Distinctive Touches

LOVE you...

I wanted to share a card with you today.  It's a bit different from my normal bright and vivid Copic cards, but I LOVE it! 

I was sort of sick all weekend (upset stomach and just ookie), so I spent some time curled up in front of the TV doing some coloring.  (Coloring always seems to relax me.) 

Anyway, I had been blog hopping and saw (I don't know where) a color combination that I really liked... it was Saffron, Teal, and Brown.  I picked this image with the plan of coloring it with those three colors.

Well, the you know what they say about the best laid plans.  My Saffron ended up turning into a rusty pumpkin color, and my teal turned into well... more of a turquoise.  That's okay... I worked with it. 

In the photo above, you can see the original image.  You can also see the vintage background paper that I picked to use on the card.  Ummm, they don't really work together do they?  

I decided to give a go at a technique that I taught myself with my Copics.  When I want to "tone down" an image, I use one of the grays to do it.  Here, I am looking for a warm look, so I used both W1 and W3... warm grays... to color over the image... which gives it a more subtle, muted look. 

See...

Then, since I was using patterned paper that was a bit distressed looking, I decided to go all out and distress the heck out of ALL my layers... image included.  Here you can see how I used both Tea Dye and Walnut Stain distress inks to grunge up my card stock and my image. 

Once I was done dirtying up my stash, I assembled my card.  The card stock is Real Rust and Not Quite Navy.  The rust layer is embossed with the screen texture plate and the "LOVE" is from clear stickers that I stuck on vintage patterned paper and cut out.  Overall... a pretty simple card, but I LOVE the warm feel of it.

Thanks for stopping in today. 

HUGS,

Colleen

Project 52 - #5 Cross Craft Inspiration

Did you know that I'm a studio potter? 

Okay, I'm not REALLY a studio potter... but I want to be... and I'm just practicing the power of positive thoughts. 

What I REALLY am is a pottery student.  And I can tell you with all honesty that some day I WILL have my very own pottery studio.  I am absolutely in love with it!  In college I took some sculpture classes and worked with clay, but I've never REALLY learned how to throw on a wheel... until now.  I drive up to Tulsa for class once a week and I'm learning so much!  It's hard though because my instinct is to throw a cylinder (the basic shape everyone learns to throw) and then try to get fancy... you know, add in a sweet curve here and a rolled lip there... but to actually be serious about it, I need to make cylinder after cylinder after cylinder... and nothing else!  Nothing fancy, nothing artistic, nothing creative... it just kills me!  (But hey, that's the only way I'm going to learn... by doing the basics....over and over again.)

Since I find potting (I'm not sure that is the correct term but I like the sound of it) so creative yet have to stifle that feeling in class, I decided to transfer my creativity to another medium. 

Here's this week's Project 52 sample.  I created this "painting" as a reflection of my feelings about clay, pottery, and shaping the earth.  I call it The Olive Jar.  My husband doesn't get it.  I'm not sure anyone will get it.  Know what?  Don't care... I get it!  That's the fun of abstract/contemporary kinds of art... it can relate to people on all sorts of different levels (or not at all). 

I started by frosting the canvas with some modeling paste to create a bit of texture.  Then I added paint; I worked with three different colors (browns, yellows and greens) to create the piece.  I started with a basic tan and added washes of gradually darker shades over the whole piece.  (I wiped some of the washes off in areas to keep the lighter color.)  I then painted a mustard yellow across most of the canvas.  More washes in yellows and oranges gradually darken the painting and add depth.  I added green to the bottom of the canvas (pulling the color up) and darkened that with a blackish-green wash.  I wanted even more depth, so I gave the whole thing a few washes with a dark brown... making sure to leave some of the paint along the edges of the texture paste.  Then, I highlighted some of the peaks by dry brushing the light tan over the piece.

As I was creating this (with no REAL design or goal in mind... just sort of "feeling" it) I remembered a trip I took to Israel when I was in college.  (Spent a month there on an archeology dig!)  Some of my fondest memories are of the magnificent working pottery there.  Water, grains, and oils were stored in these HUGE jars and stacked along the walls of the market place.  Suddenly I knew exactly where this piece was headed! 

To finish it up I created a UTEE medallion and brushed Perfect Pearls on it to give it an aged-pewter look and then attached it to the painting with hemp twine. 

I LOVE that this project was inspired by one of my current NEW activities and is a wonderful memory of the past as well.

Hope you like it!

Hugs,
colleen

CHA-CHA-CHA-CHANGES...

Morning blog readers!  Hope you had a wonderful weekend.  It was warm and windy here and I sure enjoyed the sunshine. Of course, I woke to lowering clouds and gusty rain, but at least it is still warm.

I actually spent some time with my stamps this weekend after being inspired by a neat tutorial over on Laurie Wilson's blog.  I wanted to give it a try and I needed to make a birthday card for for my mother-in-law (I'm doing pretty good on the whole "get them made and mailed on time" so far this year.)  Here is the card I made... I'm not really thrilled with it.  It took FOREVER to do all the masking and then in the end, it wasn't really the best image for the technique... not much "overhang" to cut around... but well, what's done is done.

Now... onto my "cha-cha-cha-changes" I know that some of you have noticed that I am not blogging every day lately.  You'd be right!  After some thinking (and even more thinking) I've decided that I needed to streamline my daily activities to be more productive.   You know that one of my resolutions was to try new crafting areas... and I've been working on LOTS of new projects and classes in some of those areas.  (I'll share more info on this later...)

I've also been pondering the purpose of my posting. You know that I LOVE to teach and to share and to inspire... and I want to make sure that's what I'm doing here.  With my daily posting schedule, I felt I needed to make something and write about it every single day... and guess what happened?  My creativity disappeared... my samples were mediocre... and my writing became dull and trite. I wasn't doing what I hoped to do... I couldn't inspire when I wasn't inspired myself. 

SO.... I've decided to take some of the pressure off and throw caution (or at least my blogging schedule) to the wind.  I'm going to break free from my regimented, scheduled, neat-and-tidy ways and go with the flow.

I'll create when I'm inspired, enjoy the process, play when I want, and more importantly... share when I have something to say!  (Want to know when that is... make sure to subscribe to get email updates.)  I plan on sharing ALL of my creative endeavors here too... not just stamping, so buckle up and get ready for an inspirational ride.

Thanks for stopping in!

colleen

Project 52 - #4: Iced In

I think Mother Nature has a really warped sense of humor.  Usually I like that sort of thing... but after this little joke, not so much!

Welcome to Oklahoma winters. 

Oh, I know all of you up north (and pretty much everywhere else around the country) are saying, "Can it Colleen, you have NO right to complain...  we're stuck with tons of snow and sub-zero temps... suck it up!" 

But well, I'm complaining anyway! (That's right... it's my blog and I'll cry if I wanna!) 

Anyway, I figured I would share the photos that I took to document my fourth week of Project 52.  (I actually have another project that was inspired by the "great ice storm" of last week also, but I'm not quite finished with it.)

As you can see, there is a pretty thick layer of ice covering pretty much everything.  This was the very first day.  We had three solid days of icy-rain.   I didn't even attempt to take a photo after the first day.  That would have meant daring the dangerous "falling and breaking my leg" ice-slicked porch or patio or driveway... and that my friends, just wasn't happening.  

The dogs weren't too fond of it either... whimps!  

Schools were closed for 4 days, most of the town lost power by the second day, businesses shut their doors, and trees limbs started falling.  (We were lucky enough to have power the whole time, although we did lose our Internet service and our satellite TV.) 

That was Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday... by Friday it was almost 65 degrees. 

Here's to global warming!
Colleen