BUBBLE BACKGROUNDS

 This class is all about creating bubble backgrounds. There are various ways to do it and it can be a bit messy but the fact it can be done on both atc size pieces of card or watercolour paper or a larger sheet is excellent! There are loads of videos on Youtube showing how to do this technique and you can use acrylic paint, food colouring or, as I did, Distress re-inkers and liquid watercolours. Another quick way to build up your background stash of papers/cards.

"Live simply"
(The vase is one of my hand-drawn ones using
watercolour for the vase and the Pilot G-Tec C4
bleeding gel pen for the floral stems.) A piece of
textured paper was used for the tablecloth.)


"Dance with your heart"
(The heart is a stamp that was stamped on shrink
plastic, shrunk and then coloured with alcohol
ink on the back for the colour.)


"Sticks & Stones"
(The bones are made using the Ranger QuickCure
Clay in a Finnabair mould.)

"Bloom"
(Another of my hand-drawn florals. The golden
leaf die-cuts are from a piece of chocolate
wrapper that was too pretty to throw out. It 
was attached to a piece of double-sided adhesive

sheet then die-cut and attached.)


"Vision"
(Another of my hand-drawn, translate: quickly
scribbled, botanical pieces that was drawn with
the Pilot G-Tec C4 coloured gel pens that can
be activated with an aqua brush to get the
colour to bleed. I call them my plane crash pens
and the girls know what I'm talking about
immediately. Plane crash = Pilot bleeding.
Yes, dumb I know, but they remember it now.)

"The heart"

NEUROGRAPHIC DRAWING

 Neurographic Drawing was something I've been drawn to as I've noticed it more and more popping up in my feeds on FB and Insta. A description I found on Google says it is described as a technique that comprises drawing freeform lines or 'neuro lines'. These are meant to enable the connection between the conscious and unconscious, gaining access to the inner self by using a specific algorithm or method. I found it extremely addictive and very meditative as you aren't consciously thinking about what you're doing, you are just doing it. You can add colour, or not, doodle within the shapes, or not, add extra lines, ribbons, circles, dots, whatever you choose to do. I used a combination of watercolour paints, watercolour pencils and Pilot G-Tec C4 coloured gel pens to add the colours. The lines were done with Pentel DX 0.28 and Sharpie Super-fine black marker.

This is my cover for Technique Book #31.
The size is 20cm x 15cm (8" x 6") so is a fair
bit larger than the atc's that follow.


"Creativity"

"Disturb"

"Stop overthinking"

"Perspective"

"My path"

"Simplicity"

Finally, a card I made using an Elegant Writer Calligraphy pen. This pen is a black chisel tip felt style pen that bleeds when activated with water into gorgeous shades of grey, blue, mauve and pink. 

WREATH STAMPING

 There are templates that you can purchase to create a wreath style of stamping on a card. I chose to make one as it's a simple process and there are lots of YouTube videos available showing how to create your own. Card fronts are much bigger than ATCs so it can be a little challenging to get your wreath to fit onto the rectangular shape of an atc but it can be done, as shown by my samples below. The good thing is the same size template will also work for cards a it's all about the placement of the stamp on the door of the stamp positioner as to how small your wreath can be. Wreath stamping does not have to be leaves or flowers as is usually used. My samples show that you can use whatever small-sized stamps that you choose to. Yes, I chose bats, skulls and spiders for some of mine. I hope you give it a try, it's such a great technique!

"Excuse me"
(The black border around the edge of this atc is
created using the Distress Oxide re-inker from
my Bleeding Borders class. The gold accent
colour around the edge and on the bat is Golden
Hour Solar Paste swiped onto black. Such a
great effect!)


"Fly away"
(You can see you don't need to colour in the
background of the atc at all with this
technique. There is enough going on
with the wreath stamping and a focal image.)


Here is a closer look at the sparkle on the bee.


"Be you, bravely"
(The bleeding lines around the edge of this atc
is created with the Pilot G-Tec C4 gel pens that
come in colours and can be activated with water.
I love the Banksy sticker that makes the focal
point in the wreath and the little bootprints
were from a Christmas stamp set that I never used any
other parts of, except the boot prints.)

"Shine brightly"
(This background is Supervision Layering 
Watercolour paints. It is one colour that granulates
and separates into blue and purple.)


Another close-up to see the sparkle of the WOW
glittery embossing powder on the dragonfly.

"An unfortunate ending"

"Life is good"
(Sometimes clean and simple just works.
I was pretty impressed by how small I got that
wreath on the skull's head!)

FLAT BRUSH WATERCOLOUR & SPECIALTY PENS

 I've been having a play with a small flat brush with my watercolour paints and I thought I'd combine a few different products to add a little extra something to my atc's. For the colouring, I used Paul Ruben watercolours, the black fine line drawing on some of these samples was a combination of a Uni-Ball Signo DX 0.28 extra fine gel pen and a Pilot G-Tec-C4 black gel pen. The Pilot G-Tec-C4  bleeds when wet so you get a smudged effect when drawn through wet watercolour. I also used my Lisilinka Watercolour Paints, which are so wonderfully sparkly and my new set of Pentel Hybrid Dual Metallic Gel Pens which are also full of sparkle, much more than any other glitter gel pen I've used. 
The technique to do these flowers can be found here on Youtube, by the very talented Maremi Simplecraft.

"Be-leaf"
(The background was created with a flat brush
while the leaves were done with a #4 round brush.)


"Fake people"


"Live in the moment"
(These stems were drawn with the Uni-Ball
Signo DX extra fine gel pen.)


"The hum of bees"

"The good stuff"
(This frond shape was also done using the
flat brush while the silver line drawing on
it was created with the Pentel Dual Hybrid gel pens.)


"Cat Lady"
(These stems were drawn with the Pilot G-Tec-C4
gel pen and you can see the bleeding where they were
drawn through the wet watercolour on the vase.)

This next one is a card I made using the same
technique to create the flower and Lisilinka
Watercolour paints to do the sparkly lines
radiating out from the centre. These watercolours
can't be appreciated unless you see them in person.
They are spectacular!

Another card using the same technique but I couldn't
resist adding extra bits to this one so it's much
more busy than the others.