Star Artist Trading Card and Abstract Landscape Artist Trading Coin
Welcome back, everyone! I have two projects to show you today. The first is a star-themed artist trading card, and the other is an abstract landscape artist trading coin.
First off, the star-themed artist trading card:
I began this card the way I do a lot of my cards - I glued down a bookpage and gessoed lightly over it. I then added a light wash of fluid acrylics in Payne's Grey and Ultramarine Blue (DecoArt). When it was dry, I added stars to the background using the Tim Holtz star stencil and Distress Oxide in Faded Jeans. Lovely! I set the color with my heat tool, however, the Oxides are reactive to water in the same way the Distress Inks are, so I wanted to do something to keep the ink from rubbing off or getting smeared, so I pulled out my Art Basics 3D Gloss Gel by Prima Marketing. I used the stencil to go back over the original star shapes. Because the gloss gel is a "wet" medium, the Oxide color blended in with the gel. If I had thought about it earlier, I should have just mixed the gloss gel in with the Oxide and saved myself a step! When it dries, the gloss rises a little bit, and I get some really nice texture on the card. You can also see in the photos below how flat the Oxide is in the "before" picture, and how it pops more in the photo on the right.
You can see the star I sketched in the photo above - I'll let you in on a little secret... I ended up not liking what I did with that star, so I pulled out some scrap mixed media paper, stamped a numbers stamp on it, and traced the star shape off-set from the numbers. I then cut that out, layered clear gesso onto it, and while it was still wet, I mixed in a light wash of yellow fluid acrylic.
I used Golden soft gel medium to glue it down. As it was going to cover some of the dimensional stars, I wanted something stronger than mod podge to glue it in place. I decided the star needed some shine, so I pulled out my gold Gansi Tambi Starry watercolors. If you are ever interested in metallic watercolors, I highly encourage you to check these out. They are incredible!
I edged the big star with a charcoal pencil and blended it out, but felt the little stars faded into the background too much. I tried to go around the edges with blue and then black watercolor pencil, but I didn't like the effect, so I ended up darkening the whole background a bit with a dark blue Inktense pencil. I finished by stamping a star shape with gesso and "breathe" onto the yellow star. It still didn't seem done to me, so I used the white gesso to edge the card and add splatters. And viola! I am done!
For the artist trading coin, I glued scrap paper to a 2.5-inch circle I punched from a soda box and glued a trimmed piece of scrapbook paper onto it. I'm not sure why I did this, because my thick layer of gesso completely covered the scrapbook paper!
While the gesso was still wet, I smoothed drops of fluid acrylic into it with my pallet knife. I used Raw Sienna, Veridian and Colbalt Turquiose Hue to create the earth, grass and sky. I was very loose with the mixing because I wanted to create an abstract, almost dreamy kind of feel to the landscape.
When it was dry, I added some distant birds and colorful dots to act as flowers. I'm not sure I like how the "flowers" turned out, though. Anyhow - I spent an hour or more pouring through a book of love poems I bought at a local Goodwill trying to find the right set of words. This part of the process definitely took the longest, not counting the drying time! It turns out that the book isn't so much about "I love you, let me count the way" kind of love poems. It's more of a "why art thou most unpleasant, woe is me" kind of book. It's actually pretty terrible - there isn't a lot of phrases that I can use in my artsy projects, and I will probably end up using it like I do my vampire romance book...use it as a base for my gesso. Haha! Any how, I did end up settling for "breath and bloom". I edged the text a little, and the coin is done!
Do you all use text and passages from books in your projects? What kind of book has been a treasure trove of words for you? Let me know what works - as for me, I see myself hunting for a more modern book of poetry.
Until next time... Thank you for stopping by!
I began this card the way I do a lot of my cards - I glued down a bookpage and gessoed lightly over it. I then added a light wash of fluid acrylics in Payne's Grey and Ultramarine Blue (DecoArt). When it was dry, I added stars to the background using the Tim Holtz star stencil and Distress Oxide in Faded Jeans. Lovely! I set the color with my heat tool, however, the Oxides are reactive to water in the same way the Distress Inks are, so I wanted to do something to keep the ink from rubbing off or getting smeared, so I pulled out my Art Basics 3D Gloss Gel by Prima Marketing. I used the stencil to go back over the original star shapes. Because the gloss gel is a "wet" medium, the Oxide color blended in with the gel. If I had thought about it earlier, I should have just mixed the gloss gel in with the Oxide and saved myself a step! When it dries, the gloss rises a little bit, and I get some really nice texture on the card. You can also see in the photos below how flat the Oxide is in the "before" picture, and how it pops more in the photo on the right.
You can see the star I sketched in the photo above - I'll let you in on a little secret... I ended up not liking what I did with that star, so I pulled out some scrap mixed media paper, stamped a numbers stamp on it, and traced the star shape off-set from the numbers. I then cut that out, layered clear gesso onto it, and while it was still wet, I mixed in a light wash of yellow fluid acrylic.
I used Golden soft gel medium to glue it down. As it was going to cover some of the dimensional stars, I wanted something stronger than mod podge to glue it in place. I decided the star needed some shine, so I pulled out my gold Gansi Tambi Starry watercolors. If you are ever interested in metallic watercolors, I highly encourage you to check these out. They are incredible!
I edged the big star with a charcoal pencil and blended it out, but felt the little stars faded into the background too much. I tried to go around the edges with blue and then black watercolor pencil, but I didn't like the effect, so I ended up darkening the whole background a bit with a dark blue Inktense pencil. I finished by stamping a star shape with gesso and "breathe" onto the yellow star. It still didn't seem done to me, so I used the white gesso to edge the card and add splatters. And viola! I am done!
For the artist trading coin, I glued scrap paper to a 2.5-inch circle I punched from a soda box and glued a trimmed piece of scrapbook paper onto it. I'm not sure why I did this, because my thick layer of gesso completely covered the scrapbook paper!
While the gesso was still wet, I smoothed drops of fluid acrylic into it with my pallet knife. I used Raw Sienna, Veridian and Colbalt Turquiose Hue to create the earth, grass and sky. I was very loose with the mixing because I wanted to create an abstract, almost dreamy kind of feel to the landscape.
When it was dry, I added some distant birds and colorful dots to act as flowers. I'm not sure I like how the "flowers" turned out, though. Anyhow - I spent an hour or more pouring through a book of love poems I bought at a local Goodwill trying to find the right set of words. This part of the process definitely took the longest, not counting the drying time! It turns out that the book isn't so much about "I love you, let me count the way" kind of love poems. It's more of a "why art thou most unpleasant, woe is me" kind of book. It's actually pretty terrible - there isn't a lot of phrases that I can use in my artsy projects, and I will probably end up using it like I do my vampire romance book...use it as a base for my gesso. Haha! Any how, I did end up settling for "breath and bloom". I edged the text a little, and the coin is done!
Do you all use text and passages from books in your projects? What kind of book has been a treasure trove of words for you? Let me know what works - as for me, I see myself hunting for a more modern book of poetry.
Until next time... Thank you for stopping by!
Comments
Post a Comment