2022 Topic 06: Mainly Stencils {by Autumn Clark} with Lin Brown Stamps

 

Hi everyone, it's Autumn Clark from SewPaperPaint with you today, and I'm here to share with you a simple stenciled art plaque created with very few products and very simple methods, in hopes to inspire those of you who are just beginning with mixed media and want to extend a bit beyond card making. 

I chose to omit my gel printing plate for this project and focus on basic painting and stencilling techniques, because so many times I hear stampers say they cannot find a rhythm with their printing and they are discouraged in mixed media. Here on the PaperArtsy blog we hope to inspire every level of crafter and offer a wide variety of techniques. I hope you will see that simple techniques can lead to beautiful and detailed projects and be inspired to try these yourselves.

 

I envisioned a jagged edged layered plaque, so I decided to work with watercolor papers and tore them down to size using a ruler. For my base layer I wanted to make a nice earthy background. I used a stencil sponge and applied Fresco Chalk Acrylics in Toad Hall and Chocolate Pudding to my water misted panel. The mist helped avoid harsh lines in the paint.  Next I sponged through PaperArtsy Stencil by Lin Brown (PS006) with more Chocolate Pudding. What a beautiful stencil!

  

I developed this project with a very simple color palette in mind, so those of you with a limited stash can see just how far a few colors of paint can go. PaperArtsy Fresco Chalk Acrylics in Toad Hall and Chocolate Pudding are a match made in heaven and the addition of Caramel really adds life and bright contrast. 

 

For my middle layer, I wanted to go dark, so I sponged mostly Chocolate Pudding with my muddled brush, then used the flower center portion of PaperArtsy Stencil by Lin Brown (PS003) to create a polka dot effect with sponged Toad Hall. I am a huge fan of circles and dots and will definitely be using this stencil for more dotted effects in the future!

Here you can see just how these layers work together. I probably could have gone darker with this middle panel, but it worked out well regardless. In addition to creating contrast with my colorway, I almost always try to balance organic with geometric elements, such as leaves and circles. Contrast and balance are good themes to consider as you work. Ask yourself along the way if you are achieving this.

 

 

For my final layer I tried to lighten things and painted the panel with pure Toad Hall. I then used Grunge Paste through the flower grouping in PS003. After this was dry, I went back over the flower with my paint colors.  The white Grunge Paste creates a bit of a halo effect, which I really like. You can see I added a few more stenciled dots to ground the image. Then I splashed all of my panels with watery Caramel.

 

I further roughed up all of my edges with a little sponged Walnut Stain ink and some messy stitching. I chose an assortment of fibres to use as a hanger, tied around a broken, mossy branch.

I picked a favorite sentiment from Lin Brown Stamp Set 5 (ELB05) and stamped it onto scrap inky paper and mounted onto the layered panel. This was the hardest part, choosing from all of the beautiful stamped phrases in this fabulous set.

 

 

To bring some additional texture and life to the piece, I rubbed over my flowers and the perimeter of the bottom panel with a glue stick, then adhered transfer foil. The subtle metallic shimmer catches the light beautifully and contrasts with the chalk finish of the Fresco paints.

Now, I'm known to use earth tones in my work, but I hope you can imagine these beautiful stencil patterns in your preferred colorway. What three colors come to your mind?

 

It's always so exciting to think of the transformation from plain white paper to a finished project, especially one you can hang in your home or use as a gift. Stencil work is a great way to add layers of color and pattern. Lin Brown, a classic stamp designer, has created such beautiful nature inspired stencil designs, many of which coordinate with her stamps, and I know you will find them a pleasure to work with. I hope these simple concepts have got your wheels turning for your next stenciled project. Make sure to tag @paperartsy so we can revel in its coolness!

xx, Autumn

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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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