stamping and painting on book pages yet I'd highly recommend giving it a go.

Thanks so much for stopping by.

Jenny

Blog: https://pushingtherightbuttons.blogspot.com
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2020 #13 Flower Lines with Elizabeth Borer Stamps {by Helen Chilton}

2020 Topic 13: Lines

I love how Helen has used the concept of repeat-stamping an image to create new patterns that catch your eye, in effect she creates new lines in an almost unexpected manner. Layer over that some translucent paint through stencils, and you get a pop of colour and more pattern.
~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Helen with you today, and I'd like to share with you my project on the theme of 'Lines'.

I have to be honest and say that this one stumped me a bit. I couldn't think what to make that would fit in with the topic until I looked at Elizabeth's flower drawings and realised that all stamp images are made up of lines, be they outlines, shading lines, pattern lines or whatever. I decided to go with outline images, lines of stamping and doodled lines of my own.

I first started by looking at different ways of stamping in lines. Straight lines:

Diagonal lines (interestingly with this one, you almost lose the original stamp image in the pattern):

And circular lines:

In the end though I went for a straight row design over stencilling. You can really do this with almost any stamp to build up a background. Just play around with the orientation of the stamp to see what fits.

Then, using translucent Frescos so the stencilling would show through...

...I painted in the flowers.

I stencilled and doodled on a central panel for my focal point.

And that's my 'Lines' project - you've got wavy lines, straight lines, hatching, outlining, framing. Quite often I also like to outline some of the stencilling but in this case I felt it wouldn't enhance the stamped images so managed to stop myself!

It certainly made me look at how stamps on a set can fit together and how they can be manipulated to create an overall pattern. I challenge you to pick any one PaperArtsy stamp set and build up a repeating pattern in this way! Enjoy!

Helen

Blog: A Splash of Colour

2020 #13 Planners & Gift Wrap with JOFY Stamps {by Autumn Clark}

2020 Topic 13: Lines

Whether you're a journaller or gift wrapper extraordinaire, Autumn has some modern and fresh ideas for you. Cleverly using JOFY stems as decorative lines, she's come up with some inspirational ideas using quotes and brush lettering.
~ Keren

Hi everyone, it's Autumn Clark from SewPaperPaint with you today, and I'd like to share with you a fun way to use your JOFY flower stamps to set up your August planner/bullet journal pages. 

I started out creating some DIY gift wrap for our Lines topic, but was sparked by the beautifully drawn lines in the stems of my flower stamps to go in another direction, and I had the most fun converting these stems into separators for my daily planner.  So today's post is a bit of a two in one.  Grab your cuppa and let's get on...

During quarantine I have been amusing myself by making my own gift wrap from copy paper.  Often I use my watercolor practice sheets, but I thought why not make some funky wrap to coordinate with the PaperArtsy JOFY Stamp Set (JOFY72).  My joy in this process is that 90% of my friends are stampers/artists and I hope they can re-purpose the gift wrap into a card or journal page.  So the gift keeps on giving plus there's no need to shop for wrapping!

I used my stamp platform to restamp the details in my flower after painting with PaperArtsy Fresco Chalk Acrylics in Bubble Gum, Prawn, Tangerine Twist and Banana.  I used a Sharpie and a Posca pen for further details.

I painted the reverse of my flower before fussy cutting and raised it on the package with a foam dot.  Isn't it the cutest "bow"?  I simply used a Sharpie to draw the striped lines on my copy paper and added a few dots to coordinate better with the whimsical flower.  I recently saw a video on wrapping gifts with too little paper and the trick is to wrap diagonally rather than square.  It makes the paper stretch further, perfect for copy paper designs!  

After using the mushrooms in PaperArtsy JOFY Stamp Set (JOFY92) to make the little gift tag on my package, I saw just how beautiful the stems of were on their own and thought they would be perfect to set up my August bullet journal/planner pages.  I used a bit of washi tape to mask off the caps and stamped them directly into my book.

I looked at my collection of JOFY stamps and saw that there were beautiful lines in each set!  So I decided to make the entire month's planner pages in preparation to go back to work after quarantine.  I don't know about you, but every aspect of my life requires a little more concentration than before quarantine...  I hope using my planner will help me stay on task better.  Here I've used PaperArtsy JOFY Stamp Set (JOFY63).

One thing that I have found very relaxing and therapeutic during these stressful days has been to start daily practice to develop my brush lettering skills.  I grab my markers and notebook and doodle away while watching TV most evenings.  I picked up a new bullet journal for more "finished" pages.  These are my first attempts.  I'm very excited about the possibilities of combining stamps with letter art.

I find it such fun to think of new layouts and motivational quotes for each week's spread.  And coloring in my designs is super relaxing for me.

To finish, I created an August opening page by masking off the center of this beloved flower and doodling in a banner across.

I truly enjoyed just playing and know that you will enjoy seeing new lines and patterns from your PaperArtsy stamps too!  There are so many ways one can dissect a stamp and create multiple designs with it, regardless of its style.  

Here's to more productive, stress free days with endless inspiration and creativity!

Yours, Autumn Clark

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