2022 Topic 1: Opposites Attract {with Leandra Franich} Yellow and Purple

Hi everyone, it's Leandra here with you today as we start a new topic for 2022. 

If you are a member of the PaperArtsy People Facebook group, you may have caught my live yesterday as I shared a relaxing play-along session on colour-mixing fresco paints. We also dropped a PDF document in the group for you to print off and work alongside me. It's available on replay in the group, I hope you find it useful!

  

The information I shared in the 'live' relates to the topic we are embarking on today: 'Opposites Attract', so if you would like to learn more about mixing frescos to make your own bespoke colours, then that video is a good place to start.

For my post today, I was tasked with using these opposites: Yellow and Purple. Eeeeewwww! Haha! I feel like the naughty kid in the back of class who got the icko choice! Anyhow....challenge accepted, but suffice to say purple is not my strong suit! I decided that I would need a light and dark or both the yellow and the purple for a bit more oomph. I created a yellow by mixing PaperArtsy Fresco Finish - Haystack (FF03) with Vanilla (FF65) which was intended to pair nicely with Tracy Scott's Ochre (FF195). The Purples were to be blue swaying ever so slightly towards pinky-blue...

I chose PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Aquamarine (FF153) and Candy Floss (FF70) to make the blueish purple I was after. As you will see in subsequent photos, I also used Claret (FF31) and Inky Pool (FF46) which gives a nice deep purple that is quite rustic to contrast beautifully with the rustic ochre yellow....I say beautifullly.....in theory...haha, trying ever so hard here to embrace my inner purple creative goddess! (just keep swimming.....just keep swimming...in purple)

I decided that when working with complementary colours (those that are opposite each other on the colour wheel) I was going to have to work with contrasting layers, so that was probably going to mean working off the page and sticking stuff in. This gave me a chance to play with my paint combos. If you mix any 2 opposing colour wheel colours together you are going to generally get a brown or a grey, so my usual trick of working on one layer was probably not going to work in this case. I decided to embrace the contrast and create separate layers to warm up! A bit of brayering and a bit of baby-wipe dabbing...

I was coming to the conclusion that a journal page was the way forward with ochre as the base, and purple pops on top. These backgrounds were going to come in handy later. Although I did tone down the pinky -purple above to make it more bluey-purple.

I decided purple flowers on an ochre background might be OK so I started off with that in mind. I also liked the idea of using Lin Brown's carved stamps as the heavy black might also be a good contrast...or maybe I thought the black would knock back the purple....haha...I'm already trying to eliminate the purple! I think you are getting the idea that this was a struggle for me for sure! Anyhow this is what I had in mind...

So lets back up a bit. To add a bit more interest to the plain page, I started by putting down some old vintage papers with gel medium.

Onto that I scraped on some Golden Absorbent Ground (because I had an inkling I might also go down the infusions road), and I hoped that might give a nice toothy surface for those infusions to hang onto.

Next up was some Ochre Fresco Finish Paint, with Vanilla to knock it back a little. I quite liked the papers showing through, so I used a baby-wipe to soften back the paint and that also softens the edges and opacity too. Makes it all look a bit more randomly applied too.

Out with the PaperArtsy Infusions Golden Sands (CS05) for some depth and more warmth.

Only a few grains gently tapped onto the page in a few places and lots of water. I did have some exposed paper, so that stain sank down into it wonderfully giving a good contrast. The brown walnut component is always going to add some depth  with ease.

The next bit of preparation was to make some purple things that I thought might end up as embellishments. Strips of paper I tore from the edges of the vintage paper, a tag, a window from an envelope. Back to the colour wheels for reference, I was focussed on the secondary colour directly between the 2 Primary colours.....deep breath...here we go.....

They all got layers of paint in the dark and light purple mixes. A bit of Finger painting, tapping, dabbing, wiping, wetting etc

And the tag ended up quite likeable, and I did go on to stamp script (from ELB05) in pale purple paint, and emboss in gold on it too.... 

 

TIme to commit! I boldly stamped out the flowers and decided to draw stalks for each of them so I could vary the height of the flowers. Was quite glad these pencil marks happily rubbed off the background.

