Thursday, September 25, 2014

Heer Ranjha Painted Mural

Custom made this hand crafted 25" X 31" inches painted mural, with a black stone sand background which beautifully compliments the painting under artificial lights...
 

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Watercolor card


This weekend I went for a short trek after very long and feel really kicked up after that….a whole lot of mountain ranges, un-ending green grass with grazing herds, beautiful lakes and valleys, I mean my eyes refused to believe the earth is not a flat stretch of land!!! Feeling refreshed and inspired to make this one right here.

 In my last post I shared quick 60 second technique to create water color backgrounds.. For this card I used one of those landscapes I created. I trimmed it down to fit into this card stock.
 

To create a frame effect for my card, I cut out strips of patterned paper and stuck it around. Then I pasted the watercolor landscape.

 

 
I sketched this crazy cow with my drawing pencils first and finally with copic markers and colored the cow patches with Faber Castell water color pencils. These are great to work with as they allow you to color intricate details.

 


 

Next, I cut out the head of the cow (yikes…sounds terrible!) and sketched a little black patch to fill that area with my marker.....and pasted this on the created card frame.

 


 

 Next I took a medicine bottle cap to create the cow’s neck, stuck it and pasted the cow's head on it (intentionally with a slight tilt). The black patch behind the head serves as a shadow and a patch, depending from where you are seeing it.

 

I created a removable tag, to put around the cow’s neck. Once again I used the strips of PP and added a hand written sentiment “Grazy about you”…..(I love playing with words!)

 

 


 

 
For the neck band and tail, I have used pretty twine, green shimmer from The Twinery as it contrasts and sticks well.

 


 

My card is ready.

 


 

Supplies used:
Faber Castell graded drawing pencil
Copic Marker black
Faber Castell water color pencils
Camel Artist  watercolor tubes (for background)
Holidays Stripe PP from GG
Shimmer Twine from The Twinery

  

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Am linking this to

Just us girls : watercolors

Saturday, September 13, 2014

Creating water color backgrounds in 60 seconds

Water colors are a great medium to create vibrant backgrounds. I experiment a lot with these and today I want to share a fun technique which I call “water play” which takes less than 60 seconds if you are working on a 16” X 16” paper (smaller means lesser time). This works best on water color paper, however works reasonably well on any other paper which is does not resist water (like gloss). II have tried it with regular chart paper, card stock and thin gsm printer paper….It worked with all.

 The whole technique just lets water do its job (to merge and flow) while you just either draw lines, or introduced drops of water color at different intervals.

Another unique thing is you just need primary colors, red, yellow, blue to work this. I have tried black and white but you can’t be so random with them.

 This is best to make quick landscapes, waterscapes and skyscapes and use it as a background. You can also doodle, stamp or emboss on these.

 And I promise it takes less than 60 seconds(except the drying time) and you can just never go wrong.
 


If you are trying it remember the most important thing…..just have fun, water and colors will always throw a new surprise at you, and you will love it.

I created 3 other such backgrounds and will use it for some of my future projects.


Just a quick note , water color does become a tad lighter once dry, so do not fear using darker shades if need be.


PS: I used watercolor set by American Crafts for this one!!!

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Textured Kitty tag


I wanted to make a funny tag for long now. Finally, I decided to make this for my best friend who has finally decided to get married to her sweetheart after years of living in. We are both ardent cat lovers and I let all my catty love flow for this one

 


I cut out a tag of cardboard, randomly tore patches to let the corrugated portion peep through. After which I applied patches of gesso, dabs of crackle, some acrylic paint and finally ink sprayed it before I let it dry.

  


This time I decided to go with my own hand drawn sketch, hand written message and self made stencils (honestly coz I don’t have anything of that sort in my stash!). I sketched a cat and with a similar shape, sketched another sheet to cut out ‘cat stripes’ . Similarly  from a scrap thick paper I cut out fish bone patterns.

 
My selfmade stencils
 


I used these to layer modeling paste onto my tag. I re-gessoed some portion of my cat, before I went ahead with the modeling paste. For the tag hole I used my paw punch. For the tail I used burlap twine and added some texture to it.


  

 I wanted to play with this statement “Officially mine” so I twisted it into a catty lingo “Ofishally mine”. To add more zing, I wanted to portray the fish as the cats catch hence decided to use a net (this is what my local veg vendor sells to me in) and make some paper fish. For the fish I dabbed texture paint and ink sprayed on a glossy sheet to get this uneven effect. Then I sketched and cut fish shapes. For creating a fishing hook, The sandwiched a clothes hook between the two fish cut outs. I handwrote the quote and paw punched and inked it.


