There's a New Blog in Town

There's a new blog in town. As I start to dabble more in mixed media projects, I wanted a fresh new place to document my progress and share what I learn along the way.

It's new. It no doubt will be tweaked here and there as I grow and learn how to work with this new style of blogging. And I named it, the Adventures of an Artsider. Check it out by pressing

HERE

and if it goes quiet on here, you'll know it's because I'm posting more on this new site. If you would like to follow me, I'd be extremely honoured and I hope along the way, you'll be entertained, inspired or who knows, even educated too.

Everybody say LOVE xx

Going for the One Layer Look

In the crafty world of the clean and simple, there is a challenge to make cards which consist of one layer only. Well, this is my interpretation. And yes, I've stretched the concept a little by layering up onto black card and mounting onto a backing card but what's the point in rules if you can't just bend them a little to get a nicer result?

Using Seth's drip die again, I cut into some thin paper, laid it over my card and beat it to perfection with Pickled Raspberry ink. You read that correct. Pickled. I've given up trying to read it as Picked. My brain adds the L and there's nothing I can do about it.

With mask still in place, I stamped a texture on top. I removed the mask, stamped one of Seth's circles in the middle and set about the rest of the design with a black pro marker.

As an experiment, it was fun to play and see what happened. And the result, whilst not perfect, doesn't quite deserve to be shown the inside of the wastebasket. However. Am I alone in thinking it now looks like a dripping eyeball?

To Become a Mixed Media Artist, You Must Do Just One Thing

Guess who's range of dies and stamps I'm still playing with? Well if you don't know, first of all, what rock have you just popped out from? Second, go read the last few posts.

Believe me, I'm certainly getting my money's worth. But that's not why I'm still using Seth's stuff. It's because I love the designs. I'm having all sorts of ideas. Usually, I buy a stamp etc, use it once and all inspiration in the well has dried up. With these artier designs, I keep coming up with ideas. I'm starting to impress even myself.

For this card, I had a scrap of die-cut black card lying around, created from the Coffee Ring dies. An experiment from the cards I made in the last post. Now I don't subscribe to the idea I hear a lot of creatives come up with of "I never throw anything away, it all get's used". Nope, if it's scrap, it goes in the wastebasket.

Don't read me wrong, I'm no money-bags who can happily waste supplies. I've just been crafting for long enough to know that the pile of scraps just builds and builds. A fraction may be used but what inevitably happens is that my craft space looks like a craft bin.

This time, however, I did find a use for the offcut. It was spared, because I did the one thing you must do to become a bona fide mixed media artist. The one thing you are contractually obliged to do, if you want to dare attach that label to yourself. I applied Crackle Paste.

Yup, that's the secret, my friends. Once you've crackled, you're in the club.

So I had my crackled offcut, I dabbed blue paint over the top and a good dollop of gloss varnish. I attached it to some other stamped and decorated card and because of it's zen like appearance, typed out and added the mot juste, Breathe.

You just wait, I'll soon be throwing inky shapes down onto my clean white canvases :D

More Makes from my Inky Stash

If you remember from my last post, I had plenty of colourful mixed media cards left over to carry on trimming into as well as a few offcuts. Enough to set about making two more cards with plenty still left over.

I used the same Drippy die from Seth Apter as last time, only this time adding a circle from another die set, Ring Around. The central star shape is from the stash of moulds I made a while back, painted with DecoArt's Black Shimmer Wax.

The second card was, well, a wild card, especially when compared to my usual comfort zone.  It began life with Seth's Coffee Rings die. The way he's designed them, you can run all three rings inside each other, through the machine and come out with a separate, whole, arty piece. I did the same for both green and yellow cards and pieced them together to make two circular designs.

I cut up one of the circles into quarters and adhered them to the corners of a red piece of card I had trimmed square. I laid the remaining circle over the top using 3D mount foam. Finally I added a clay embellishment which I had coloured with acrylic paint.

So yes, as you can tell, I may stretch myself out to the messy side and mixed media but the clean, graphic style pulls me back. It's interesting to see the results which arise. And best still, I have plenty of pieces on my desk to play around with and make more.

