Wednesday 3 April 2019

Hi Everyone,

Today's project is colourful and vibrant - makes me happy just looking at it! Using Das Air Drying Clay certainly challenged me!  Our Highveld climate is dry and warm and I constantly had to spray the clay and my hands with water to keep it moist enough to work with.  



Using silicone & ball tools and the most important tool of all  - your hands & fingers shape the 5 cats.

As mentioned the clay dries very quickly.  Keep a spray bottle filled with water close by and regularly moisten your hands and the clay.  I prefer working with the small 150g packs of clay, so that I have just enough for each project.  Just break off enough clay to use and keep the rest in a zip bag.  

As the clay dries it turns from grey to white.  The butterflies and bird was made with a mould.  I prefer leaving the clay to dry in the mould, it will pop out easily when dry.

Prime a piece of MDF with white Gesso and add the screw-in hooks when dry.

Cover the hooks with clay.

Once dry the air dry clay is easily sanded.


Paint with Dina Wakley Media Heavy Body 59ml Acrylic Paint in Magenta.  This paint is so pigmented and vibrant that one layer was enough.

Paint the cats with Dina Wakley Media Heavy Body paints.

Use a Posca Paint Marker to create a border.

Paint blocks with black acrylic paint.

Paint blocks with white acrylic paint.

Add all the painted pieces with Aleene's Quick Dry Tacky Glue.

Wednesday 13 March 2019

Hi Everone,


Tombow Dual Brush Makers have been the go-to marker for South African cardmakers and scrapbookers alike.  Robyn Anderson, our local lettering expert has been twisting my arm for a while to stock the Tombow Dual Brush Markers.  Having never used it before, I decided to give it a go ...

What a pleasure it was!  These markers have excellent durable nibs - flexible nylon fibre brush tip on one end that creates medium or bold strokes and a fine tip on the other end for smooth straight lines or writing. The ink is water-based ink and is blendable, odourless and non-bleeding - available in 95 scrumptious colours and a blender.

I had the best results on watercolour paper, but loved the effect in my art journal with it's  Modigliani 200GSM Mixed Media paper.

Stamp poppies (Stampendous Cling Rubber Stamp - Pretty Poppies CRS5096) with Ranger Archival Ink Watering Can. This stampset also includes the masks.
 
Start with the darkest colour for the shaded areas #879 Brown, next #837 Wine Red and then the lightest colour #856 Chinese Red.

Blend with water, from the lightest to the darkest. 

Colour the leaves starting again with the darkest colour for the shaded areas #346 Sea Green, next #277 Dark Green and the lightest colour #195 Light Green.

Blend with water, this time from the darkest to the lightest colour.