ATC Oriental Collages with a difference

'Are you there?'

This lady have painted and inked, ditto the screen. Background textured, stamped calligraphy in the same pink used to ink the lantern, shade the frame, then I 'washed' over the pink on top of the dried stamping to soften and blur it.

It might clearer and not so dark 'in real life' such a dark day here today that I could not get a decent photo of them







Oriental black and white image which I have painted and coloured.

The background has been textured and stamped, the 'frame' is with distressed embossing powder - then rubbed here and there.

Oriental Textures ATC

This Oriental ATC was a bit of an experiment playing with different textures. She was hard to photograph to get a good picture of her - and is one of those that look much better in the hand and natural light - not so garish as this photo

I covered white card with some Japanese newspaper and aged it with distressed ink.
The stamped image was collaged on, then highlighted with an embossing pen, and embossed with dull gold - and her face was dusted with flesh chalk.

Japanese calligraphy on the newspaper was embossed with a dull copper, and the framework around it was made using texture paste, which was coloured with black, dull gold and dull copper, and bubbled up with a heat gun to give it a lovely texture - which is hard to see in the photo. It looks like burnished metallic and feels like soft beaten leather.

This is the first of the three I am entering into a swap. I might make some more then send in the best ones - it made a nice change to do something this small again - quite different to what I have been working on lately.

Newsprint Japanese Arch

I decided to have a go at the Wednesday Stamper Challenge this week.

The challenge is to use newspaper in your art work, but also include some stamping.

The page I used came from a 2003 Japanese newspaper that was used for packing - which Haruko my daughter in law saved for me.

I covered the whole arch with a sheet of newspaper - then painted Guesso over it then painted it with distressed green ink.

Next I pasted on torn sheets of newspaper and stamped the bottom left hand corner and added another coat of distressed green ink, adding shades to emphasise the torn scraps.

I stamped a bit of calligraphy to tie it all in, and embossed the left hand side strip.

Next I added an image, and painted it with inks, watercolours and acrylics. I painted long hair, and her face white, with the pink flannel with white make up on it. I wanted her to look like a worn out Geisha, cleaning her white Geisha make up off.

The white is slightly textured with Gesso as is the white makeup on her face.

Across the bottom and the right hand side I used several layers of texture paste.

On the first layer I used Pine Needles - alcohol ink to make a dark base colour. The next layer of texture paste was bubbled up on top and I added some embossing gold and bronze.

When that was dry I added a little bit more paste here and there, and rubbed some metallic pink acrylic paint on it - then bubbled it all up again with a heat gun, including the clear embossed edge.

I finished it off with an Oriental colour co-ordinated bead threaded with gold wire to make a loop to hang it up by.

I hope they like it!

Altered Art CD

I made another altered art CD - this one only took me an hour and a half or so to do.

Plain card for the background onto which I stamped 2 paisley patterns in pink and brown to match the colours of the vintage lady - yes - yet another I enhanced with paints and ink.

The stamp in one I have had for ages but never used before. In fact I have had it for years when I first thought I would take up card making - but never really got around to doing it seriously,

Once I had mountd the Vintage image, I painted around the outer edges of the backing paper to tone it down a bit. Then I cut out a Crafty Individual's miniature butterfly and attached that so it looks like is has just alighted with its wings not quite touching the disk.

I edged the disk with light gold Krylon pen and added a ribbon and bead as before. This time one that is shades of brown and pink.

Altered Art CD

This I made using a transparent CD spacer disk.

Alchohol inked one side with plum, ivy and silver. Then on a white card I stamped a sheet of writing, and glued that on top of the inked side - with the wording face down, trimming it when dry. So this gave me a plain white back.

Turned it over and collaged a Victorian lady in furs and a hand muff- which I had enhanced with inks,and water colours and glued that on to conceal the disk hole.

I then cut out some ivy leaves from some old silk leaves I had for ages for flower arranging, and glued them on.

To finish it off I added a purple ribbon and a silver bead to the reverse - which I attached with double sided tape and added a strip of paper to hide the ribbon.

It took me around 2 and a half hours to make - but I was pleased with the result.

In the daylight it looks lovely and shimmery and more subtle - and just the thing for this cold wintry weather.