Secretive: An Art Journal Page with Image Transfer

Hi everyone, and happy Friday! Happy November, too, since this is my first post this month. The darkest time of the year is falling upon us but I have a pretty bright journal spread here to cheer it up.



Inspired by the October Challenge at Wanderlust Class 2017, I tried image transfer with acrylic medium for the first time. I have previously tried packing tape transfer and found it fun. Here, I was excited to see the image lifting directly onto the page, whereas in the tape method the tape remains visible and you need to glue it down.

The images I have used here are inkjet printed and my medium was Liquitex acrylic matte medium.



You can see I have used two different sized transfers of the same vintage image, showing a mysterious woman with daisies and a veil.



I had prepared a background on my square Dylusions Creative Journal collaging bits of gelli printed and die cut book pages, and then added acrylic paint.

What happened with the transfer was that it seemed easy at first but then I did rub too hard and lost quite a few pieces. This was my first try, directly onto the journal background. Luckily, I had printed a smaller version of the same image and tried it on a separate painted paper, and it worked better!



I didn't want to give up my background and taking a second look at it, I came to think that the smaller image on the orange piece of paper might look cool mounted on the side of the more broken image, so this is what I did.



At the same time I was trying to learn from a recent lesson by Kasia Avery at Wanderlust 2017, about the use of Black and White as Contrasts, and how they can work to calm down or unify a page with many colors. I think the final spread is still slightly too busy/colorful for my mood at the moment, but I didn't have time to work it any longer, wanting to make the challenge deadline.



I also used some lace and machine stitching as effects. The (originally white) lace had been used as a stencil in Gelli printing, so it already had those cool darker and lighter areas. Then some Gelatos around the edges, plus some black stamping, marker and white paint pen. I love the image, she reminds me of a good fairy with a secret that makes her smile!



The image, by the way, is printed from The Graphics Fairy, who offers thousands of good quality copyright-free vintage images for free. (There is also a paid Premium membership option, but I haven't felt the need for it so far. It would especially benefit someone working digitally, since it offers a lot of special effects for editing programs).

This site is a great resource for finding images for transfer techniques, and its search engine helps to find images in the theme that you want.



I am also linking my project to this week's challenge at Take a Word. The theme is Family Albums, meaning the use of old photos to create some altered art. Photos from other sources are ok, if you don't have family photos, says the challenge guideline.

Happy weekend everyone and thanks for taking a look!

Fearless Graffiti Art Journal Spread

Hello! Here's my art journal spread inspired by the September challenge at More than Words.



I am constantly inspired by the GRUNGY look of graffiti and the way the bright colours pop out in an asphalt and concrete landscape. But graffiti is not just a style, it's also a way to spread out a political message + a voice of rebellion, and that's the kind of graffiti I was particularly thinking of when I created this mixed media collage. I admire the FEARLESS work of graffiti artists, many of whom have had to work in circumstances where the authorities are very hostile towards street art. I've been happy to see in the past few years that many towns and cities have began to value street art in a totally new way!



This spread is a part of a new junk journal I'm working on. I'll post more about it later!



I'm also joining the challenges at:

Sandee and Amelie's Steampunk: Anything Goes with Steampunk or Industrial, and

Art Journal Journey: Colour In My World



Thank you so much for your visit and comments, as always!

Nature's Neutrals ATC Set

Hello everyone! Today I'm posting a set of ATCs I made for a swap at ATCs for All, for a Neutral Colors theme.



I began my collage background from some magazine images with flower pods and leaves in a wintery garden. These lead me to think of autumn, early winter even, after a first snowfall perhaps. So I ended up with a palette of white and shades of brown and yellow.



I added torn paper scraps from book pages and paintings I no longer wanted to keep, and then used gesso to fade the edges.



The edges are coloured with Distress Ink colors Brushed Corduroy and Black Soot.



For embellisments, I chose mistable fabric stickers that I tinted with different yellows and browns, and Wycinanka chipboards that I embossed with WOW embossing ink, color Earthtone Nutmeg.



These cards went for a swap, but I'll let you know in the blog if I make more in same style for trade later on!



I'm entering my ATC set in the following challenges:

Mixed Media Monthly: Vintage. I was inspired by the vintage colour palette, and also had the lace in mind when I applied the subtle, uneven coat of white gesso.



Memuaris: Palette #28, Orange & Brown or Sand & Brown



Mixed Media World: Anything Mixed Media Goes.

And Eclectic Ellapu: Flora and Fauna / Nature



Last but not least, here's a photo of the little extras that I included when mailing the swap. I love getting happy surprises like this so I often include some collage elements myself whenever there's room in my swap envies and the postage limit allows!



Happy weekend to everyone and thank you so much for your visit and comments!

Syksyn kurssien ilmoittautuminen alkaa!

Hello! Today's post will be in Finnish, about my coming workshops.