These are the 2 Lin Brown stamps sets I used: Eclectica³ Lin Brown Set 03 (ELB03) and Eclectica³ Lin Brown Set 05 (ELB05).

I found my signo uniball pen in black was a wonderful juicy and black pen for filling in the leaves/stalks, and doodled some random thoughts and musings along the stems about the joy flowers can give to people.

 

 

I also did some journalling in white pen too on the right hand page, the pen is about to run out, so it was a bit scratchier than I expected, but I quite liked that effect as it allowed me to scribble knowing it was going to be totally illegible! (although yes I am aware my handwriting is impossible to read at the best of time)

 

 

I thought I was going to add a purple frame around the entire exterior...but whoa.... that was just too much purple for me! Perhaps if I had stuck with all pastel shades that would have worked out OK. I settled for a few embellishments in addition to the base purple strips, and put some brown-ochre thread under each flower for a bit of texture. Even the camera is making this look brighter than it does in real life, the yellow is really not that bright!

This is the right hand page, I prefer it to the other side. Perhaps it's because I found some yellowing plastic that I could tuck my tag behind. This is actually part of the cover of my 'Good Housekeeping' cookbook that I was given at the age of 18 for my birthday when I left home to go to uni. It is fondly referred to as the 'cooking bible' in our house! The cover is disintegrating after being dragged all around the world and referred to often. I knew the yellowing acetate would find a home as some kind of window one day!

 

 

Look, if I am perfectly honest, I am really not overly happy with this spread. I think it all needs toning down! I am extremely tempted to whitewash over the whole thing to knock it back, but I'm going to hold off and leave it to one side. I'll come back with fresh eyes in a week or so and see if it is still too bold. 

I think I am on a bit of a soft-muted kick at the moment, so maybe that is why I'm struggling with this combo, perhaps I should have done this in more pastel tones. But I must say, doing the colour wheels really helped me to feel good about which yellow and which purple I wanted to use, and I loved creating with confidence the different tonal values of both the bolder and the paler version of each red-blue pairing.  Normally I would just pick up a paint, but this was so much more satisfying to actually create the colours from scratch myself. And to be able to do that on more than one occasion too! Victory! (even if it is purple)

Thank you for joining me today, even if I was the grumpy purple person!

I've peeked ahead at the upcoming posts ... and I can see there are some fabulous ideas coming up using colour wheel 'opposites'!  If you would like to play along with us, please come and share your makes in PaperArtsy People FB group! We are ever so nosey over there! And if you can show me your purple tricks I'm all eyes!!!

Take care and happy crafting to you all

Leandra

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2019 #16 Stamp Carving: Tiptoe Through the Tulips with ELB {by Lucy Edmondson}

2019 Topic 16: Stamp Carving

Some more stamp carved loveliness from Lucy whose use of vibrant watercolour crayons really make Lin Brown's images burst from the book pages. She's got some great uses for gesso too.

Hi everyone, it's Lucy here from Lucy's True Colours, bringing you a card for the stamp carving theme using Lin Brown stamps and Caran D'Ache Neocolor II watercolour Crayons.

I am a huge Lin Brown fan, so when I heard the theme was carved stamps, I immediately thought of the earlier stamp sets Lin had brought out in this style. I thought it would be fun for a change to look at some of the different techniques you can do using Neocolor II crayons, which are the watercolour ones. I love how the colours become so vibrant and easily blendable when water is added! As you will see, it can also be subtracted with a stencil. My choice of stamps was easy: I love tulips, and I particularly love to see them in gardens as they flop so quickly in a vase. They have such an immense colour range. My Mum bought a random bag of bulbs from a magazine and the two of us were fascinated every year when some incredibly dark purple, almost black, tulips, as big as wine goblets popped up every Spring! This informed my colour palette today, although I took artistic licence and had to go quite a bit paler as the stormy black looked terrible!

What I found in making this project is that brushing a layer of gesso over your watercolour card will further aid the blending of your crayon background.

I picked out my crayon colour choices to give a graduated effect, starting with earth colours to ground the tulip, moving through the yellows, peaches, oranges, and reds, and scribbled them in overlapping lines across my gessoed watercoloured card.

A wash of water back and forth on my brush to bring out the vibrancy. Love this bit!

