More Spotlight Technique

Here are more of the Spotlight Technique that was mentioned in the last post. My first classes are tomorrow and I'm sure the girls will love the clean and structured style this technique has. Also another good excuse to just simply stamp! So drag out those Twinkling H2O's, the old Tombow markers with your blending pen or even the container of those cracked and broken stamping chalks and get colouring!!!

I thought I'd show you what the page in the book looks like with the atc's attached to it. On the left hand side (where you can't see) there is another page the same size with the instructions attached so each page has instructions and samples for every technique. Click on it for a larger view. The size of each page in the book is 8" wide x 6" high.

"Mere Illusion"... (face stamp by Cherry Pie, scroll stamp by Joyce from Paper Forest)

"Nature"... (yep, here's that pesky dragonfly stamp again, Stampers Anonymous. After adding the colour I've also used the Frosted Lace Stickles over the wing and the blue circle area, nice & textural but without "in-your-face" glitter.)

"Clarity"... (Babs55 has corrected me on the maker of the stamp below (thank you!). I had originally said it was Zetti, though it is actually another Stampers Anonymnous stamp. The Diamond stamp down the left is another Stampers Anonymous.)

"Renew"...(Now this stamp IS by Lost Coast Designs. This is that reverse style of spotlighting I was talking about in the previous post where the colour is applied to the whole image, then the extra piece that is added over the top of the existing image has no colour on it at all.)

"Pause"...(Same stamp as above with just the face being coloured.)

If any of my students are checking my blog before class tomorrow, please be gentle with me....I'm suffering a huge, red, pulsating, throbbing.........ear-lobe!!! After having my ears pierced 35 years ago, NOW I get an infection! So it's antibiotics & antibiotic ointment for the offending lobe and that's obviously going to create a huge globby, oily mess on the right side of my head as the ointment won't possibly stay where it's supposed to. Maybe I should wear a hat? Nah.....I'll just complain loudly, they'll be "extra nice" to me. ;-) (Actually, they always are....but you didn't hear that from me!)

Spotlight Technique & Final Beeswax ATC's

Firstly, here are the last couple of Beeswax atc's that were started as demo's in the last Beeswax class.

"En-pointe"...
and "Remember"...

Coming up next is another good ol' fashioned stamping technique called Spotlight Technique, another very effective style for both atc's and cards. The idea is to take an image (in my classes we'll be using stamped images), have 2 copies of the image and then highlight a small portion of the image by colouring it, mounting it on black card, then raising it with foam tape. It looks very effective when seen in the flesh, much more so than on a flat scanner! It's also another excuse to get onto using all those stamps that we all collect. You'd be surprised how many people tell me that they just don't use their stamps enough! Well, here's the perfect excuse!

You can also reverse the spotlight effect by colouring all of the first image and then adding a piece of the same image over the top of a section and not colouring that added piece so it stays black and white! Another way I've used this technique for a printed image was to highlight a portion of an image with a small frame, then painted all over the image with Golden brand of gel medium in Soft Gel - Satin. The layer added was slightly thicker than normal and I used my finger to dab up and down into it to add texture immediately after it was applied. I then highlighted what was in the frame and as it didn't have any of the gel medium on it, it looked different than the rest of the image. You need to click on the image to enlarge it to see the effect. Here it is:

"Ornate"...

Some more samples, "Linked"... (not sure who is the maker of this stamp, I'll look into it.)

and "Moments"... (Paris Moments stamp by Hampton Arts)

More to come...

Retro canvas, crackle & Spotlight atc's

I made another canvas today in a retro style, a girl at work (Scraptivate) commented that she liked retro.....I do too - I've done quite a few retro atc's in the past as well as some retro canvases before. This one incorporated some new sequin waste that I had ordered which just arrived from the US, there was some with smaller holes than is available here as well as some with HUGE holes! Sequin waste works great with texture paste....this is what is up on the top left corner of this canvas. I also used the peeled paint technique as well. Poor girl ended up with a big blob of yellow ochre paint over her left eye, which is why she has this other eye over the top....all in the vein of "no such thing as a mistake"!

Also made today was a couple more Spotlight Technique atc's for the up-coming atc class next Saturday...one of these will become the raffle atc.

This one is made with an alcohol ink background on gloss card, the second stamped images are on plain white gloss card which have then been slightly coloured with Tombow markers. You can't really see this very well on the computer screen, the colouring is very subtle but can be seen better irl (in real life).

Next one is on plain copy paper, smoosh technique using Rangers Distress ink in Mustard Seed and Pine Needles. Second image is on plain white cardstock, colouring was done using the Ranger Cut 'n dry nibs on the Distress Ink Pads in various colours - Tattered Rose, Pine Needles, Broken China and Worn Lipstick. As well as the inimitable German Scrap coloured with Treasure Gold!

Coming up soon in my atc classes is a crackle class. There are several products out there that will do a crackle effect, not always exactly how you want them to though! This next atc I have used the Helmar 2 step crackle on the angel and after it was dry & cracked, I rubbed some Quinacridone Crimson (Golden) over the top to define the cracks...love crackle!!! Will be interesting to see how Tim Holtz's new crackle paint turns out. I believe this is a 1 step crackle with is always a bonus PLUS it's going to come in all the fabulous distress colours. Think I might put off the crackle class until this stuff arrives in our store!

Comments are always welcome, even if it's to say "you talk too much!" hahahaha