Faux Leather & Soot Technique

My next atc class is on a Faux Leather background. We'll be using masking tape to get the basic look and then acrylic paint over the top. Best to stick to only a couple of colours as any more than 3 will make a lovely mud colour! I've just finished the background samples so I thought I'd put them up without any images or anything else on them so you can see them in all their glory.

The colours used on this first one are Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide & then Raw Umber (I have used all Golden paints but you can use what you have).

Next colours are Yellow Ochre then Quinacridone Burnt Orange...

Finally, Cobalt Turquoise and Burnt Sienna and then I wiped some of the colour off with a baby wipe...

There were plenty of oooohs and aaaaahs at last Saturday's atc class on the Soot Technique. As promised, I changed things around and discovered a new way of adding colour. The normal method of doing soot technique is to take a piece of white gloss card stock, hold it by the edges and shiny side down, then move it backwards and forwards....actually I do side-to-side, in a candle flame. My hand motion is actually quite fast, don't do it too slowly as it'll catch on fire! It needs to be low enough in the flame so you see black smoke coming up, if there is no black smoke it's not in the flame enough but if you hold it too close to the wick, you'll end up with scrape marks across it. Might take a couple of practices to work out the correct distance to hold it. Clean your stamp off thoroughly with a baby wipe after each stamping.

Check it regularly to make sure you are not making it too black, you want a coating of soot so that it's between a light grey and a dark grey...not black! Once done, place it soot side up, taking care not to touch it unless you want to do a "forensics" one with your fingerprints on it. Then take a clean rubber stamp (no ink) and stamp...prepare to be amazed as when you lift your stamp you'll see a wonderful stamped image on it. You can do several stamps to tell a story if you like but you can't mask anything so think about your placement. When you've finished stamping, then you need to seal it with either a fixative or a sealer. I've heard people have used hairspray with success too. I have a matte sealer so that's what I use.

You can also then use your Stazon ink to do more stamping if you like, the soot is set so there's no worries about masking if you want to do this now.

The last time I taught soot last year I decided I wanted some colour on it so I used alcohol ink on the gloss card first and then sooted and continued in the same way.....can you say GORGEOUS!!! So now I've come up with something else to add colour but unfortunately I can't say what it is yet as it's up for possible publication....if I can be bothered getting off my butt to write & submit!

These are 2 of the latest soot ones with the new colouring. "Art"...

"Yearning"...

Paint Chip Samples, more soot & raffle winner

At Scraptivate we have a monthly atc swap that is run for the girls who do the classes and I've just recently given them the list of themes/techniques for the next 12 months so they can be prepared. One of the themes is "Paint Chip Samples"...this has caused some consternation. Paint chip samples are exactly as described, in Australia Bunnings is the best place to get them and I like the British Paints ones as they are a good size to use for atc's.

There are a few ways to use them but for our swap we are going to ignore the colour and really focus on the paint chip name. To give you an idea of what I mean, below are two of them that I did for a swap I took part in using this particular theme. The first one, the colour is called "Cityscape"... I used a bit of post-it-note and covered the name on the sample, then stamped a building stamp using Black Stazon, also stamped Paris the same way, German Scrap up the top with a little bit of Treasure Pewter to age it, a metal heart and hook to finish off. Obviously once you've stamped you take the bit of post-it-note off and that reveals the name. So the idea is to do an atc using the title of the colour as the theme.

Here's another one...."Hot Mama".

At the last Tuesday night's atc class, for the first time in over a year, I forgot to draw the raffle!!! So I got Mel at work to pick a random number between the attendees as they were listed in the bookings, and the winner was Megan Black!!! When you come Tuesday night Megan you can collect your Shrink Plastic raffle atc. This is it below....actually, I'm cheating because it's on a soot background which is Saturday's technique but it does have a shrink plastic stamped image on it too. This is my new stone angel stamp from Stampers Anonymous, looks great in soot and in shrink plastic! Edit: Sorry, it's not Stampers Anonymous, it's from Judikins! On page 4 of their catalogue here.

