PaperArtsy Blog - 2023 Year in Review {Quarter 3, Topics 7 to 9}

Hi everyone, it's Leandra back with you for the 3rd instalment of the annual PaperArtsy blog review, and this one really is a doozy! Our blogger by this part of the year were thoroughly enjoying the theme, and how the 3 topics could bounce off each other, so we saw a fair bit of cross-pollination of topics this quarter! But first a bit of behind the scenes catch up from me!

I've been hearing from lots of people that 2023 seemed like it was the most 'normal' year we have had in some time! Yay for that, right!?

Mark and I still have lists and lists of things that need doing in and around our property here in France, it seems to take forever to get things done when juggling work, visitors and planning forward, but we are thoroughly enjoying ourselves. It is a never ending surprise that we have met so many people since our arrival, and in particular we have become super friendly with people from the closest neighbouring houses. But even in the nearest villages as we settle into a Sunday routine of Brocante visits and such, we are gradually meeting up with other 'regulars' on the similar schedule! We never expected to be so lucky to be surrounded by so many chatty, welcoming people in this little corner of rural France. We feel so fortunate and are content to be here.

This year we were also joined by our parents from New Zealand who each stayed for 3-4 weeks, as well as other New Zealand friends - the house was full from early Spring to late Autumn. In November we managed a trip to New Zealand ourselves for our niece's wedding, which was also an opportunity for us to catch up with many New Zealand people who we have not seen in a very, very long time! Nothing like a wedding for a good excuse to catch up!

After a few tough years, not only planning a move, but navigating covid, for us 2023 finally felt like a year of enjoyment, social activites and a lot less stress, which was truly needed! We are finding a nice balance and starting to understand the seasonal cycles that French life is very much based around, be it what you eat, through to what you do. It is a culture full of tradition and ritual, and people here use the seasons to plan events, festivals, celebrations and food or wine related harvests, there is always something new to learn and discover, be it a place, a flavour or an activity. 

One of our serendipitous highlights was booking a last minute vineyard tour to one of the higher-end producers in St Emillion. We had 4 kiwis here, and as the 6 of us drove up to the magnificent building on the estate, we realised harvest had begun (it only lasts for 2 weeks, you'de be surprised how small each vineyard is physically, and during harvest, with all hands on deck, it is quite common for tours to stop). We not only got to taste the grapes that had just been picked, but ohhh the smell as you walked through the room of tanks holding the new season's liquid was like you were being blasted with raisin vapour. It was incredible to smell the fresh grapes already being squeezed of their full juice. A real treat to see all the action of harvest up close. 

Speaking of learning new things .... Quarter 3 on the blog had the theme of 'Transparency' running through all the posts, another wonderful concept with wide reaching creative opportunities easily incorporated into crafty projects. Our bloggers came up with many fabulous ideas!

The topics were also popular: 7: Art Dolls, 8: Master Colour Wheel and 9: Lynne Perrella, designer focus. I was super keen for this entire quarter and what it would bring - all my favourite elements were coming together for this quarter!

Come along with us as we take a look back at some of the highlights...

Transparency can be anything from delicate overlays like mica, vellum or acetate, to see through layers we apply: glaze, embossing powder, glass or wax, or perhaps something that disappears like tissue paper. Head over here to see the topic introduction and a wide range of ideas that Dounia presented. We thought it would be nice to highlight a few of the transparency interpretations by our bloggers...

Martha Ponsanesi made a gorgeous mini accordion book with printed tissue in the background and Lynne Perrella stamps throughout. The transparent part of this project was the vibrant alcohol inked cover/ sleeve that surrounds the book-in-a-box. It's a delightful cheery idea. Check it out here

What about this resplendent Egyptian tribute? Riikka Kovasin used tissue paper onto wood in tiny squares for the garment on this Egyptian goddess. It wasn't all plain sailing though and she did have to tweak things a bit but the resulting impact is fantastic. Read all about it in her blog post here

Etsuko Noguchi created these two little shrine boxes with see-through panels, the overall style was quite steampunky - Darcy's stamps do often head in that direction. The accents with metal embellishments fit in beautifully. Etusko's  blog post is well worth a read, she always explores interesting products and ways to use them!

