Boho Floral Daisy Painting by Jenny

I love daisies! So pleased to find some time the other day to grow an abstract daisy for Sass. Its created for the theme 'Bohemiam Floral' :)

The photos show a short visual description on how it was painted. I've used Dylusions acrylic paint with various stencils by Tim Holtz, Dyan Reaveley and Darkroom Door, foam ink blending tools, paint pens, a watercolour pencil and paintbrushes.

It started off with Dylusions Paint in yellow (Lemon Zest and Lemon Drop) blended over the whole page using a Ranger Ink Blending Tool. Once this was dry, I added more layers one at a time (letting them dry inbetween), using a darker colour with each stencil design until the last stencil where I used Black Marble through the Darkroom Door Grunge Borders stencil. Some stencils I painted and then pressed onto the page.

Once dry, I then sketched out a simple but very large daisy design using a blue watercolour pencil. Flower petals on daisies are simple... draw a circle (or trace a bowl) then add elongated loops or long ovals that butt into the circle. 

Don't worry if it doesn't look like a real flower, you'll find our eyes will see it as a flower whatever it looks like. Around the daisy I painted a wash of blue paint so that the background wasn't completely hidden. The watercolour pencil outline was activated with the water and blended into the paint easily. Any pencil marks still showing were washed off gently after the blue paint was completely dry.

Next was the centre of the flower. This is basically hundreds of overlapping dots (often called stippling) using a basic round paint brush (darker on the outside, lightest near the middle to give a rounded shape). Then for the final layer of spotty highlights and shadows, I used the end of my paintbrush (the wooden end creates fabulous spots). All the exes you can see were initially stenciled and then overpainted with white paint pen.

Lastly, I added more white outlines and some thoughts using Tim Holtz Idea-Ology Stickers and Quote Chips over a strip of Idea-Ology Fabric Tape.

I love how much difference a few layers of paint makes to any artwork. Its amazing!

Make Today Count, Trust Your Heart and Tell Your Story!

Jenny James' Paper Doll Journal by Janie O'Brien for July 2020

I had such fun creating this journal. My 'paper dolls' are the old fashioned paper dolls with articulated joints. This was accomplished by joining the 3D dolls legs and arms by brads. They are then stuck to the background with velcro which means the dolls can be repositioned. The backgrounds are a combination of water colour and image strips obtained from Pinterest. The dolls themselves were purchased from Etsy.

Playing with Paper Dolls

by Lisa for Jenny

Jenny's Paper Dolls journal has a lovely vintage feel, so I wanted to do a spread that tied into this.

Paper dolls in art journalling are a bit foreign to me, so I didn't really know what to do.  But I have a pic of my mum and her brother from probably the early 50s, when mum would have been around 7 or 8.  I've always loved this photo, and have drawn it before, so thought it would suit this theme!

As usual I forgot to take progress pics... 😖  I drew the figures of Pam and George on brown kraft card - great stuff, thick enough to cut out, but not too thick.  I then inked them in and cut them out.

I then used heaps of vintage look scrapbook papers from my stash, as a base for both pages.  I remembered that I had this great leaf stencil and mask set from Dina Wakley - still unopened!  - so played around with acrylic paints.  The leaves were outlined with brown Pitt pen.

My kids looked like they were floating on the page, so I added a bit of grass to ground them.

I found a lovely sentiment on Pinterest to use on the other page: 

Childhood is the most beautiful of all life's seasons.  I wrote these words out on the remaining kraft paper, outlined them in ink, and cut them out.  After adhering them with matte gel medium, I added white gel pen highlights.

And here's the complete spread!  Hope you like my entry Jenny, and Happy Arting all! xx

Cheers, Lisa

Fabulous Flowers by Jenny

Mostly I just sit around all day, being fabulous!

This is my journal page inside Robyn's beautiful book for "World Flowers". It started off as basic shapes formed from Darkroom Door and Tim Holtz stencils with Dylusions acrylic paints, then grew from there.