Here's the same stamp done with soot technique again, but using alcohol inks before the soot. I've also coloured the German Scrap down the bottom with embossing powder in the same gorgeous pale blue that's on the flourish stamp up the top and on the frame with "Illuminate".

Next one is another transparency transfer with Poe as the subject.

Another transparency transfer using gel medium instead of rubbing alcohol...."Imagine".

After Saturday I'll post the technique for soot and another discovery that I've made about something else to use under the soot for adding colour!

Soot technique & 1 more transparency transfer

As I have new people that are becoming regulars in my atc classes at Scraptivate, I have decided to revisit some of the earlier techniques from when I started teaching the classes. For those of you in Perth who might be interested in learning some techniques, I teach every 2nd Saturday and every 2nd Tuesday night. The Tuesday night class is a repeat of the Saturday, one but runs about 3 lessons behind.

I often get asked, why atc's? For me it's the technique that is first and fore-most. The reason I use atc's to teach it is this.... the girls will learn a technique and actually get it "down" onto a format that will look complete, 99% of most people get at least 1 atc completed and many get 3 done. I get card-makers and scrapbookers in the classes as well as atc girls as they are all techniques that can be applied to many different artforms. Some of the girls have even started their own little technique book using an atc that was made in the class, then writing up the notes in their own words and putting it all into one book! Great idea!!! My memory is shocking for lots of things but I don't seem to have any trouble at all remembering all the different techniques that I've learnt over the years!

On to the next atc class....Soot re-visited!!! I won't be listing the technique yet until after the Saturday class so they don't set fire to themselves or their houses!

"Follow your own star"...

"Portrait"...

"Delusional"...

(the stripey looking thing on either side of this one is the small corrugated black cardstock with a bit of Silver Treasure rubbed over it, looks like stripes but it's actually very bumpy and raised)

The next one is an atc made using the Inkjet Transparency Film and gel medium (Golden soft gel in semi-gloss). It's the blue gravestone image that is the transfer...

"Two graves"...

Lastly, an atc using Helmar 2 step crackle medium for a crackle class that I have coming up soon using various crackling mediums. Our Altered Book Club chunky swap that is on-going had a Gods & Goddesses theme recently and I chose to do "Anubis, god of mummification"....yep, sounds like me doesn't it! lol So I had a spare pic of Anubis left over which I made into an atc using the crackle medium on the image.

...more Transparency Transfers, Shrink Plastic atc's

Below are some more Transparency Transfers...first one is onto another plain type of background, paper that has been coloured using the "smoosh" technique of Ranger distress inks onto the Ranger craft sheet dtp (direct to paper...or dts...direct to sheet!), spritz with water, lay your paper down onto the spritzed sheet, press gently and then twist 45 degrees and lift....result is a beautiful watercoloured background. The colours on this is my favourite combo of Peeled Paint and Weathered Wood. Then an inkjet transparency/rubbing alcohol transfer on top and another quote from Dorothy Parker.


Some more transparency transfers..."Temptress"

..."Arise"....




Now a couple of atc's using shrink plastic as I have another class on this tonight at Scraptivate....this first one is a terrible scan, sorry 'bout that....you just about need sunglasses to look at it in the flesh and yes, it's not my usual colours once again...can you say BRIGHT!!! The image down the bottom left is the shrink plastic stamped image and then coloured with chalks, boy do they intensify when it's shrunk!!!

Don't send the spelling police after me.....I forgot to change the spelling of "color" from the US spelling to the Aussie version - "colour" on the quote....

Another shrink plastic atc, this time the image was printed onto the shrink plastic (white) with my inkjet printer, then shrunk...you just have to keep your fingers off the ink as it'll smudge until it's shrunk. "Awaken...breathe"...


Lastly, this is an atc made for a swap leaving here shortly (promise!!!) to someone over East. It's a watercolour tube paint fresco technique with one of my favourite zetti stamps.

Transparency transfers

While I love new technology, sometimes in the art world it can be a pain in the a**! Particularly when you find that a product that you used to use is becoming redundant because of newer technology. Case in point - inkjet transparency film. This was used for overhead projection units and is a dying product because of Powerpoint presentations on computers. A particular brand of transparency film that I've always used was the Apollo Inkjet Transparency Film for Inkjet Printers. I've since found out that it's being phased out. You can still buy the transparency film but they seem to have changed formulation which means that the film that's on the side that you print on is much thicker....meaning it's more difficult to get it to release when you want to do an inkjet transparency transfer using rubbing alcohol!

