“Happy Halloween” Tag by Amy C

Hello there ColourBlast fans! It’s this time of year, Halloween! 

Bring on the boo! Halloween is of course about history and tradition, and about having fun! Some people like to go trick or treating, have parties, dress ups and wear cool makeup. So, I thought I would make a Halloween tag for the festivities.

 

First, I trimmed a piece of heavy duty white cardstock to a tag size, then fully coated it with ‘Black Heavy Gesso’ and dried it with a heat gun.

 

To create texture, I was able to use the the Colour Blast 'Heavy White Gesso' seeing as it is quite thick. I used a ‘cracked glass’ effect stencil.

If you have a spider’s web or anything else spooky instead – then go for it! 😊 Again, I used a heat gun to dry this – or you can air dry it. It is important though, that this is completely dry before you continue on to the next stage.

To give colour, I sprayed the white surface with Sunset  Colour Spray and Sunshine Colour Shimmer Spray and allowed to dry.

I love a bit of bling, where possible! The Bling Colour Embossing Powder is the bomb! Seeing that Halloween in the US is celebrated in fall, I used a leaf stamp then heat embossed with the Bling embossing powder. You will need a craft heat gun for this step.

 

To add more texture, using a gel medium, I adhered some hand-torn strips of white tissue paper. After I speed dried it (yep, my trusty heat gun again), I sprayed the tissue paper with Rainforest Colour Spray, as I wanted to add some green. Using a permanent black ink, I randomly stamped around the tag with a newspaper script stamp.

Once the background was complete, I set to work on some embellishments.

For the tree (the focal point), I dabbed two coats of 'White Heavy Gesso' to allow for full coverage of the chipboard. 

I sprayed some of the Violet  Colour Spray on my mat, and moved the (upside-down) tree around on it as a way to then fully cover the tree with violet – I hope that makes sense? I then dried this with my heat gun.

Before I assembled my cluster of embellishments, I heat embossed a small wood veneer house. I used the stunning Sienna Colour Embossing Powder: it gives a real copper/metallic appeal. After all the preparations, I assembled my tag, including layering some flowers, medical gauze (used a bit from the first aid kit at home!) and hand cut pumpkins with orange tissue paper.

Here is my final tag and some close ups...

 

 

I hope this puts you in a festive mood!

Happy Halloween! Amy 😊

 

Triangulation with Selena Stevens

This is my take on this months Colour Blast challenge - creating a triangular inspired background.

I struggled to come up with an idea for this challenge.  This led to researching for  some ideas which led to Zhanna Kondratenko’s painting “The Golden Triangle” for inspiration, which you can see above.

To see the time lapse video click here. Or watch it below.

So, lets begin …

Triangular shapes were placed on the art journal page with washi tape.  Black Heavy Gesso was painted onto the page, over the washi tape, in random places.

Colour Shimmer Dust (Lollipop, Navy & Cobalt) was sprinkled along the washi tape line.   Water was spritzed onto the Colour Shimmer Dust and drips were encouraged to run up and down the page.

Colour Shimmer Dust (Lollipop) was added to Crackle Paste and mixed together.  Using a palette knife, this mixture was then used through a triangular stencil and left to dry.  Once dry, fine cracks were seen on the surface.

Colour Shimmer Dust (Lollipop & Navy) was added to White Heavy Gesso and mixed together.  These colours were painted on with a paintbrush along the line formed by the washi tape.

The Colour Shimmer Dust that had been used previously was sprinkled onto some of the wet areas and sprayed with water again and the colours bled into the wet White Heavy Gesso mixed with Colour Shimmer Dust.

Colour Shimmer Dust (Navy & Peacock) was added to gel medium.  This mixture was scraped through the triangular stencil in random places with a palette knife.  This became slightly transparent as it dried.

This page was finished by tracing the white triangles left by the washi tape with a permanent black pen and small clusters of triangles were drawn with a white paint pen.

I hope you enjoyed this and experiment with the versatility of Colour shimmer Dust.

Until next time,

Selena