The big daisy is Darkroom Door's Carved Flowers Stencil used to create the main shape, then I overpainted it, one dot at a time to give it a fuller, more rounded appearance. Some of the spots are heated embossing powder... I was adding it to the bees and couldn't help but add some to the flower as well :)

The main word, Flowers, is created using Dina Wakley Media Alpha Parts Stencils with various colours of Ranger's Embossing Powders. I prepared the area using the clever Ranger Anti Static Pouch, painted on a Clear Embossing Ink then scattered over the colours to create an abstract blend. After melting, I added a light pink for the highlight and used a black marker for the shadow.

The little girl sitting around being fabulous, is one of Tim Holtz's Idea-Ology Paper Dolls, she's holding a bouquet from Tim's Idea-Ology Botanical Layers. A few other elements were collected (some made, some Tim's die-cuts) and glued in place using matte medium. The quote is from the Dylusions Colouring Sheets Borders, a fun set of edges and sayings!

The bees, honeycomb pattern on the edge and faux script in the background are stamped in place using Ranger's Archival Ink with Tim's Entomology and Darkroom Door's Buzzing Bees stamp sets. Some of the bees have Distress Embossing Glaze (translucent embossing powder) over their bodies plus wings and bodies coated with Ranger's Stickles Glitter Glue.

Its a fun colourful page, I hope Robyn likes it! I'm quite happy with it :) Daisies are such friendly happy flowers! What's not to love about gorgeous little bees? They're amazing little creatures!

Thanks for looking! Have a wonderfully happy arty day!
:)
Jenny

Flight of the Hobgoblin

I found this most awesome stamp set by Pink Ink Designs a while ago, perfect for Louise's whimsical theme. A flying hobgoblin with a bee, leaves and a shoe... goes perfectly with my fave Dylusions stamps and stencils!

The page began as black and green plain paper, good for a night day page. After applying a few assorted patterns though stencils with ink, I added some collage crackle medium... who knows what I was thinking! Sort of turned out ok, much better the next day.

Stamps were coloured, trimmed and stuck down with glue... then everyone's eyes redrawn so they looked in the direction I wanted. The quote is a Tim Holtz stamp :)

There's a fine line between genius and crazy!

Its ended up to look like an interesting page, hope it makes you smile!

Happy creative day to you!

Paperdolls for Jenny James.

I'm not really sure why it is but I get quite nervous about working in Jenny's journal, maybe it's because she is the only member of the group I know personally and I want it to go perfectly and it never does.

I'm usually full of ideas but not this time. So I thought I'd start with a background of ink in Jenny's favourite colour - green.

Then I had a play with some acrylic paint and did a few flowers but still no plan.

And then I found this lovely butterfly in my stash. 

Jenny has very kindly included some Tim Holtz paperdolls with her journal but I chose this lovely couple from my collection of Tim Holtz dolls. 

Decided it needed a boarder and a few words which I cut from an old calender. A few dots and doodles and it was all done. 

Making Paper Dolls

My journal for swap number 8 is called Paper Dolls... its all about characters made out of paper, fabrics, scraps, anything - creating a book of friends. 

I've started off with making a book from another book... Dina Wakley's first multi-surface art journal that had pages made of brown hessian (burlap), watercolour paper, brown kraft paper and cotton cloth, I've only used the watercolour paper for the inner pages but it still smells like hessian!

The cover is made of the kraft pages, with shop bought handmade paper, hessian, scraps of hessian, and a Tim Holtz Idea-Ology Found Relatives Card of a little girl with her own dolly!

Inside the front cover is the contract, posting order and a pocket with more Tim Holtz treasures (cos you all know I'm Tim nutty! lol), a gathering of Tim's Idea-Ology Paper Dolls. I've written a note on a Tim's Idea-Ology Journaling Card to remind you to take 1 or 3, keep and save for another day, share them with a friend, add to your page, or write on the back like a tag. Whatever and however you wish!