I stamped the tulip from Eclectica ELB03 onto book text and added three shades of purple crayon.

Then a touch of water on my brush to bring it to life. I used the same colours for my text.

I stamped the tulip stem from Eclectica ELB03 in Fresco Finish Hey Pesto and Hyde Park onto the crayon background. I used Lin's circle stencil 001 and a baby wipe to remove a little of the colour. I added the word Tulip from Eclectica ELB23 and the words Flowers Whisper What Words Cannot Say from Eclectica ELB05.

To finish off, I matted and layered the watercolour piece onto a black and white piece of cardstock and then onto a black A4 card. In this close up you can see the book text on the tulip.

It was so great working with Lin's stamps and the Neocolor crayons. You can also experiment with using the crayons directly onto the stamps, spritzing, and stamping, for a watercolour effect. I definitely want to use them more often!

Blog: Lucy's True Colours
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2019 #16 Stamp Carving: Tissue Paper Marking with ELB {by Jennie Atkinson}

2019 Topic 16: Stamp Carving

Jennie's pinky, soft and ethereal trio kicks off the stamp carving topic so beautifully. Layer upon layer of images and marks creates mini dimensional works of art. She's got some great tips about using tissue paper with her gel plate too!

Hi everyone, it's Jennie (Live The Dream)  with you today sharing a trio of ATCs using tissue paper to showcase Lin Brown's fabulous Artful Blooms stamps which look just as though they had been carved into the rubber.

I have become somewhat obsessed with the combination of tissue paper and my gelli plate and thought these stunning outline style stamps would be just perfect for creating a delicate impression on the tissue paper. I have also combined this technique with two wonderful new PaperArtsy Frescos which being pink are just up my street!

To finish my ATCs I have also used stamps from Scrapcosy's ESC18 and quotes from Alison's EAB01 set.

ELB03

ESC18

EAB01

It is difficult to photograph the technique of using gel plate and tissue paper as you do have to do things quite quickly before the tissue paper sticks to the plate! I brayered Byzantium, Taro Milk Tea and a little Tinned Peas onto the gel plate and stamped the large flower stamp here and there before taking a print using the tissue paper. It's a "one pull" technique!

A word about tissue paper: not all tissue paper works! Sometimes the supermarket tissue works well and sometimes not! if you can get something a little thicker and has a shiny side and a matte side you can use the matte side down and this seems to give the better print. 

Also another tip is to make sure you always have a flap of paper at one side so you can peel it off the plate, otherwise you will find that if you smooth everything down it is a struggle to get it started and it starts to tear.

When it is wet the tissue paper is crumpled and it is difficult to see the marks. Don't worry about white spaces where the paper creased - this all adds to the effect!

The tissue has now dried and I have stuck it down using Collage Medium onto an ATC which has had text stamped on it with Jet Black Archival Ink. Now that the tissue paper is on a white surface it becomes translucent (despite the paint and the stamp image), wrinkles and "missed bits" really stand out.  I just love the way the carved image becomes part of the background and is why I  often get asked "How did you do that ?"  (I should add that this photograph was taken on a very stormy day in the craft room and the colours are completely different!)

I didn't want to spoil the ethereal look so have used my stamps on tissue paper and layered them onto the ATC. I do find that the thicker tissue paper is not so great for this and normally revert to something a little thinner so it blends into the background.

I have used Watering Can Archival Ink for the background stamping as it is lighter in tone which allows the quotes to stand out in the black ink. As I have stamped on tissue paper and adhered with collage medium the image is slightly blurry which is why some of the stamping looks out of focus in the photographs - it is not so obvious when viewing the ATCs.

I have tried to place my stamping so I don't lose the Artful Bloom image and the beauty of stamping on tissue allows me to experiment with placement.

These ATCs make a lovely little trio for swapping or, as you have probably seen me do in the past, they look fabulous layered onto plain white Smoothy cardstock for birthday and any occasion cards. I always have quite a stack just ready to make into cards! 

I do hope this inspires you to have a go at this technique. It is absolutely perfect for mark making stamps which do not have too much detail which can get lost when layered onto the text stamped cardstock below. It is quite addictive, so have plenty of tissue paper cut to size before you start !

Jennie x

Blog:  Live The Dream