Art Dolls have been a passion of mine for some many years, there even used to be a magazine dedicated to them back in the day! It is a theme we regularly come back to because the scope is so wide, paper dolls, stuffing, filled dolls .. or event a bottle doll perhaps! If you want more inspo for this theme, check out the topic intro post

Renata Peley's post created a bit of a buzz using Nicci Battilana's articulated doll stamps. The 'stage' frame was an inspired choice and really helped set off those dolls and thier personalities so perfectly. Check her blog post here.

I hope you did not miss this ... by Floss Nicholls. She painted onto some thick plastic packaging and then scratched off some of the paint to make patterns with an embossing stylus - this packaging became part of her art doll's clothing. She also stamped onto organza, and we love how the 'hair' comes from a Sara Naumann foliage stamp! Here's her blog post .

We were absolutely blown away by Rikka's take on the art doll theme - she made a pair of crows! These imposing characters challenged Riikka initially, but after one came into being, she had to make another. Her story is a fabulous read, you can find out all about the process here. The Scrapcosy stamps she used were stamped onto the black fabric, and then embroidered to highlight the petals in a monochromatic colour scheme. Riikka often ties her work into her Finnish roots, so with each post, she also weaves a tale throughout, making her blog posts extremely interesting and educational!

For our colour topic, we decided it was time for a sort of round up post. By this time (18 months or so with a colour topic every quarter) we had been studying numerous 'colour theory' combinations (complementary, split-complementary and so on), so we thought, why not create a 'master wheel' where we chose the 3 starting fresco colours, and then each blogger could explore the various combos each colour way could allow, and they could choose to make something with one of those combos. 

Our 3 colours, after much deliberation, were Butter, Aqua Duck Egg and Candy Floss, these can be identified as primary colours, and they mix to create a soft, user-friendly, well balanced master-wheel. Those 3 colours created over 100 possible combinations. The topic intro to is a handy review post, so if you want to know more about colour mixing and combinations, this is a really good one to read - here's the link: Topic intro post

Nikki Acton chose this split-complementary colour combination. Butter with the colours created either side of opposite (blue-grey and purple).

Nikki layers her colours and page layers to get a balance of elements. She's used France Papillon images throughout, and when you look at the up close image below, you can see how the colours work so well together. Her transparent element was stamping Alison Bomber quotes onto paper towel, and then using wax to make them transparent. Check her post here for more info. 

Autumn Clark discovered 4 options within the Triadic colours created when you have 3 gaps selected between each. which one would you choose? The eagle eyed among you might notice that she substituted Lake Wanaka for Aqua Duck Egg ... but what a gorgeous wheel....

Autumn worked with Sara Naumann's bird series of stamps to make a wonderful book. You can see how the Peach, Purple and Teal colours she created all bounce off each other. You will find more pictures of the pages over at her blog post here.

Etsuko Noguchi was asked to add grey to her master wheel - this adds shade to the colours, taking them in another direction. The result was the frame above. In her blog post she explains really well how she mixes them to create more colour options For example, here is the chart she made ... 

Here Etsuko shows how the slightly edited colour is used to stamp over background layers

We hope you've found our deep dive into colour useful, but most of all, we hope it gives you confidence to try colour mixing yourself to open up new creative options as you unlock new colours. Etsuko's  blog post is full of lots of useful tips.

Many of you will know that Lynne Perrella's inimitable design style is a stand out masterclass in how create lots of details within a stamp! We are always so excited to see what she does next, and what we also love, is to see bloggers use her stamps in their unique way. Each time we shine the spotlight on one of our designers we share a bit of the back story for you, then you get a better understanding how they tick! If you would like to read about Lynne, then head here to the topic introduction post

Lynne loves bright, but Jennie loves muted, so immediately you see a different take on how these designs can look. Jennie's envelopes and tags were so delicate and pretty with the touches of lace, tying in perfectly with the lace series of stamps Lynne designed not too long ago. Check the blog post here.

What about this by Mags Woodcock? The transparent part of her doll was the bottle structure support. Lots of rusted fabric layers, and a terrarium hat no less! Read all about it in her original post. That stamp is A5 tall, so it's a beauty for a larger format project like this.

Also, I hope you saw this by Keren Baker. Her  blog post is here and you will discover she made a treasure box holder to keep the hand sewn brooch in! Again so many details to explore, from the stamped box to the acetate painted lid.

