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ART Specially 2020


Hi everyone, today I would like to show you my entry for the poster contest for an art and craft event here in the Netherlands called "ART Specially", it’s a craft fair for stamping and mixed media enthusiasts. The winning project for this contest will be displayed on the posters for the event and also on social media for that year’s event. You are free to create whatever you would like as long as it contains some stamping.

The ART Specially fair is held in March 2020, so in early springtime, that’s why I choose flowers and butterflies for my focal points, combined with a hand lettered text. The title is something that’s very true for me personally and I guess for a lot of other crafter’s as well, even if you don’t know it yet: don’t wait for inspiration to hit you, start creating and the idea’s will come to you on their own!

Step 1:

Today I’m working in my A4 sized journal: what I like about this journal is that I can take the pages out, work on them and then, when ready, put them back in again, not having to worry about damaging already finished previous pages!

I choose the text that I wanted to use and pencilled it in very lightly using a graphite pencil. Then I used the so called “ink smooshing” technique to create the blue background over the text.

For this I sprayed some Lindy’s Stamp Gang “Azure Sea Asters” on my glass work surface. Then I used a piece of plastic (like the package stamp sets usually come in), pick up the colour and smoosh the plastic on the art journal page, repeating this process until I like the results. Then I dry the colour with my heat tool.

Next I go over the graphite text lines using a black Faber Castell PITT Artis Pen (s) to bring the text back up. I could have done the text first but the shimmer parts in the spray would have covered it up and I really wanted to make sure the text wouldn’t run, even when the Artist Pen is waterproof the paper might cause the text to smudge.

Step 2:

Then I stamped the flower image (Craft Sensations brand) twice onto Canson XL Watercolor paper using Versafine “Onyx Black” ink and heat embossing afterwards using Lindy’s Stamp Gang “Clearly Clear” embossing powder.

Now I can colour the image: I used a variety of Lindy’s Stamp Gang products for this: for the flower petals “Plumeria Pink” Magical, “Pink Ladies Pink” Spray and “Magnolia Magenta Gold” Magical Shaker; for the flower hearts “Bonjour Butter” Magical; for the branch “Phantom Fuchsia” Spray and for the leaves “Aloha Avocado” Spray.

When in powder form I added some of the powder to my palette using a fan brush, then I added water to create a watercolour paint. I coloured the image using a small brush and water. I kept adding layer until I liked what I had.

When done I added back in some highlights using a white Gelly Roll Pen and then I fussy cut the images leaving a small border.

Step 3:

For some fun added elements I choose a couple of butterfly stamps (also by Craft Sensations) and repeated the procedure, colouring them using Lindy’s Stamp Gang Magicals in “Cocklebells Coral” and “A bit o’Bubbly”.

Step 4:

Now that I have my focal points finished and though I wanted to keep the background of my art journal page light and airy, I still felt it was lacking something. That’s why I decided to add a stencilled design using a The Crafter’s Workshop stencil called “Tiny Circles” (TCW361s) in combination with Memento Ink in “Bamboo Leaves” which matches the green of the leaves from the flower images nicely. I used a sponge applicator tool to apply the ink over the stencil to create the design you see in the picture. And to finish the background I added some darker blue splatters using Pearl Colors by Finetec GmbH in “Blue Silver”.

To finish my project I now only have to adhere the flowers and the butterflies using one millimetre thick foam tape!

And that’s it for today’s art journal page.

I wish you all a creative day!

Lindy’s Stamp Gang products used:

- Spray: Azure Sea Asters, Pink Ladies Pink, Phantom Fuchsia and Aloha Avocado

- Embossing Powder: Clearly Clear

- Magicals: Plumeria Pink, Bonjour Butter, Cocklebells Coral and A Bit o’Bubbly

- Magical Shaker: Magnolia Magenta Gold

#ARTSpecially #LSGAzureSeaAsters #LSGPlumeriaPink #LSGMagicalPinkLadiesPink #LSGMagnoliaMagentaGold #LSGBonjourButter #LSGPhantomFuchsia #LSGAlohaAvocado #LSGCocklebellsCoral #LSGABitoBubbly #TCWstencilTinyCircles #PearlColorsBlueSilver #artjournalpage

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