Sunday 6 May 2007

Face the Music

Time to get back to my 'homework' and try to make another 'Faces' card.

A sad face inspired me to do a Face the Music ATC

I had read that stamping on tissue gives a good effect.

So my first attempt was to glue a miniature music sheet onto an ATC - (I had aged it so it wasn't gleaming black and white. Next I covered it with tissue and stamped the face on it.

It did look nice and I was both proud and relieved that at last I had made one I was happy with.

So much so that I even celebrated with a few liquorice sticks my husband brought to my garden shed/studio for me!

I sat there gloating - then looked carefully. Oh No! After covering the music sheet with tissue, I hadn't noticed that I must have turned it before stamping on the face and the music behind was upsidedown.

You can guess where that one ended up.

Now here is the one I did finally make. The scan does not show that the face is embossed, so is shiny copper in real life.



I looked through a little old book of music scores with words and found a suitable sad one. Cut out the ageing page (sacrilege)and stuck it on. Added a couple of bits of 'antique' scrap paper.

Retrieved a bit of the music score from the bin, added some tissue paper and stamped on the face and then the embossing powder.

Was it worth it? Not sure.

Meconopsis


I had a bit of paper left over that just happened to be the right size to fit an ATC sized piece of card.

So I spent the next hour or so, adding more and more layers of watercolour pencil work - and the above is the result - I quite like this - it is nice and cheery and full of texture.

Dragonfly on Meconopsis


Do you ever spend hours doing something and nothing works out how you wanted it too?

Well I have had a whole afternoon like that - so here are my mistakes and what I have learnt from them!

This one was going to be for a 'Faces' themed swap.

I saw a picture of a meconopsis I liked, and thought it lent itself to a child's face in the centre. I found a vintage face that was perfect. Cut it out and it wasn't quite round. (I wanted it to actally tuck into the poppy centre.) I cut a bit more off - and yes, you know how it is. It never was perfect enough for me so it went into the bin.

A flash of inspiration - I would stamp a face onto some acetate and tuck that in. Well I tried all sorts of colours and all sorts of faces. Finally got The colour combination right - went to stick it in - when I learnt another very important lesson.

Ink pad ink doesn't seem to ever dry on acetate. So that idea was abandoned. I carried on 'playing' and added more colour and details and finished it.

Later I thought it lacked focus so decided to try stamping a dragonfly onto it. Thought that would look good.

Mistake number 2 - You can't stamp an image directly onto something that has any raised surfaces.

You can tell that I am a total novice with stamping - but I so want to learn how to do it