Week of Swaps--Day 4

Today's swap was a homemade postcard swap. Since I post about coloring often, people always send me coloring sheets like the above. I have hundreds of them. Unfortunately, many of them are patterns that I don't care to color. For coloring, I tend to gravitate to larger open areas that I can work on technique or amend with my own doodling. I am always looking to find something to do with these coloring sheets.

The first step is to design the color palette. I used three yellow/orange shades for the random teardrops/dots.

I used four green/blue shades for the smaller amoeba shapes. For the larger  amoeba shapes, I used a reds, greens, blues, and purples. I used five shades of each color to complete each palette. Granted I could have stopped here, made one postcard and have been done.

Color palettes completed

I chose to continue using the same color palettes but reversing darks and lights. Once the top half was completed, I could have stopped which would have provided several options for a single card.

Top half completed

I continued to fill the entire sheet. The goal was to make two separate postcards.

Full page complete

I then ran my postcard watercolor stock through the Xyron machine and mounted the cards to the coloring sheet using a light box to get the best placement possible.

Two postcards

Postcard front and back

All I need to do is clean up this mess of a desk. As you can see, I keep notes for reference during the project. I also keep all of the markers out and available until the project is completed. After getting to the end of the full page coloring, I realized that I had forgotten to color a single teardrop shape. I had the gold yellow marker still available. If I had to search for it, I would have taken a few more minutes to locate it. This is the main reason why I always keep a project reference sheet. Could you image trying to find the exact color that was used if I hadn't kept notes?

Time to mail out some postcards.

Envelopes Part 1

Front of envelope

This week will be dedicated to envelopes. I have been making handmade envelopes for quite awhile but I haven't really shared my latest version. Right now, I am experimenting with glassine paper and dried flowers. This is my first attempt and while I am happy with some aspects of it, other issues have me scratching my head.

The first question is "how much is too much"? As you can see, it is easy to go overboard with the flowers and leaves.

Back of envelope (open)

The second question is "How do you secure the envelope"? Normally, I would be but a piece of double stick tape across the back flap horizontally. The problem with doing this is how to open the envelope without tearing the envelope and without destroying the flowers.

Back flap (top)

The third question is "how much overlap do I allow for the flowers"? Should the entire flower show on the back side of the envelope? If so, then this limits how many and what type of flower is used. If part of the flower is covered, do you get the same effect? Is anyone else going to care about it as much as I do?

Back of envelope (closed)

The fourth question  is "how to I tell the recipient to open the envelope carefully" and finally, "how do I prevent flower dust, parts, and other detritus from getting glued to the card." As you can see, the envelope is made in layers. There is the glassine paper and it is strengthened by white card stock. The flowers are glued directly to the card stock. The card stock is then placed in the Xyron machine and glued to the glassine paper.

This was a mock up for a bridal announcement. Of course, the bride changed her mind after the presentation.

Day 28--30 Day Coloring Challenge

For today's coloring challenge, I wanted to complete the Women in Orange series and my experimentation with masking fluid. This is similar to yesterday's masking technique in that the same areas were masked. You can see the original color wash in the open areas (the areas under the crosshatched areas). In today's postcard, the red box wasn't added until after the top color wash was added. Different today was the application of the masking fluid. Yesterday's masking fluid was painted in the open areas. Today, the masking fluid was applied with a credit card over the stencil. Because some of the fluid gets under the stencil you can see a more distressed effect when the dried masked areas are removed.

Also, yesterday, the top color wash was only added within the red box. Today, I applied the second color wash over the entire card. I added the crosshatching and the red box after the card had dried.

Similarly, I wanted to do something different on the reverse of the card.

As you can see, I was a little heavy handed with the Sharpie marker when making the box and the marker bled through to the back side. I decided to glue a second piece of scrap paper to cover the bleed through and to give the card an extra heft.

I have been trying to come up with alternatives to alcohol inks for use of the reverse side. For today, I used a stencil and used pastel colors to fill the card. Although a strong dark pen would work, I was afraid that any writing would be hard to read.

Pastel Copic markers

I needed to make the card a little more translucent so I used my Zyron machine to apply a piece of vellum to the card. This would provide a smooth surface for writing and would mute the design/colors underneath. I have to say that this turned out better than I expected.

BTW, the mottled look of the markers was intentional. I wanted a watercolor effect with some of the white base paper showing through. I thought the mottled effect would be amplified by the vellum.

Markers with vellum overlay

Tomorrow is a different project and product.

Playing with Paint

This weekend's assignment is a journal for myself. While I have been making journals for other people, this weekend I will be dedicating to myself. One of the difficult aspects of art journaling (other than not being an artist) is that I get overwhelmed by the blank page. When I write, I never have difficulty getting started because I can just delete what I don't want and start again. With art, it is different for me. If I mess something up, I usually don't know how to fix it.

Sooooo, this journal will be dedicated to simply playing. No preconceived ideas of what I want on the page. I am allowing myself to play--artistically. If the page doesn't work out, then I will just move on to another page(s).

To overcome the daunting task of starting, I am coloring some pages before I bind them. I am taking watercolor paper, covering them with Gesso, and doing background washes. I am setting them to dry so that they will dry flat. I am using all sorts of coloring materials just to play--acrylics, Gesso, oil crayons, chalks, crayons, watercolor crayons, colored pencils, ink pads, etc. Anything to put a layer of color on a white page.

Once these have dried, I will fold them into signatures and sew them into a concertina which will be my text block. I will then case them in. I will share the process with you along the way.