Stacked

Focus52/2012, week 13 (mach 25-31): stack

On Monday, I had to go to Germany for the day, to Konstanz, just on the other side of the border, to attend a course. Luckily, I had a little bit of time left after the course to go to my favourite pottery before I had to catch my train.

I love these mugs. I think they're gorgeous, and they just have a perfect shape. I bought the first one, the bottom one, about two or three years ago, and every time I go to Konstanz, I buy another one. Or at least I try. Because the last couple of times I went there, there were only one or two left, and she told me that she had just made a new batch, which were all in the oven. But on Monday, there were two lovely blue ones left. I have one more of these, but it's a bigger one, and didn't really fit into the stack.

My goal is to eventually replace all my assorted, mass produced mugs with these hand made ones. One or two at a time. And maybe next time I go there, the new batch will be just out of the oven.

Paint(ed) box

I didn't do much painting this week, at least not picture wise, but I did something I've been wanting to do for ages. Some time ago, I bought a little wooden box at a "Brockenhaus" (second hand/thrift shop) to keep my pastels in. It had the right size, it was cheap, and I thought that it was pretty enough to have good "make-over potential".

It was rather dark, a bit dull, and had some pieces of paper still sticking to it. It  needed some colour and brightening up. I started with a couple of layers of gesso. I didn't really bother to remove the paper bits. I tried, but they were sticking very fast, and I didn't have the patience to peel it off.

Now, what colour? I decided on some lovely purple. Simply because it's one of my favourite colours :).

But it wa a bit too purple and needed some white over it.

And at the end some toning down to make it look more old and worn and woody.

So here it is, my finished little paint(ed) box to keep my pastels in.

Happy Paint Party Friday

A box, some gift wrapping paper & a bit of washi tape

This little box is just the perfect size to keep my oil paint sticks in. But it looked rather plain, and in need of some colour.

So I took some lovely spring green gift wrapping paper and pasted it on with gel medium. Sounds easy, and it is, actually, but when you're as clumsy and ackward with everything gluey as me, it gets quite messy. But worth it. At least if you're not too bothered if it doesn't turn out completely smooth and perfect. Which it never does. At least not when I do it.

I had some Washi tape lying around which happened to be just the perfect colour for this. And a good chance to actually use it. So all around it went. I can never resist Washi tape when I see it in the shops, and I alreaday have a pile of it, but I always forget to use it, so it just lies around gathering dust most of the time.

Waiting for the gel medium to dry. Just ignore all the imprefections...

Looking much better now, despite all the little imperfections, and perfect for my oil sticks. I actually really enjoyed it, despite all the sticky mess, and now I have to look for some more boxes to past paper and tape on! And isn't this just the perfect excuse to mailorder some of those gorgeous patterned paper at Shepherds  Falkiners in London?! :)

Colour Mini Album

I finally, finally, about three months after the end of the course, managed to finish my mini album :-). In October 2010, I came across the e-course Colour! Or is it Color? at Big Picture Classes. It sounded interesting, I signed up and liked it a lot. It was the first time I'd done any scrapbooking at all. In fact, I hadn't even heard about it before the course.

Front cover

We looked at colour in special, following the colours of the rainbow - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, adding the neutrals black and white in addition. Apart from creating a layout with the respective colours, we also did those little colour cards. For each colour we got a square card with information about the respective colour. In addition, we created a matching page with a mini layout for each colour. In the last week, we then were to make the covers and turn the whole thing into a mini colour reference album.

Front and back covers

As I already said, it took me 3 months to do this. Not because I didn't want to do it. On the contrary. But there were so many things coming in between. Most of all all the photography and post processing e-courses I was taking, resulting in me spending virtually all my free time at the computer the last few weeks. I absolutely enjoy post processing and there's still a lot I want to learn about photography. And I needed that time to shut myself away and totally concentrate on those classes. But now, I want to make room for other things again, among them scrapbooking. So on Saturday, I got out all my stuff and finally finished my mini album. First I glued the pages together, back to back (I'm really a mess with glue) and then made the covers (oh what fun putting all those layers on top of each other!), sticking the first and last of the colour cards on the respective covers. Then punching the holes, of course not without punching them at the wrong side on one of my cards (my, I'm such an idiot at times) and finally putting the rings through - et voilà.

I must say, I'm very pleased with the result. And even a little bit proud (despite the punching mistake). And very much INSPIRED to do more of these mini albums. Don't they make a wonderful gift as well?

That class was so much fun and I think really quite the beginning of my phase of creativity and inspiration!

Back and front covers

I just realised that this is my 100th post! Wow, that went quick. Hopefully many more to come! :-)

Differences Between Inks

What I probably love most about scrapbooking are the gorgeous patterned papers and the beautifull flourish stamps. When I had a look at one of the online shop websites, I noticed the great variety of both stamps and ink pads. Up till now, all I knew were the good old wooden stamps and, well, an ink pad. But apparently, there's so much more to inks and stamps. Rather confusing, really. So I did some research on stamps and inks, and here's what I found about the differences between inks and which to use for what:

Inking Techniques

Difference between pigment ink and dye ink

Difference between dye-based and solvent based and pigment based inks

Video Dye Ink vs Solvent Ink

My new beautiful wooden flourish stamp. Love it with gold ink.

The very first attempt

Yesterday, after my shopping trip, I just couldn't wait to start. The class starts on 28 October, but we are given a pre-class exercise, creating five tags (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet). Unfortunately, I didn't have the step-by-step instructions with me, only the supply list with a small picture of finished tags. But I simply couldn't wait, so I just improvised.

The most important things for the task I hadn't been able to get: the shipping tags. So I bought a set of plain folded cream coloured cards, which I cut into four stripes. Cutting off the upper edges and punching a hole in between turned them into my required tags. 

For colouring the edges and the flourish, I used my acrylic paints and for decorated the tag with my newly acquired set of stamps. I had tried to buy some coloured and/or patterned paper but somehow couldn't really make up my mind about which ones and I didn't want to spend a fortune at once buying a whole range of different colours. So I just bought a big sheet of this beautiful Japanese structured paper (the one the tag is lying on). I cut off a strip of it and coloured it green, using acrylic paint and wrapped it around the tag. I didn't like the coloured roses they had in the shop, so I bought the plain white ones here as well and painted them and glued them on the tag. Around that a strip of red packing paper with some added acrylic colour. I painted the string, simple white cotton string, as well, to get a matching pinky red. 

So, that's my first tag and first every scrapbooking technique thingy. It's not quite how it should look according to theinstructions but it's going to be my "green tag", as I'm rather pleased (and surprised!!) with the result :-). Can't wait to do the other 5 and for the class to start! What fun :-)

Trying out something new

I'm going to try out something completely new - Scrapbooking. I wanted a bit of a challenge and decided to sign up for one of the courses at Big Picure Classes I had planned to do a photography course but then I saw the course "Colour! Or is it Color?" which immediately caught my eye. I love colours and that sounded like a great idea. I took a closer look at the course description and realised that it wasn't actually a photography class but a scrapbooking class. Scrapbooking? I actually had to look it up on Wikipedia, as I haven't really heard of it before. But it sounded great and fun and so creative and like a good way to make something with my pictures, tell a story, create memories. And it seemed a great way to bring together different things I love doing - photography, acrylic painting and calligraphy. So I signed up for the course and I'm so looking forward to the next 6 weeks. :-)