Mucking about

Yesterday was a messy inky day of experiments.   Alcohol Inks on Yupo paper the results of which I'll share another time when they are turned into something other than the raw things they are now.  

Having played with Yupo the Lutradur came out.  This stuff, like other modern manufactured surfaces, has great possibilities.  Yesterday a piece of Lutradur was cut out and placed over a plain piece of paper.   Then various alcohol inks dripped over it often with a metallic version dripped on top.   The result was a delightful surprise.  In the picture the Lutradur is at the bottom the colours are all there just muted as the ink went right through and onto the paper.  So now I have two interesting pieces to work with.

 During this period of social isolation I have been making and sending postcards to people.  The postcard format is a great one to work with 4" x 6" can be quite a bit of space to fill.  

Wondering how I was going to use my "papers" got me digging around in various boxes of stamps.   The set that attracted my attention is the same one that provided the owl on yesterdays postcard.

Both the Butterfly and large Dragon fly came from the set, they were directly stamped onto the Lutradur with Memento ink.  I chose those inks because they work with solvent pens and basically alcohol ink is the same thing.    So stamping done the images were fussy cut.  To get them to stick I ran them through my Xyron.  By now the "paper" was becoming delicate and so care needed to be taken peeling them off the backing when it came time to use them.

Next came the "backgrounds they would adhere to.   For the Butterfly I chose an Imagination Crafts stencil, through which various Distress Inks were blended with brushes.   The softness of the design really helps the butterfly stand out.  And a sentiment was added!  

For the second post card a "negative image" stamp was inked with Big and Juicy applied with a brayer.  Sentiment added again but I managed to blur it on the word Dragonfly. To cover this up a small dragonfly was stamped onto a scrap of the Lutradur, fussy cut and made into a sticker.

Turning to the paper, it was trimmed down to go onto an A5 piece of card.   I have started making my 2021 calendar and choose this for February.   A grungy stencil was used to add coffee stain type marks on the bottom and then more stamps from the same set as before used.  My Whisper pens provided the colouring on the stamped images.

There was also an experiment with acrylic paint, it was too gloopy to call poured but rather plopped onto a wooden shape that then had paper of various kinds pressed into it.  Those results will also be shared when they become finished works of one kind or another.   All in all it was an interesting and largely successful day of playing followed by a day of putting some of it to good use.

I would like to share them as follows

Butterfly card

The Sisterhood of Crafters - fortnightly challenge current theme Birds, Bees, and Butterflies. 

Crafty Cardmakers - fortnightly, Butterflies

International Art and Soul  - fortnightly, Flowers and Butterflies

Dragonfly Card

Crafty Sentiments Designs - weekly Anything Goes

A Bit More Time to Craft - fortnightly Anything Goes

February

Love to Create - monthly Always anything mixed media goes

Sparkles Monthly Challenge - Use a real stamp not a Digi.