A few of our bloggers in this quarter challenged themselves to bring together all 3 topics (Art Dolls, Master Wheel and Lynne Perrella) from this quarter for example Jenny Marples here

This post is quite incredible, as Jenny makes a colour wheel, then dyes fabric to match the 'Master wheel' topic. Her Art Doll is hand made with lacey undergarments, and the Lynne Perrella stamps are not just the face of the dolls, but also make up the accoutrements of her attire too. The planning, thought and passion that goes into a creation like this is just stunning, even the backdrop wallpaper uses the Master wheel colours. And like I say, Jennie wasn't the only blogger to take this approach! 

We truly are so spoiled by our blogging team and the lengths they go to creating their projects. I hope you can appreciate the time they put into each piece, but more importantly, how much they enjoy what they do while creating.

We'll be back in a few more days with more highlights from the PaperArtsy Blog, hope to see you again!

Leandra

2023 Topic 7 : Art Dolls {by Renanta Peley} with Nicci Battilana stamps

Hi everyone! It’s Peley Renata here with you today and I have a fun project to share with you and perhaps to put you in early Halloween mood.

As I have never really felt good at modeling 3D shapes, or creating anything with clay, when the topic of the art dolls came up, I decided to make mine out of paper. I know that after those amazing projects and blogs that my crafty friends from PaperArtsy team created, this may seem like an easy breezy project, but stick with me and I promise it will be fun.

The quarterly topic of this month was “Transparency”, and I wanted to express my interpretation of it in a way to make a doll theatre where the dolls on strings could be moved by a hidden puppet master and where would be curtains, and we would never know what happens in the backstage, behind that fabric wall. With that idea in mind, I wanted to set a bit of a mysterious tone for my project. But now let me show you all the technicalities behind this.

As I previously said, the idea was to make a doll theatre, so when I started assembling my supplies, I knew I would like to work with a shadowbox (deep picture frame) and I knew just the right one. I bought mine once from Ikea for a project that I never ended up doing, but you can be more creative than me and create your own. Other items that I had in my mind at this point were a mixed media paper for the background, watercolors, but I also needed fabric for the theatre curtains and I knew it had to be in red to follow a more traditional image of a theatre. And of course, let’s not forget my chosen stamp sets and stencils from Nicci Battilana.

When choosing a color scheme for this kind of project, you can go two ways. You can create it in a bit darker, moody tone, or you can go and make it colorful and cheerful. I am a big fan of Halloween and I imagined making a project that could fit a home decoration for that occasion, but in my case my new project is already sitting on my wall. :)

The first step was to make a background and set the mood of the whole project. I chose to work with 200g/m2 (120lb) mixed media paper. For coloring, you can use inks, sprays, acrylics or like me: watercolors. I chose to work with watercolors because I had in my mind this lose, more organic look, with a bit of a vintage feel.

On the image above, you can see the first layer of color. I intended to make my colors uneven and I added some splatters. Also, I imagined how a stage light would make a brighter spot on the scene somewhere in the middle so the next step was to apply darker colors only towards the edges of the paper.

Hopefully here you can see what I meant. Now I know this doesn’t look great on its own, but later on it all comes together. Anyway, I still wasn’t done layering the colors and I still wanted to darken the edges up a bit, but for this time I used Ranger Distress Oxide Inks in Vintage photo, Ground Espresso and Black Soot colors.

With this, the base of my background was done but I wanted to add just a touch of spookiness to it with a bit of cobweb and a couple of spiders.

The spiderweb pattern comes from the PaperArtsy stencil PS288 and the spiders from PS286.

I wanted to make the spiderweb discrete, so I heat embossed it with half transparent but also shiny embossing powder. Truth to be told, this ended up being a bit too transparent so I added just a bit of white highlights with a Gell Roll pen to emphasize the web. And since I had embossing powders at hand, I also heat embossed a couple of spiders. To make the stuff more scary, one spider will be hanging just above one of the dolls heads (muahaha :D ).

At this point, I was happy with my background, so it was time to make my paper dolls. For that, there were a couple of things that I had to keep in mind, but you will soon see what I mean.

Now to the most fun part, the making of the paper dolls. The stamp sets that I picked for my projects are ENB07 and ENB09 by Nicci Battilana.