Messing About with Artsy Cards

You may know already from reading this blog that I'm a big fan of Seth Apter. And yes, that means I have amassed quite a stack of his stamps, stencils and dies.

I've been itching to have a play with them all, so I gathered together every product of Seth's which I own onto my craft table and grabbed some plain white card.

I then inked, painted, stencilled, stamped, stamped and stamped again. I used as many colours as I could lay my paws on. I made sure to use every stencil, every stamp.  After an hour of frenzied mess and a pair of frightening looking, inky hands, I ended up with a whole batch of decorated card.

I now have enough material to go ahead and make several projects. This card being the first idea I had. I grabbed my Drip Drop Die (I've had my eye on purchasing this since the second it was previewed on Seth's blog) sliced into several different colours and pieced together into the above design.

I gave the piece a coating of Triple Thick gloss varnish which made the colours pop. I lay it over some white card and then black, to see which I preferred and as you can tell, I drooled more over how it stood out on a darker background. I trimmed some black card down, ran it through an embossing folder and foam mounted to the final card.

I have plenty of offcuts and untouched card on my table to start making more projects. Should keep me quiet over the Easter holiday.

Bright & Bold ATC

Thought I'd go really clean on this ATC and try using block colours and no texture. I'm really having fun using bright, bold hues. As I hang the current batch of ATCs on my wall here, I'm being greeted by a rainbow of cheerful colour to start each day. Puts me in a chirpy mood first thing. However, I feel I'm ATC'd out for the moment. I'm itching to try something else. But what?...

Last Naked Torso - I Promise!

You're all probably sick of seeing this naked torso again. I promise it's the last project (for now).

It's the final of the batch I made and this time I wanted to doodle over it with my Posca paint pens. Again it's part of a heap of experiments. The background, for instance, is my attempt at stamping into texture paste. And adding gold pearl drops, which did not do what I wanted. They ran and blobbed instead. Still, the effect is not too bad.

It certainly adds a bright and cheerful piece of colourful art to my shelf. It sets me up perfectly in the mood to sit down and create, even when the light outside my window looks grey.

A Couple of Tags to Share

Thank you for your kind comments on my last post. Seems the world loves a nerd :D

Anyway, not one tag to share today. Oh no! Can you believe I have two???

Both use the same silicone mould of a male torso from FPC Sugarcraft. One of my creative play times was to grab a pile of the moulds I've accumulated over the years and slap some clay into them. So now I have a small box full with clay pieces waiting to be painted and used.

The above tag was me playing around with texture paste. Plus I'd just bought some bright pink paint which I wanted to try out.

The other tag found me playing around with gluing wrinkled tissue to the background and painting over it. Looked brilliant so I covered the majority of it with an embossed card which I inked up with orange. Go figure.

Now off to have a think about how to use the rest of my moulded embellishments.

Because Nerds love ATCs too

This is a scheduled post. That's because on the day I'm typing this out, the little beauty above has only just gone into the post. The recipient hasn't seen it yet. But he should have by the time you're reading this.

You see, I made this for the sweetest Nerd in all the world (thx Scritti), and mixed media guru, Mark Gould. What he can't do with a brush and a pot of crackle paint, ain't worth knowing. And when I call him a nerd, it's affectionate. Go see Nerd Fitness if you disagree.  Nerds rule. I'm a nerd.

I'm a horror nerd first and foremost. There's not much in the genre I don't know about. But I do love a superhero, a comic book, graphic novels, sci-fi, my Playstation (how many times can a guy watch Tomb Raider's Laura Croft die at his own inept hands?) and so on.

And Mark, as anyone who knows him or reads his blog, will know, confesses to having a nerdy streak. So when it came to swapping ATCs with him, I thought I'd go for the superhero vibe. Red and blue - well you know who's colours they are. And a green torso, with the word Smash. Seriously, do I need to explain any further? It's as subtle as a brick to the head.

The ATC is made from MDF by Calico Crafts. The base was inked up in blue colours and stamped in black with a Seth Apter texture stamp. Then I coated it in Triple Thick gloss (an idea I learnt from Mark). I added the Smash Label, added another layer of Triple Thick and squished the torso into it before it set. Same for the top frame. The torso was clay, painted green, and varnished. I stamped black archival ink onto white tissue paper and glued this over it. The frame I covered in texture gel by Reeves (love this stuff) and painted in acrylic red. And that's all it took.

