Dotty For Diamonds!

... oohlalalaaaa... I been a-playing again with the fabby new Texture Stamps from Darkroom Door.  This time I  used the Dots and Harlequin backgrounds for my canvas... and also used up a "playtime practice piece" of greyboard too.  A couple of weeks ago I was faffing about with the brayer and some Fresco Paints and made a few backgrounds, just practicing with different ways to apply the paints.  As ever, I don't chuck owt in the bin so this piece was sitting on my desk, just behind the pile-of-other-stuff-that-needs-attention-and-has-not-been-sorted-yet and I spied it and thought to myself "aha, I shall use this and be tidy"  Actually I didn't really think that at all, I just thought "wonder what the Dots would look like stamped with Wendy's red Archival inks... "  So that is exactly what I did....

Inking up the Dots stamp whilst it was in my hand - not on a block - with Carnation Red Archival Ink and then pressing the stamp down onto the painted board... mmm, yummo!  Love that random stamped effect of using fingers to support the stamp and not a block.  I then added Geranium Archival Ink for a bit of contrast in Dot colours.  Next I inked the Harlequin Texture stamp in the same way, this time with Watering Can Archival (have I mentioned this is a GO TO ink?  Oh yesh, not as in your face as black but dark enough to see it... perfect Wendy... thank you you STAR!!!)  

Anyways, enough wafflings... on with the how I maded this:  So, I dried off the Archival Inks with a heat tool I inked up the Sprig from Full Bloom Vol. 2 in Black and stamped this onto the base.  I then set about making some florally embellishments... starting with the large Frangipani flower, stamped onto cream card and to make the big one a medium size one, I used my fine liner pen and sketched smaller petals within the larger ones and cut them out... voila, medium flower!  I stamped ickle blooms and cut those out and then coloured them all with Spiced Marmalade, Barn Door and Fired Brick DI's.  I die cut some leaves and coloured these with Forest Moss DI and also stamped a butterfly from Wings.. coloured with red DI applied with a waterbrush for a softer look.  Black Distress Glitter in the middle of the flowers to make them pop a little and then smidges of Treasure Gold around the edges.  Oh and I forgot! I had added Grungepaste mixed with Little Black Dress to the top of the board using Dina's sunray stencil... that got some Treasure Gold slapped onto it too. 

Now, all this is very well but... it is a bit small!  I am never one for making mahooosive pieces but this was a bit diddy so I grabbed a 5 x 7" canvas and then applied some more paints using the brayer to the edges of it... making sure I kept it a wee bit darker than the base board so it made a frame for it.   Once I was happy with that, I inked up the Dots again with Jet Black Archival and stamped around the edge of the canvas.  NOOOOO!!! It looked awful!  Yikes! What to do???  The Dots were too "in yer face" and I didn't like it one bit... so I grabbed the Fresco's and brayered some more over the top... and cos they are different grades, I used translucents ones and then a smidge of Little Black Dress over the top... phew! you can see the Dots but they are not jumping out at you and waving in your face!  Happy with all of that, I then glued it all together, adding smidges of Treasure Gold around the edges of the canvas so it toned it nicely.

Cor blimey, you still with me? That was a very lot of wafflings!  Anyways, CLICK HERE to see what my talented Teamies have been up to with the new release of Texture Stamps... ohlalaa... Rachel has told me that there's a special stamp on its way to me, am SO excited, can't wait for it to chuff into the Room of Stash.... *wink*   HERE is the page for all the new Darkroom Door releases too...   Thanks for looking, have a very goodly day!  TTFN

Hels x