Blue Danube

Every year we enjoy watching the famous New Year’s concert from Vienna, Austria, which features my all time favourite classical music by Strauss. This art journal page celebrates one of the most well-known waltzes by Johann Strauss called the Blue Danube and takes inspiration from the beautiful roses at this year’s concert.

Over at Try it on Tuesday, the current theme is Fire and Ice where you are asked to use hot or cold colours like the hot reds and cool blues on my page. I hope you are inspired to join in the fun, this challenge runs for another week and it would be great to see you there!

I started by tearing the edges from a piece of music sheet detailing the Blue Danube Waltz and sticking the torn pieces around the edge of my page using a UHU Stic. I aged these papers using Brushed Corduroy and Black Soot Distress Ink and a blending tool, and also a black Faber-Castell Big Brush marker and Derwent Graphik marker smudging the inks with my finger as I applied them. I then added a colour wash of Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink by stamping the ink pad directly onto an acrylic block and applying the ink using a paintbrush to apply the ink onto the page which I had already spritzed with water. I also pressed the ink onto the page from the acrylic block to create pools and dots of blue colour and then I dried them with a heat gun. Next I stamped a series of stamps from the Musicality stamp set by Docrafts using Danube Blue, Paris Dusk, Teal Zeal and Bahamas Blue Memento Inks ensuring that I stamped around the music sheet to completely cover the background. Then I curled the edges of the central piece of music sheet and stuck it onto the page using double-sided tape.

I used my Big Shot to die cut the leaf swirls from gold metallic paper, I also die cut the green leaves, using the Garden Greens Sizzix Thinlets by Tim Holtz, from some green design paper. I coloured and edged them with Leaf Green Spectrum Aqua marker to intensify the colour and they are all stuck into place using glue dots and a Zig Memory System glue pen. For the roses, I used a rose stamp from the same Docrafts Musicality stamp set and black Archival Ink to stamp them onto a pale pink design paper which I backed with white card. I coloured these roses using Rose Pink, Begonia and Sunflower Spectrum Aqua markers which I applied using a paintbrush like watercolour; I did this by scribbling the inks onto an acrylic block so I could pick up the ink with a paintbrush. They are also edged with the Rose Pink Spectrum Aqua marker and layered on top of the leaves and swirls using double-sided foam tape, which finished the page.

If you haven’t seen it here’s a link to the Blue Danube Waltz being played at the New Year’s Concert Vienna Philharmonic 2018. I love the New Year’s concert and some of you may remember me featuring it last year on one of my posts, where I detailed some interesting facts about the Blue Danube and Johann Strauss too.

Before we watched this year’s concert we celebrated the first day of the year in style by having a breakfast of smoked salmon with scrambled eggs on a toasted English muffin. I also had a glass of Bucks Fizz, which is orange juice and prosecco (or sparkling white wine or champagne could be used instead); sharing this drink means that I’m joining the T Gang over at T Stands for Tuesday – cheers and wishing you all a very Happy T Day!

Challenges

I’m glad I found out about Challenge Blogs as I enjoy taking part, they provide me with inspiration for my pages and are a wonderful way to meet like-minded arty people. So here are the challenges I’m joining today:

Over at Moo Mania & More the theme is Inspired by a Song which gave me the perfect excuse to create my Blue Danube page, thank you!

I’m pleased to join the lovely Erika N, also known as BioArtGal, who is hosting the New Year, New Adventures challenge over at Art Journal Journey with my New Year’s adventure!

I’m joining in the fun over at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge and their Layer It Up challenge with my layer music sheet, dies and stamped roses.

I enjoyed using all the stamps to create this page so I’m also pleased to join the Anything Goes challenge over at The Artistic Stamper.

As I used stamps for the focal images on my page, I’m also happy to be able to join Fashionable Stamping Challenges and their Anything Goes challenge.

With my cool blue background, I’m also joining the Cold and Frosty Colours challenge over at Stamping Sensations.

Again and again I’m drawn to use my Distress Inks to create backgrounds and my Memento Inks for stamping, and as these are some of my favourite mediums I’m joining the Allsorts Challenge Blog and their Old Favourites challenge.

Thanks for joining me today! If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.

Here is a list of all the materials used to create this art journal page:

• Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Brushed Corduroy and Black Soot Chipped Sapphire)
• Tsukeniko Memento Ink (Danube Blue, Paris Dusk, Teal Zeal, Bahama Blue)
• Spectrum Aqua Artist Markers (Leaf Green, Rose Pink, Begonia, Sunflower)
• Ranger Archival Ink (Jet Black)
• Faber-Castell Big Brush Pitt artist pen (Black 199)
• Derwent Graphik Line Marker (Black 0.8mm)
• Docrafts Creativity Essentials A5 clear stamp set (Musicality DCE907112)
• Sizzix Thinlets by Tim Holtz Alterations (Garden Greens
• Swirl Leaf Die – unknown
• Music of all Nations Music Booklet
• Gold Paper
• Poundland Design Pad (Contemporary Christmas CR0701K/PL4)
• Craft Sensations Design Pad (Pastels & White CR0260/PW)
• Card – recycled packaging
• UHU Stic
• Docrafts Stick It! double-sided tape
• Wilko Sticky Dots
• Zig Memory System 2 Way Glue (Dual Action Glue Pen)
• The Range double-sided foam tape