As you can see from the stamp sets, we have 2 heads, 2 bodies but only 1 set of arms and legs, but this is not a big issue. If you want to go simple just stamp the legs as they are and use them for both dolls, but I didn’t want to have the same patterns on the legs. One set of legs I stamped with Tsukineko VersaFine ink, but for the other one, I did a bit of a work around with brush markers. For the legs with the black leggings with skulls, I went only on the edges of the pattern with the brush markers, so I managed to stamp only the outer shape of the leg. The legs with the starry pattern were stamped with a blue brush marker, as I was planning to cover the design with darker blue colored pencil. And this all worked out in the end, as you will see.

Another thing that you might have noticed is that one of the dolls on the stamp set doesn’t have a lower body stamp, but that was really easy to draw. And I actually draw one skirt and one shorts since at start I wasn’t sure what I wanted to use.

When all the images were stamped (and drawn), I went onto coloring. This time I decided to work with colored pencils. I used Prismacolor Premier pencils and for blending, I used odorless mineral spirit and a blending stump. In case you are concerned about the toxicity of the odorless mineral spirits, you can blend the colors using brighter shades (such as white) or blender pencil as well.

After coloring and fussy cutting the stamped images, it was time to assemble the paper dolls. To attach some elements, I used a black thread, while for others brads. At the start, I used a simple brad on the neck, but later on, you will see that I changed it to a heart-shaped one as I imagined it could serve as a choker necklace.

At this point I had to think about my idea of a hidden puppet master, so while assembling the dolls, I also had to keep in mind to leave longer strings at the doll’s elbows and shoulders.

I repeated the whole process on the second doll, but this time I also attached the “plush” rabbit to one hand using a string.

To secure the dolls’ strings to the base paper, I used simple transparent adhesive tape on the back of my background paper. Also, I wanted to make sure my dolls don’t stick to the background and at the same time give them some more illusion of dimension, so I put 2mm thick foam tape on the back of the dolls, behind their head and main body area but I did not peel off the sticky layer since I still wanted to be able to move them.

Now I had my background and the paper dolls ready, so it was time to make the stage.

Do you remember how I told you at start that I am not good at making 3D shapes? Well, it turned out there is one more thing I am not good at. Using a glue gun! It’s such a messy work for me. I had glue strings all over the place and my fingers. One piece even glued to my hair, even though I have no idea how that happened. Anyway, let’s keep that between us and move on to the project. Here is the new batch of items which I prepared for the next stage of my project.

Since I don’t have a craft room, there are some supplies that I have to keep in the closet in the corridor, in my bedroom or behind the couch like my sewing machine. And as I was lazy to move the couch, I decided to use textile glue instead of sewing to make the edges of my fabric nice and tidy.

I know this might have been a lazy approach, and the sewing gets that lovely texture, but I think this worked out just fine in the end. So, let’s make those curtains now.

The curtains….ugh…I must admit I struggled with these. I wanted them to form a nice shape, but not to cover too much, but still look like curtain enough?! I know I might sound silly to you but guys it was easier said than done. Or maybe I am just a paper girl and clay and textile are just not my friends…. :D

Anyway, this Ikea shadowbox has an inner wooden frame that I took out and adhered my curtains using a glue gun. Also, just for some extra effect, I found these 2 tassels from my stash and attached them to the fabric. And I really loved how that turned out.

On the picture above, you can see the inner frame of the shadowbox that I mentioned, but also my messy glue gun work.

Now for the end, the last thing that I had to do is to assemble my frame and put together the whole project.

Oh, and look at that cute bat that I just placed there just for fun. :)

I have to admit, this was really fun for me to create. I enjoyed figuring out the ways to assemble the dolls, the color scheme of the project, how to make it all look more like a stage, but every project can have some difficulties. Either some medium not acting as you imagined, cutting fabric where you did not intend to, cat stepping in your paint, getting glue in your hair…but let’s leave all this “behind the stage” mishaps and enjoy the creative process because that’s what matters the most. In my opinion, when you enjoy the process itself, you will have better end results as well. And you might even pick up a fun anecdote to tell to your crafty friends. :)

Renata 💜

Just in case that you are curious to see the full crafting process with all the struggles and mishaps, there is a video available on my YouTube channel.

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