2012 Art Journal, Week 5 - Perfect Day

Perfect Day

Efemera from UK Stampers had the following to say about Week 5:

"This week's prompt is PERFECT DAY
1 What is/ would be your perfect day?
2 Include a picture on your page
3 Use some stamping on your page"

I like to tone my photographs down a little if I am using them in collage work, as they can appear a bit too bright and "I'm-a-photograph-look-at-me" for journal work or card making.  It really depends on the look you are trying to achieve, but here, I wanted a more vintage effect.  I used Snapseed on the iPad to make the picture of James and Storm "vintage" and the picture of the boys "dramatic".  After printing these out, I used circular and oval punches on them, triming the sides of James and Stormy to be able to fit the keys in.

I was aiming for vintage and can trace the brown and orange colour scheme back to a card of Beanie's on UK Stampers, whilst the lime green contrast colour was a fashion website influence, Escada maybe...all too expensive for my blood, but beautiful to look at.  Having stamped the keys and clocks, I did the main journalling.  I felt the background still wasn't broken up enough, so I stamped various smaller round and oblong stamps among the keys and the journalling.  Then I begun doodling.  I doodled on every part of the page and loved every moment of it.

Ingredients for 2012 Art Journal, Week 5

Moleskine sketch journal

Key, clock and various round and oval stamps from various sources (I'm sorry, I just don't know where any of them came from, there are no markings on them) 
Distress Ink ink pads in "spiced marmalade" and "tattered rose"

Microsoft Paint on the computer, Snapseed photo-editing software on the iPad

Staedtler triplus fineliner sets of pens (colour and pastel): brown, steel, orange and lime green

Geko

Geko Wall Hanging

This is the wall hanging I made for UK Stampers monthly challenge.  The January 2012 challenge (which can be found here) requires you to use metal, material from old clothes, tissue and stamps to create a wall hanging.

The material is an old white cotton sheet that has already been through one recycle as it was ripped and sewed into an angel costume for Christopher's nativity last year.  I painted it fairly roughly with watercolours and inks, including a gold ink and then stamped the geko using a 'light chocolate' ink pad onto the background, seeking a shadow effect.  I restamped the geko onto another piece of cotton and painted that with a yellow Art Kure watercolour pen also to soften the effect.  

Turning to the sewing machine, I machine-stiched the second geko layer in black thread, stuffing the head and body lightly with toy stuffing to achieve a more rounded, 3D effect.  Then using some bronze metallic thread, I hand stitched the geko all the way around in a loose 'patchwork' style, allowing the edges of the cotton to fray as I did so.

Next I sat around for a loooooooooooooong time wishing I had copper foil in my stash.  The rules for the challenge were clear.  Salamanda had specified 'As it is January and it's a long time until payday you can't buy anything new - existing stash only'.  Turns out that wishing alone cannot magic copper foil into your stash.  So I decided to cheat.  I took some aluminium kitchen foil and painted over it in glass paint.  To achieve the colour I was looking for, the paint was very thick.  It was taking a long time to dry.  Too long.  I got bored.  I grabbed the heat gun and tried to dry it faster.  The glass paint immediately blistered and cracked, but this actually looked quite intesting in places (serendipity at work), so I carried on.  I cut the 'fake copper' pieces out with sewing shears and glued them onto the geko's body.  Then I hand stitched over them in the bronze thread.

I used some black/gold tissue paper (that has been sitting in my stash for years) behind the fabric to break up the 'squareness' of the piece and then mounted it, using eyelets on a piece of card.  I used more of the 'fake copper' as part of the ribbon ties, mainly because no matter how large I made the knots, the ribbon kept trying to slide through the eyelets.

Ingredients for Geko

Foam geko stamp (no details on the stamp itself but I am fairly sure I got it from Craft Central)

Ink It Up 'Light Chocolate' pigment ink stamp pad
Art-Kure watercolour sketch brush pen: Yellow
Windsor & Newton inks: Orange, Blue, Aquamarine, Vermillion, Gold

Machine and hand sewing, black thread, Sulky bronze metallic thread, toy stuffing, small beads for eyes

Kitchen aluminium foil, Anita's Aqua glass paint: Dark Brown, heat gun, sewing shears

Old cotton sheet, pearlescent card, eyelets, ribbon