Hope he likes.

Take Three Things Challenge

There's a new blog in town, the Creative Carte Blanche and they hold a monthly challenge. I missed out on their first but I like the idea behind the latest. To use three elements which, they state, normally don't go together. These are, corrugated card, lace and metal. 

Now that's the kind of challenge I can dig my teeth into. Making art work, when it shouldn't.

I took a white die cut tag, and added blue Colour Burst from Ken Oliver.  I added more blue with a selection of distress inks and blending tool. The flower was made by die cutting the flower pieces from corrugated card and colouring with acrylic paint. I took a selection of Seth Apter's stamps and added to the flower pieces with black Archival ink.

I attached the metal tassels to the flower and glued the whole thing to my tag. I spritzed a piece of lace with Dylusions spray and once dry, glued to the bottom. I added the label and dotted a line of black Nuvo Crystal Drops to finish it off.

And yes, I know my blog has taken a quieter turn recently. The reason being is that I have been quietly creative and playing with all sorts of mixed media stash. And because I'm mucking about and trying out new ideas and techniques which I'm rusty with, the results have been...well...how can I put it...not "blog-worthy". There's a vast chasm of difference between the ideas in my head and the finished pieces.

However, they are all valuable, in that I'm learning more each time. The endless cursing and bad language heard from my craft room is not in vain.

Time will come, when I produce something which I'll be pleased to photograph and share lol. In the meantime, I'm having a lot of fun just messing about :D

Mission Inspiration - February 2016

It's February and time for Mike Deakin to hold another Mission Inspiration!

Now I won't lie. This page is my second attempt. My first try was certainly educational but aesthetically, not my cup of tea at all. It certainly won't be going on this blog lol. I'm trying to straddle that world between arty and designer still. I love me some clean and minimal but when playing around with ideas for art, I can sometimes find my efforts beginning to stray into cluttered.

Especially when the challenge looks like this

The idea is to add the ten challenges, in the order they are numbered. Ten different additions to a page can look fairly full, lets say. Brilliant if that's your oeuvre. But you know me, if it isn't graphic and clean, I'm not happy.

So I had a rethink and went at it again. It's not quite got there yet but it's a million miles better than it's predecessor. You'll have to take my word for it :D

My process was to add Dylusions paint, in red and yellow, with my fingers. Then I cut out the fella from an advert for Whey protein powder, into fragments and glued on. I cut a circle out of card and used this as a stencil to apply a thin wash of black gesso in the top right. Over this I applied texture paste through a bamboo stencil from Seth Apter. I dabbed a comb into orange paint and added to the right hand side. I die cut the hearts from a book page and glued on. I stamped my two text images in the bottom left. I added a yellow doodle over the circles. I cut out the three words from the same ad the fella came from. I loved the irony. Finally, the easy bit, I added a border using black patterned wash tape.

And it still manages to look clean. Phew!

Smash Book Page

Another week, another art journal page. It amazes me how slowly these things take to make. Don't read me wrong, I love making them. It's just that I have the perception that it will only take an hour, two tops, to make a page like this. In reality it takes around 5 or 6. Maybe practice and experience will speed up the process. Or maybe it's supposed to be slow. Maybe the point of it, the joy of it, is in the effort and time required to put into it.

And do I like the final page? No. Not yet. It's not perfect. It's anything but perfect. It's riddled in imperfections. The lines are not strong, confident ones. They look irregular, wobbly, diffident. Maybe in a day, week, month or year, I look at this page and love it. Just not right now. It's time to draw a line under it and move onto the next one. And yes I'll probably enjoy putting it together and still feel unhappy with the results. 

Believe me, the day I'm content with a page, I'll shout it out loud and proud :D :D :D

Teesha, Sarnaty & Hattie - A Trinity of Inspiration

I'm continuing to fill up my Smash book with further pages. I'm still mixing up ideas stolen from other artists. Not quite found my own style and confidence yet. I know if I try out different techniques, keep the ones I like, lose the ones I don't, it will eventually come.