My page itself was created with Dylusions acrylic paint (surprise, its green... you wouldn't believe me if I said I tried using a different colour! lol), various stencils (Tim's, Dyan's and Darkroom Door's), Tim's stamps, Tim's Distress Inks, Tim's gel matte medium (sorry, couldn't resist, lol :) its actually Ranger's), bit of cheesecloth,  and other bits and pieces.
The tiny fairy was originally bought to decorate a birthday cake years ago. I've snapped off her nano skewer (toothpick), trimmed off her paper wings, gave her beautiful Idea-Ology Transparent Wings and glued her down so she couldn't escape.

I then set her to work on creating a paper doll dress. She's using a real embroidery needle with sparkly embroidery metallic thread. I glued the needle with Aleene's Jewel-It  embellishment glue, to make sure it doesn't get loose as its super sharp.

The message, Believe you can and you are halfway there, is perfect for both the fairy and all of us. The tape measure is actually ribbon, Tim's Idea-Ology Measuring Tape Trimmings.

A few days later, I had a fab idea, use one of Tim's Paper Dolls instead of the fairy! Next time :)

The last thing added was glitter glue... Ranger's Stickles in Stardust, sparkly shimmery goodness! Everywhere!

Hope this lil fairy and her page made you smile!

Have a happy creative day!

:)

Jenny

🐸💚🎨 Art by Jenny, www.artbyjenny.com.au

Time for Tea with Jenny

Life is like a cup of tea... to be filled to the brim and enjoyed with friends.

Time for Tea conjures up all kinds of ideas... but eventually I nailed one down and started making Sharon a pot of daisy tea. The Tim Holtz Paper Dolls dropped by to help :)

I've made it with quite a few layers, not always happy with each one but it eventually turned out ok. Bright, colourful, full of sweet elements.

First thing I did was take the pages out of the ring binder and glue down some pretty doilies with a gel matte medium.

I then dragged the pages through puddles of Distress Oxide Ink (Squeezed Lemonade and Iced Spruce) on a craft mat but it seemed to stick to the paper rather than spread out. Nice colours but not quite the marbled background I envisioned.
Moving on, I sprayed both Distress Ink Stain (Twisted Citron, a gorgeous lime green) and Distress Oxide Sprays (Mermaid Lagoon and Cracked Pistachio) to the pages and it seemed to liven it up! I finished off the background with Distress Oxide Spray in Fossilized Amber (earthy yellow).

Once the inky background was dry, I gathered a couple of my fave Tim Holtz stencils (ZigZag and Blossom) and added their patterns using Dylusions acrylic paint (Mushy Peas and Calypso Teal) and an ink blending tool (foam applicator).

The next layer was made with the Finnabair Paper Texture Paste (it dries like homemade paper) and Tim Holtz stencil (Lace), spread with a plastic spatula.

An overview of the page so far...

While deciding what to do next, I stamped out a Darkroom Door teapot (set called Time for Tea), cups, spoon and teabags with black Ranger Archival Ink on white mixed media paper. I was toying with the idea of a colourful teaset... but I think the simple black and white is best.

Now the plaster was dry, I added Ranger's Gloss Transparent Texture Paste through the Tim Holtz stencil, Flourish, letting each section dry before adding more beautiful swirls.

This photo (above) is of the texture paste drying, with spots of Nuvo Drops scattered around.

The teapot was made 3D with the help of an Action Wobble... being adhesive backed help hold the Tim Holtz Idea-Ology paper flowers and little teabag strings in place too.

I coloured the flower centres in yellow ink and drew daisies onto the teabags. I was going to use real teatags but they were too big.

The rest of the elements are butterflies, daisies and roses from a pack of Tim Holtz Idea-Ology Botanical Layers, washi tape (more butterflies!), and a pair of Tim's Idea-Ology Paper Dolls.
The silver spoon is stamped using silver watercolour paint, then coloured some more with the same paint to darken the silver paint.

The final touches are a sticky note stamped with the quote, more butterflies, dribble of honey, glitter (sugar) on the spoon and another paper lace doily along the bottom.

Its turned out to be a pretty floral Spring-like page in the end. Thanks for reading :) Hope it makes you smile!

Happy Creative Day!

:)

Jenny

Jenny's Bees knees.

