Dare to be different

Our new challenge over at A Vintage Journey this month is hosted by Annie who has chosen the fantastic theme Inky Wings and here’s the challenge description that Annie kindly provided:

“Make any project you like as long as ink and wings are included in some way. This includes backgrounds, stamped images, art journals, and portions of your project coloured with ink. Any kind of ink is welcome, so let’s get creative within our preferred styles of vintage, shabby, mixed media, art journaling, industrial, timeworn or steampunk”.

If, like me you want to have fun art journaling with wings and lots of different inks, then why not join our challenge too; it would be great to see you there (grin!).

I started by painting Blueprint Sketch and Twisted Citron Distress Ink onto the background and stamping some Kaisercraft lattice, barcode and tiny dots stamps using black Archival Ink. Then I splattered the page with Carbon Black Liquitex Ink and had fun dripping Black Soot Distress Ink vertically down the page. I added some lacy Halloween collage paper from Tim Holtz using Liquitex matte gel medium, crunching the paper up at the edges to add texture. It is edged with a black Faber-Castell Big Brush marker and also some more of the Black Carbon Liquitex Ink which I spritzed with water so it looked misty. I then stamped more of the tiny dots using black Archival Ink over the edges of the collage paper. I drew a butterfly and outlined it with the black Faber-Castell Big Brush marker then added some drips to the ends of its wings using the Black Carbon Liquitex Ink. For the antennae I used Liquid Pearls and when everything was dry, I painted the butterfly with a thick layer of white gesso. Next I chose some contrasting colours for my butterfly to match the words I used on this page; it is coloured using Spiced Marmalade and Fired Brick Distress Inks and Tangerine and Poppy Red Derwent Inktense pencils. I added more detail to the butterfly wings using a black Derwent marker and a white Uni Posca Paint Pen and then covered it with Ranger Glossy Accents so the colours stood out more. Then I splattered the whole page with some Titanium White Liquitex Ink and to finish, I added the wording which reads “Dare to be Different” which I created using an alphabet die set and my Big Shot machine.

For more inspiration, please pop over to see what my fellow Creative Guides over at A Vintage Journey created for our Inky Wings challenge, it would be lovely to see you there!

With it being October I seemed to be channelling Halloween hence the dark and moody design, whilst also thinking about this Common Blue butterfly that I saw in our garden; it was amongst a lot of Painted Lady butterflies so it seemed the words “dare to be different” were appropriate (grin!). This one is the female of the species and has the pretty orange dots along the edges of its wings unlike the male which is coloured all blue. These butterflies like grassland habitats such as the coastal dunes where we live.

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

Challenges

I’m pleased to join the lovely Eileen of The Artful Crafter and her Dreams or Wishes challenge over at Art Journal Journey with my “dare to be different” wishes.

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

• Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Blueprint Sketch, Twisted Citron, Black Soot, Spiced Marmalade, Fired Brick)
• Kaisercraft Clear Stamp (Flutter CS853, Mister Fox CS173, Tiny Dots CS360)
• Ranger Archival Ink (Jet Black)
• Liquitex Ink! (Carbon Black, Titanium White)
• Tim Holtz Idea-ology Collage Paper (Halloween #TH93712)
• Faber-Castell Big Brush Pitt artist pen (Black 199)
• Ranger Liquid Pearls (Ivy Green)
• Pébéo White Gesso
• Derwent Inktense Pencils (Tangerine 0300, Poppy Red 0400)
• Derwent Graphik Line Marker (Black 0.5mm)
• Uni Posca Paint Pen (White)
• White Cardstock
• Docrafts X-Cut Alphabet Die Set (Centurion XCU503083)
• Liquitex Matte Gel Medium
• Zig Memory System 2-Way Glue (Dual Action Glue Pen)