Hei kaikki! Minulla on tulevana syksynä ilo ja kunnia opettaa jälleen mixed media -askarteluja Espoon työväenopistossa ja lisäksi uutena opetuspaikkana Vantaan aikuisopistossa.

Kaikille kursseille ilmoittaudutaan Ilmonet-järjestelmän kautta joko netissä tai puhelimitse. Ilmoittautuminen Espoon kursseille alkaa tänään 15.8. klo 12 ja Vantaan kursseille klo 13!



Art Journal- luovuutta arkeen
Vantaa (Tikkurila) 28.9.−26.10.2017

Maalit, musteet, leimailu, painaminen, värittäminen, sekatekniikka... lumoudu värien ja kuvioiden maailmasta!

Teemme oman Art Journalin (englanniksi taidepäiväkirja), valintasi mukaan joko vanhaan kirjaan tai helpolla sidonnalla erilaisista papereista. Art Journalin pariin uppoutuu helposti koko päiväksi, mutta opit myös nopeita tekniikoita, joita ehtii tehdä silloinkin, kun aikaa on vain vartti. Mixed media -askartelu on eri tekniikoiden yhdistelyä ja kokeilemisen iloa ja siihen sopivat hyvin kierrätysmateriaalit.


Mixed media - jouluaskartelu
Espoo (Tapiola) 7.11.-19.11.2017

Mixed media on eri tekniikoiden yhdistelyä ja kokeilemisen iloa. Viikonlopun aikana opimme useita helppoja tekniikoita, joilla saa aikaan persoonalliset joulukortit, lahjapaperit tai pienet lahjat. Käytämme mm. sabluunoita ja leimasimia, akryylimaaleja ja leimasinmusteita, ja kierrätysmateriaalia kuten kirjansivuja. Samoilla tekniikoilla voit tehdä monenlaista, kuten kortteja, jouluisen minialbumin muistoille tai ruokaohjeille, tai tuunata valmiin esineen kuten pienen peilinkehyksen. Voit tulla myös kokeilemaan tekniikoita, oppimaan ja ihastumaan!



Joulukortit mehiläisvahatekniikalla
(Yhden päivän kurssi, kolme eri ajankohtaa)

Espoo (Tapiola) 25.11.2017
Vantaa (Myyrmäki) 26.11.2017
Vantaa (Tikkurila) 2.12.2017

Tule oppimaan mielenkiintoinen tekniikka, jolla serveteistä ja silkkipapereista tehdään sulan mehiläisvahan avulla herkät, läpinäkyvän kerrokselliset kortit. Käytämme silitysrautaa mehiläisvahan sulattamiseen ja kuvien kerroksittain kiinnittämiseen. Tällä tekniikalla loihtii nopeasti kauniita kortteja ja lisäksi saa nauttia ihanan jouluisesta mehiläisvahan tuoksusta!

Lisätiedot löytyvät ilmoittautumislinkeistä ja päivittyvät tuotapikaa myös blogini Workshops-välilehdelle. Vastaan mieluusti kysymyksiin myös sähköpostitse, salla.porra (at) saunalahti.fi.

Kurssit soveltuvat niin uusille kuin kokeneemmillekin askartelijoille. Lämpimästi tervetuloa!

Mini Journaling with Moodiversary and Art Marks Summer Challenges

Hi! Today I'd like to share with you couple of fun summer challenges that I can recommend for anyone who feels inspired to art/journal but maybe has just a few minutes for it daily, which was often the case for me this summer!



DeeDee Catron and Jenn Engle's Moodiversary uses the same mood board for the whole month, but there is a new link-up for prizes every week. My link is to Week 3, which will expire within a day, but you'll find Week 4 in DeeDee's blog when the time comes.

The delicious Moodiversary Board is here and the reason for the challenge is to celebrate the first year of DeeDee and Jenn's monthly inspiration posts called Mixed Media Moods. So the inspiration will continue after this month, on their blogs and YouTube channels.



I was inspired by the organic forms of the skeleton leaves and the tree on the bottom row, and the door one row up. Plus all the colours of the challenge, but particularly the yellow paint shade, Pollen, and Royal Fuchsia and Desert Turquoise.



Rae Missigman's Art Marks - A 30 Day Summer Challenge has a prompt word for each day, and the challenge encourages you to only use a set time, say 5-10 minutes, to "make your marks" each day. You can find the prompts list at Rae's blog.

I've been catching up with the prompts in no particular order - maybe some prompts felt more ready than others to emerge from the different backgrounds of each side in my mini book, actually!

Here's Day 9, Free Form:



Day 20, Scratched:



Day 16, Mirrored. This is not in the same 3 1/2x3 1/2 inches mini album as the others. I wanted to experiment with a slightly larger format so this is another junk journal, about 6x8 in size.