With the hot weather not being very condusive to acrylic paint and glue activies. This truly is a mixed media piece. 

I started with a bit of acrylic paint but it really was to hot and went all sticky and lumpy. So I switched to a bit of ink and some Uni Posca pens.Now my dear friend Jenny is not a big fan of Gelatos but I find I can blend them quite well with a brush or finger,  plus use them with a stencil and baby wipe.  ( be warned they do take a while to cure ) All of which was easier to play with on my dinning room table, indoors with the aircon going.

Now every piece of mixed media gets to that,  oh help,  what am I doing stage. This is a mess!

However I find if I step away for a few hours, have a cuppa, then things generally sort themselves out. 

So once I returned I felt the need for some collage. So with a few images from an old calender and some painted letters, I was nearly done.

Just the face to play with and a few gold pen dots and swirls. 

Now what has all this to do with the topic of The bees knees. 

Well anytime I can sit and play with all of my art supplies, that's the Bees knees to me.

Inspired by Nature

Janie's Book of Nature is such a wonderful book of textures and colour! I found a sheet of beautiful rice paper from Stamperia featuring two hands inspired by Michelangelo's Creation of Adam that seemed perfect for this theme.

I trimmed it to size and glued it down with a gel matte medium using my trusty flat wide paintbrush.

Once the gel medium was dry, I mixed a small puddle of watered down white gesso to use as a wash over the background areas of the rice paper to calm down the contrast of the printed words.

For this page, I thought I'd have a play with Tim Holtz's White Collage Tissue Paper using Ranger's black Archival Ink and a few favourite stamps. The idea was that the paper would disappear into the background and leave the printed image behind.

The birds, quote and grunge spatters are all from the Tim Holtz Stamp Set "Urban Tapestry". I love the typographic style of this quote. It says :

"The creative is the place where noone else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and venture into the wilderness of your intuition. You can't get there any other way, only by taking risks and by not quite knowing what you're doing. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover will be yourself."

After stamping onto the tissue, heat setting the ink and trimming to size, I then coloured some areas on the back with white pencil. The white would help the reversed and outlined words show clearer on the background.
Gesso would do the same thing but pencil doesn't crinkle up the paper or need drying time.

I used matte gel medium to glue down everything, both under the tissue and over it to seal all the edges.

The birds were also stamped onto tissue paper and heat set before being trimmed and glued down with the gel matte medium.

All the branches were stamped straight onto the page with black Archival ink after the birds were dry.

Above is a closeup of how the tissue paper blends into the background. Sometimes. If you're not looking for it, you can't see it...! lol :) Still a fab technique for collage when you don't feel like cutting around every single feather, beak and foot.
Colour was applied to the birds using watercolour pencil (red and brown) and a waterbrush.
Being a translucent tissue, I was able to flip one of the birds to face the other way (perched on the hand facing left) without losing too much detail. Then coloured over him with black pencil to give his feathers more definition and darken the image.

The birds needed something to hang around with, so I stamped more branches in the black Archival Ink, then some spatters of grunginess in black and stonewalling in brown (Tim's background stamp "Slate and Stone").
The brown Archival Ink was only applied to small sections of the stone background stamp and pressed onto the page without an acrylic block, to give it a more rustic appearance.

Black Archival Ink was used for all the beetles and ants from Tim's stamp set "Entomology". They're crawling all over the place!
I coloured the beetles and some of the ants with brown watercolour pencil then once dry, I drew on the white highlights and gave them a covering of Ranger's crackle medium.

The bees were stamped onto tissue paper using the black Archival ink, dried with the heat tool and then had their bodies coloured with yellow pencil on the back of the paper. After being glued onto the page with gel matte medium, I painted their wings with an iridescent medium to make them shimmer.
Their black stripes were enhanced using black pen and highlights drawn on with white gel pen.

Above is a closeup of an ant after the crackle medium had dried. The quote was made into a wallhanging with nails drawn on with black pen and brown pencil.

Lastly, I blended in a tiny smattering of blue ink around some of the edges of both pages.

Thanks for reading my blog post! Hope it made you smile!
:D
Jenny