These pages are a mash up of the artists Teesha Moore, Sanarty & Hattie Stewart. I love the mix of collage and doodling these three women employ.

And behind the scenes - thanks must go to Aaron & his Imperfect Impulses. His encouragement and inspiration have urged me on. He's been gently stroking  my mojo and slowly bringing it out :) Check out his videos on youtube.

Kate Crane Inspired Page

My first post of the year! Hope you all had a pleasurable break. I know, it seems a lifetime ago now. Who can remember it?

Anyways, I'm here with an art journal page. It's not the only one I've made in the last few weeks but it certainly is the only one I'm happy enough with, to share. Mostly because it's a CASE'd design from Kate Crane.

Over the break, I enrolled on Wanderlust, a year-long, online, art journal class. Week one is a series of videos by Kate showing her process for making pages for a mini album. Now I didn't want to make a whole album but I was quite happy to pick one of the pages shown and make my own version of it.

Yes it's a bit messier and freer in style than I'd like but I wanted to try making a page as instructed, in order to learn a different approach to mine. After all, I can now incorporate what I discovered in the process. Keep the aspects I enjoy and leave out the parts I don't.

After all, as I previously mentioned, left to my own devices, my pages are a hot mess and not fit to be uploaded to the web. At least when I'm following a class, I'm not too ashamed of the result.

Mixing it up for a Challenge

It's been a while since I posted. Well, no point really. I haven't really made anything worth posting about. Yes, I've been dabbling, playing, drawing, splashing paint around. But I've not actually finished and produced anything. 

So to ease my way back into "proper" paper crafting, I logged onto CASE This Sketch to see what the latest challenge was. Turns out, it looks something like this...

and I had absolutely no idea where to begin. I had zilch in the ideas department. Tumbleweed in my brain.

So I took some card and a rubber roller and merrily applied acrylic paint with it. I scraped some lines with a texture tool and left to dry. And that was it. I was up and on it. Ideas aplenty. You see my left brain has read about and seen in practice from experience many times, that being creative is not about feeling motivated first then taking action. I have to take action first, no matter how crap I feel and wham, bam, my right brain sparks off - the motivation appears.

I took an ink splat stamp from MFT and applied archival ink. I die cut a heart from a scrap made in the last couple of posts. Finally I used my label machine to produce a sentiment. 

So this card technically falls into the category of mixed media. But I hope I've also kept the CAS aesthetic enough to prove acceptable. Tough tits if it doesn't. I like it. Plus I had fun putting it all together lol. So much so, I'm looking forward to doing it again

Life Is Beautiful

With the leftovers from the card I made in the previous post, I created this. It was, honestly, totally serendipitous. The act of moving bits of paper around to find something I was happy with, brought to light that I was playing with the same tricolour as the French flag. I'm a Francophile. Enough said.

And rather than stage it against a clean background for the photo, like I usually do, I took my camera and snapped it as it was on my desk.

It's a bit rough around the edges but I'm growing to like that.

Dipping My Toes

My creative output of late has not been prolific, to say the least. However, after spending a few hours mucking about, I ended up with one solitary card.

Okay, not quite true, as the majority of the play was in making colourful backgrounds onto various pieces of card, using Ken Oliver's Colour Burst Powders.

Once I had a selection, I cut out the shapes using a Spellbinders Die, Contemporary Circles. I took a separate piece of card and sponged over yellow and orange distress inks, adding texture with stencils. Finally, I stamped a Hero Arts sentiment using black Archival ink.

So yes, I can say I've dipped my toes into making inkier, artier projects. I haven't quite abandoned the clean and graphic style, though. It's a start. I have plenty of coloured card and offcuts leftover. Enough to make at least one other card.

Meeting an Online Chum & Misty Installations

I took a day off on Tuesday to take a trip down to London. I had a fun day out, meeting up with an online friend from New York, who is over here for a brief visit. And though I took my camera with me, I was so swept up in the day that I didn't pull it out once. As far as memory-keeping/blogging goes, I'm sooooo crap at the moment.

Thankfully, my friend took this photo and sent it to me, so I have something to show for the day.

So let me back up a bit. Here's who I met up with...

