Saturday 24 December 2016

Mamhead Album–More Backgrounds

Working on the album this afternoon, listening to the carol service from King’s College Chapel in Cambridge – sublime.

During my last session I did some stencilling on my sparkly black card, using Polyfilla One Fill (joint compound), which were now dried.

79 Stencilling with Polyfilla

A couple of backgrounds I made in the last session, too.

80 Backgrounds with Distress Inks and Infusions

The one at the front was made by smearing three colours of distress ink onto my craft sheet, spritzing with water, and smooshing the card around in it. The ones at the back were done with Black Soot Infusions. I sprinkled some onto the craft sheet and sprayed on a little water, and I then painted this in straight bands using a wide fan brush. This background was a mistake because I should have painted the stripes vertically rather than horizontally, but it doesn’t matter because I shall still use them. I sprinkled on a bit of water to make them blotchy and more interesting.

I didn’t quite like the shade of green on the inked ones, so I added a layer of Picket Fence distress stain, smoothing out the unevenness with the fan brush dipped in water.

81 Inked Backgrounds Before and After Picket Fence Distress Stain

Here are three backgrounds – on the right, the green ones with the Picket Fence distress stain added; in the middle, the horizontal Infusions ones, and on the left, Infusions painted in vertical stripes as I originally intended.

82 3 Backgrounds with Distress Inks and Infusions

Taking the stencilled pages, I added a further stencil using Finnabair heavy body transparent gloss gel medium for a bit of contrast.

83 Stencilled Backgrounds with Polyfilla and Clear Gel Medium

I didn’t like the flat white of the Polyfilla ones, so I covered the whole page with vertical stripes of painted black Infusions, which toned them down and added a bit of texture. I like how the Black Soot Infusion has a greenish tinge to it.

84 Stencilled Backgrounds with Infusions

Paired pages – two pictures of beech trees.

86 Beech Paired Pages

The following background pieces I was particularly pleased with – I saw this technique recently online and was dying to try it.

85 Woodgrain Backgrounds with Infusions

To get this gorgeous woodgrain effect, I pooled some Golden Sands Infusions onto my craft sheet with water, and painted vertical lines with a fan brush. The walnut pieces give a lovely speckled effect that you so often see in natural woodgrain. The black ones above were based on the same idea but didn’t give such a dramatic effect because the brown speckles of the walnut pieces in the black Infusion don’t show up very well.

I had four different photos of tree trunks that I took in the woods. They were too large for my little pages, so I tore them down to a smaller size, which also gave them a more interesting shape. I distressed the edges with Vintage Photo distress ink, using an Inkylicious Ink Duster.

87 Tree Trunk Photos Torn and Inked

Here they are, stuck down onto the wood grain pages, using soft matte gel medium.

88 Tree Trunk Paired Pages

Finally, here are three more paired pages. I’ve used the blotchy horizontally striped Infusions one to go with the map – this will be the title page of the book.

89 Three Paired Pages

The vertically-striped Infusions one was made to go with the Zentangle tracing with the numerous tree trunks, and the stencilled one to go with the other Zentangle tracing with fewer trunks.

Once I have finished making the pages and backgrounds, I shall add leaves and text, and maybe some more cut-outs using Sheba, my Cougar cutting machine – I’d like to cut some branches to stick down over some of the backgrounds, and add some leaves. So – still quite a lot of work to do! I am so looking forward to getting on with the binding, and designing the cover. No hope that this will be finished by the end of the year, I don’t think – but I shall do my best.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks so much for your lovely comment on my LifeBook 2016, Shoshi! Your woodland album is coming along nicely! I just LOVE that Julie Balzer stencil - been eying it for a while! Your stenciling with the texture paste looks perfect! I'm always so nervous to do that and seldom get it right the first time. It looks like a lot of thought goes into each and every page and the album will be a masterpiece when ready! Like all those earthy colours! Happy Boxing Day! xx

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