Distress Inks with Digital Images

Hi, Hello :)

Well it has certainly been awhile between posts, there has been some crafting going on in the background, but projects have been few and far between unfortunately.

However the last few weeks my back injury seems to have settled down, and while there have been some terrible days with it I am starting to feel like I can get back into my colouring again.

Now because I haven't been crafting there has been plenty of time to look through the internet and research, and I finally came across a printer that allows me to print my images and colour with my distress inks.The Epson Dura Brite ink is water proof, and it works sensationally!!

I printed up the cutest little scene to test it out and I have been having such fun.  My images are from Tiddly Inks - Fluttering By to Say Hi and Make It Crafty - Tree of Love.

Firstly I started with the tree trunk and coloured a layer of watered down antique linen as my base colour.

Next layer is Frayed Burlap, this is a rather subtle colour but I like the depth it adds to the final blend.  It helps me to begin planning where I am going to place my shadows.  This is something I am still working on, I think my 'light source' jumps around a bit, but I am having fun, so not super worried, and I figure it will sort itself out over time the more I practice :)

Next, straight to my darkest brown Walnut Stain.  Darkening my shadows, I do this very slowly to ensure I don't get to heavy handed.  Small sections, with many layers of colour until I am happy with the result.  For the love heart on the tree I used a small amount of Black Soot to really define and try and give the illusion it has been burnt into the tree.  A bit of Antique Linen to finish and smooth out all the colours and add some of the colour 'washed away' through the other layers.

Next up the tree top. I missed a photo here whoops - but you get the idea from the first Antique Linen layer I did on the trunk.  For the tree top though a very watered down Shabby Shutters.  The tree top now has some sparkle to as I didn't realise the brush I was using had left over glimmer mist in it....whoops.  Next layer shown below is to start mapping shadows in the leaves with Peeled Paint.

Final shadows are then done with my Forest Moss.  Then i went back in with the Shabby Shutter, this time more concentrated and Peeled Paint to add more roundness and better colour.  The leaves also have a touch of Bundled Sage to try and shadow them without having them blend too much into the rest of the tree top.

So a little more time to paint this afternoon before my Ma's very early Mother's Day present this evening.  We are off to the Festival Theatre to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show and I am sooooo looking forward to it!!  Girls Night :)

Thanks for looking, and feel free to leave any questions if you have them.

xx

The Spanish Reveal

Good evening all,

Tonight I bring you a card I made for one of my colleagues at work.  He had very secretly arranged and bought tickets to Spain and organised Spanish language lessons as a present for his wife's birthday, and he asked me if I was able to make a Spanish themed card to go along with the surprise.

The gorgeous little Tilda Learning to Dance from the Turning Leaves collection was absolutely perfect for this.  To sort of tie in with the theme I also used the background Vienna Magnolia stamp from their With Love collection, not Spanish but this Vienna stamp was as close to Spain as I could get.

I took quite a few pictures this time so I could keep my mate updated on the progress of this special project.

Firstly the two images masked and stamped together.

Apologies for the next photo - a lot fuzzier on the computer than it looked on the camera screen.  The first thing I do when colouring with bold red is paint Tilda's skin, otherwise I risk pulling in the red when trying to blend around the edges.  When doing a bold red I firstly paint a thick layer of barn door, and then leave it overnight to make sure it is completely dry before blending over with a darker colour.  

Normally I would use Black Soot to add the shading on the red, however as I have stamped my image in Coffee Archival Ink I thought I might try this technique using Walnut Stain instead, and I really like it!! Then as you can see in the following photos I slowly painted the background in.  This is one of those pictures where about halfway through painting I felt like I had 'bitten off more than I could chew', all up it was about 5 hours work to get the picture completely coloured!!  and people say I have no patience ;o)

 I asked my friend what his wife's favourite colour was, which is blue, thinking that I could use that for my background paper colour.  I spent about an hour trying all the different blue papers I had.... I just could not make it work and kept coming back to this gorgeous Kaisercraft paper called Recollect from an old collection called Reminiscing.  The Much Love stamp is from my new Lili of the Valley Just for you circular Sentiments set.  Such fantastic stamps, great quality and even better free postage :o)   Finally to finish up a picture of the finished card..

Thanks for looking

xx