(I grabbed this photo from his blog)

You may or may not recognise him as the mixed media artist, Seth Apter.  And he is a kind, generous,  witty and charming companion to go around London with. Am I gushing? Then don't get me started on his talents as a teacher in mixed media art. He creates the most stunning, textural work and has shared some of his techniques in a couple of DVDs, both of which I own and were how I first came to know of him.

To say I'm a fanboy is an understatement. I own his stencils, his stamps, his books. He's lucky I didn't grab the shirt off his back when we met up lol.

Much as it may surprise you, he did not fly all the way from New York solely to spend a few hours with me (and joking aside, Seth, if you are reading this, I know I've said it to you already but I'll say it again, I'm incredibly honoured and grateful that you took time out from your busy schedule to meet up).  No, he's also on these shores to teach classes at Art From The Heart up in Harrogate.

So what's with the photo at the head of this post? Well, we went to the Wellcome Gallery, just round the corner from Euston Station to see Ann Veronica Janssens: yellowbluepink exhibit. You know I'm a sucker for these entertainment/art installations. You enter through closed double doors into a room, painted floor to ceiling in white. It is filled with a thick fog, lit by coloured lights from above. You can barely see what's in front of you. A couple of times, my nose nearly touched a wall before my eyes could focus. It's disorientating, for sure but then I have no head for directions already, before you put me in a fog filled closet.

So yes, I'm fully made up for the rest of this week, possibly month :) And last night, the arty fun continued when I attended a demonstration from an artist who painted a beach landscape, from start to finish, in acrylics, in an impressionistic style. Absolutely breathtaking to watch.

The only thing that seems to be missing is any art or craft within the walls of my own creative space. Hopefully soon. Hopefully soon :)

How I Avoided Halloween

As I mentioned in this previous post, I had arranged an outing which coincidentally allowed me to avoid Halloween. Yes, I was out the door before any small people could come a knocking and begging for sweets. But before you write me off as a total killjoy, I was still surrounded by kids and their parents.

Does this give you more of a clue?

No? How about this one?

Pat yourself on the back if you guessed I was at Chatsworth House. I know. I'm there so often, I may as well take up lodgings with the Duke & Duchess. I had successfully grabbed tickets for their firework event before they were sold out. And boy was it packed. Thankfully, their gardens are huuuuge and can accommodate the thousands who attended.

The event began at 6pm, we arrived at 7pm and the fireworks weren't until 8pm. To fill the gap, Chatsworth had erected a stage (it was almost like being at Glastonbury folks) with a band booked to play nineties house and acid music on trumpets. It sounded better in real life than it does on paper. And it was quite a sight to see middle aged parents, in wellies, dancing around, reliving their younger years before they sprogged. It's an image I can not erase from my mind. That was a true horror to witness.

And in front of the house was a fire garden display, instead of a bonfire.

Far classier, even if it came across as if we had wondered into Wicker Man territory.

Then, come a little after 8pm, the compere on the stage, took to the mike and lead the crowd into a countdown from ten. And when we all bellowed out "One", music erupted from the speakers and the display began.

Chatsworth, once again, did not disappoint. It was an incredible display with plenty of quality fireworks lighting up the sky in sync with the music.

And the finale, the pinnacle of the display, decorated the sky to an instrumental of Michael Jackson's Thriller. How perfect, to end the evening, watching the last firework explode and die in the clear sky above, with the sound of Vincent Price cackling away.

We may have had to drive home in the dark, through fog and under the light of the moon but when we finally parked in our drive, all trick or treaters were tucked up safely in bed. What better way to avoid the season hahahahaha.

Over on Instagram

It's a little known fact that I have an Instagram account. Which, until recently, has been gaining online dust. However, I've joined in with a 100 day challenge. And I've chosen to draw an assortment of illustration characters. I've kept quiet about it, hiding in the shadows whilst I gain confidence.

However I've done 25 now. And no I haven't done one a day, every day. Just as and when. I do them as often as I can but if I miss a day by being busy, I don't beat myself up.

And I'm not sure how often I'll be posting to Instagram in the next week or so. I've updated my Mac to El Capitan and one of the small glitches has been that it's stopped reading my camera. Once I've resolved how to upload photos without having to keep removing my memory card, I'll resume.