Used this for the fish
 
Finally, I loosely stuck the net and tightly hooked the fish to it.

  


Hope you enjoyed it.
Supplies used:
Clear Crackle texture, white gesso, modeling paste, acrylic paint, paw shape punch, copics, burlap string, pink & blue ink spray, craft knife and craft mat....

Happy Crafting!

  

Am linking this to
 
BGC : textured tag
TMC : Anything goes
Scrapitgirl: Stencils
Unstampables: Funny

Gauche Challenge: Country Chic : Inspired by colors, texture and net/lace in the mood board. This is the first time im playing along this challenge. I happened to bump into this blog while surfing. I really adore the unique projects the alchemist bring to the table. I am an all new follower!


 

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Mixed Media tag


Am very excited sharing this with you today. I have been down with an ENT infection for a while and just been crafting in my head. Finally I am somewhat back in my craft room, have been looking around for inspiration and am really kicked up about using textures.

 This time I made an altered luggage tag.
 


While I have been in bed, Ive been staring at this luggage tag on my suitcase. I really loved the cut and was thinking I can make it look like a mini suitcase. So here I am; combining my love for travel, texturing and recycling!

 
The original tag

 I stuck a translucent wrapping tissue paper all over the tag so use the red color of the tag. The front side (where the name is displayed, I cut out a card stock shaped as a suitcase, applied a layer of gesso applied home made modeling paste while adding a tingle of shimmer, through my stash net stencil. I clicked this pic while I was carrying it in my hand, also so you’d have an idea of the size of the tag!


Suitcase shaped paper textured to stick onto the airline tag
 


I wanted to make a small wheel to my suitcase so I pulled out an old red button from my stash , gessoed it and inked it.


Button as a wheel
 
 Once dry, I dabbed distress ink on it. My kitty recently tore apart my pearl bracelet and I had kept those away in my box, so I thought of using those to border the suitcase.

I was experimenting with crepe papers to make flowers and I had made these mini sunflowers some time back. However since they are so small, I never got a chance to really use them. Any guesses what I made the leaves from!...Well, it is a result of an interesting experiment. I soaked up a green wool in glue and then stitched it over a paper to create this formation. I let it dry and simply tore apart the paper and was left with this beauty (which I further colored/ distressed) .


 Moving to the back of my tag (this is where I wanted the red to show through!) I applied modeling paste to create a world map and to the water area applied gesso. Once dry, I simply painted the water with acrylic paints and couldn’t resist my temptation to add some glitter!

World map created with gesso and paste
 The other flap of the tag (behind the name and address flap) I applied modeling paste and scratched it with a fork to create this pattern. Since this is so small and I don’t own a stencil so small, I made some cut outs from an OHP to create the Rays pattern and stamped a cut ladiesfinger (Okra ) with gesso and red ink and let the color play itself.

 


 I sketched this blue haired girl, while I wanted to use the phrase “to paint the town red”. Since I made a globe-trotting tag here, I changed it to world!

 


 
 I am so used to creating large mixed media projects, this was completely out of my comfort zone. But I learnt that size doesn’t necessarily interfere with spontaneity!


Im quite liking how this looks....what a chic suitcase it would make.

Wouldn’t you help but notice it, if it was dragged in front of you while you are killing time at the boarding gate!
 
Suitcase on wheels


 Supplies used: home made - modeling paste, gesso, crepe paper, mini pearls, button, green twine, distress ink (worn lipstick).

Am linking this to

BGC 58: Textured tag
Lessology : Travelogue
Craft Hoarders Anonymous  Challenge #15 - All The Pretty Flowers
SSS Wednesday : Create your background

 
Very excited to link this to The Mirror Crack’d  , their first mixed media challenge.

Monday, September 8, 2014

Superb Itsy Bitsy giveaway at BGC

I love playing along the cool challenges that are set at Beyond Grey challenges, but all through September they are also giving a Itsy Bitsy set as they are their sponsors.


This is a great chance since I love shopping at Itsy Bitsy and love playing along BGC!!

Follow this link to enter your name or click on this picture in the side bar.

 http://beyondgrey.blogspot.ae/2014/09/september-celebrations.html