What could suit the Mirrored prompt better than this good old way of printing on both sides of a spread/folded paper, that many have surely have done as kids! I added some pencil and carbon on the one side of the spread to make my butterfly not completely mirrored, to reflect the idea that a mirror does not show everything there is.

Day 17 prompt of Dripped is the last for today!



I made my mini album specifically with these quick challenges in mind. It is an accordion book and the page size is 3 1/2 inches. I'll be back another day to show more of how it looked in the beginning, what different papers I used for backgrounds, and so on!

On the pages next to Free Form, you can see that some background papers are more finished than others, and I may want to keep them as they are. But more about that later.



And the covers, oh, they are such a fun idea even if I say so myself. The size of 3 1/2 inches might ring a bell to folks around my age or older, that is, those of us who already used a computer before the year 2000. Let's see if anyone can guess what I used.

Thank you for popping in and commenting, as always!

Mixed Media Summer ATC Swap

Hello! Here's what I made for an ATC swap here in Finland, themed Mixed Media Summer and organized by Taru.



I had plenty of gelli prints with summery colours, so I began to work my backgrounds from them. I also added some mists in different shades of green, and was happy with the colour palette that reminds me of a summer evening just before dark.

For inspiration, I had several challenges, starting with Mixed Media Place and their gorgeous mood board, also with a feel of a summer evening.



The mood board has some delicate white flowers and seeds, and I decided to decorate my ATCs with lily-of-the-valley shaped chipboards from Wycinanka.



Before glueing them in place, I gessoed the chipboards to make them completely white and heat embossed them with an embossing powder that has a particularly lovely golden white shade. It's called Angel Wings Gold by Lindy's Stamp Gang, and it is indeed white with a hint of gold. The colour was very hard to catch in the photos, I'm afraid. But try them if you get a chance. I only have a couple of Lindy's powders but they both are this kind, shining in two different colours and with a high gloss, enamel-looking finish.



At Art-Piaskownica, the challenge theme was Stamping.



The stamped part in my project are the dark blue leaves. I first stamped them on a tissue paper, tore pieces of it and glued them in place with acrylic medium.

I have previously used stamped tissue paper on my beeswax collages, and recently I realized they are a cool thing to add to other mixed media projects, too. The white tissue paper becomes invisible and the stamp shows very well, even on uneven surfaces where it would be harder to stamp directly. You can also prepare these papers in advance, if you feel like trying some new stamps but can't think of a project just then, for example.

Like this:



I'm also joining the challenges at

Craft Stamper: Anything Goes
and Mixed Media Monthly: Altered Embellishments

(For the Craft Stamper magazine, I hope my submission counts as one project, since this is a set of very similar cards. If I were so incredibly lucky to be picked as the winner, I do have three of the ATCs still left that I could mail for publication.)



A few more photos to follow...







I'll end today's post with the full set of 12 cards, photographed with my unfinished acrylic painting as background!



Thank you for popping in and commenting, as always. Welcome back next week to see another post with the cards I received in this Mixed Media Summer ATC swap!

Nature Prints Journal Spread

Hello, and happy new week to everyone!

My biggest inspiration of this year has been the year-long Wanderlust 2017 online class. I've started more projects than finished but at this point, this doesn't feel like a failure at all but instead one of the main teachings of the whole class so far.

When I feel good making art, the important thing is to do it as often as I can, and not count the finished projects. This goes at least for the kind of period as I have in my life right now - my to-do-list seems very full also without art deadlines and blog posts. The main thing I'm sorry for is that this has also meant neglecting my blog.

Anyway, today I have a Wanderlust inspired project to share!



A while ago the class theme was Nature Prints. Kasia Avery, the sweet and super talented main teacher of Wanderlust 2017, inspired us with a video of Gelli printing with objects from the nature.



I've used household items for Gelli printing before but hadn't thought of trying something like flowers or leaves. I got really hooked on it right away so I was lucky to have picked plenty of different leaves with the help of our three-year-old! It was a good idea to let them straighten overnight between a newspaper, under a weight of books or something.



I still have some of those leaves from a week ago but I suspect they may get too dry at some point, becoming more fragile, so I may want to gather new ones for my next prints.



The photo above is of the spread before adding the photo and the final touches.



I am also joining the challenges at Eclectic Ellapu: Everything Goes and Art-Piaskownica: Plant/Floral Motifs.



The last few photos are detail shots where you can get a better idea of the see-through beeswax technique!



I made my prints on tissue paper, wanting to try them for the beeswax collage technique I've done a lot lately. Beeswax technique is so special in how it leaves the different layers quite transparent, and I thought this might be the perfect way work with my nature prints!



I just realized I only have photos of the finished project and none of the individual prints. I have gotten the memory of my phone nearly full so I'm afraid I have to spend the rest of the afternoon organizing my photos. I'll post pics of the prints as soon as I have time!



Thank you so much for your visit!