These newer ones will still work with gel medium as the transfer medium, but I particularly like the ease with which rubbing alcohol spritzed onto the printed image and then burnished onto a page will work. The 3M brand of inkjet transparency film is also supposed to be as good as the previously readily available Apollo....I have yet to track it down but will try to do so before my Apollo stocks run out!

These atc's are made using the alcohol and transparency transfer technique... (I coloured the silver German Scrap using "Bottle" alcohol ink....lovely!)

Also, you don't always have to do transfers onto printed or patterned paper. These next 2 are done straight onto plain coloured cardstock. Though the first one I did attach a dictionary quote onto the cardstock first, then did the transfer over the top of it...worked a treat! "Menopause Mauve" is not a usual colour for me to use, but it suited this pic of ol' Liz!

warning: a bit of vintage nudity in this next one.... love the distressed look that you can get with transfers...without even trying!!!!

I thought I had some using the gel medium/transparency method of transfers but I think they are half-done. I'll get them finished and up for viewing, though you won't really be able to tell the difference on the computer screen. It's something that you can see more clearly irl (in real life). The gel medium I use is Golden Soft Gel in matte or Golden Soft Gel in semi-gloss.

On another note, my son, his girlfriend and their puppy leave us tonight to fly back to the East Coast for another year, he has 2 more years in the air-force but is going to try to get posted back here before then. AND we only had one testosterone-fuelled argument between my two grown "boys" in the 4 weeks he's been here!!! Bargain!!! (Jarred, the one who's leaving is 22 and my other son Cort is 19 - still 'boys' to me though!)

Transparency Transfers, atc's & chunky page

Happy 2008 everyone!!! Here in Perth we sweltered over Christmas, the actual day was 41 degrees Celsius (105.8F) and the next day, Boxing Day was 44 (111.2F)....apparently, Perth was the hottest city on the planet on Christmas Day, thank goodness for air-con & swimming pools! New Years Eve was a fizzog for me.....in bed early thanks to a dreadful summer cold. I HAD been giving my hubby heaps about his "man-cold" but ended up catching it off him and needing antibiotics for my ears which were going all abuzz! Doesn't make creating easy with various parts of your face streaming onto your artwork!

I've had a one month hiatus from my atc classes so I'm doing some swaps with a couple of girls, these few are the first of them.....no, I'm not saying who's getting what....it's a surprise! First couple are using images under the small square microscope slides and alcohol ink on the metallic edging tape of the slides.

Next one is tissue paper background (same background as previous green one above), around the image I've used Black Texture Paste in a tube! Yep, the black and white texture paste (Jo Sonja brand) also comes in a tube which is fantastic for piping onto edges or making knobbly dots or whatever. Treasure Gold in green amber is then rubbed over the top to pick up the highlights.

My next atc class is on Inkjet Transparency Transfers using rubbing alcohol. I won't go into detail yet about how to do it, though it IS very easy, after the class I'll write up a little blurb to explain how I do it. Here's the first sample using this technique.

This next one is for my next Tuesday night class on Shrink Plastic, though it also doubles as a Microscope Slide atc as well! It's ambidextrous! lol

Our Altered Book Club (ABC) is still doing our monthly chunkies, I'm a little behind but have managed to do my Art Deco page....kinda simple but I think that was the beauty of Art Deco. The picture is Louise Brooks, she epitomises the "look" of Art Deco as far as I'm concerned and the quote is another from Dorothy Parker...what wit that woman had! (she was actually talking about Katherine Hepburn when she said this)

The background of this next atc was my scrap paper that I had used when colouring something else with Ranger Peeled Paint distress ink, then I painted the black frames used on my Art Deco page on the same piece of scrap paper. Too cool to throw away as it looked great with the contrast of the pale green and the strong black. The funny looking picture underneath this atc is the actual background, it's A4 size and the white bit is where I cut the atc from.