Clarity Calendar Challenge - April 2016

Well, this really was a challenge for me. First I had to order, and wait for my Fresco Finish paints to arrive, then I had to find the lovely bird stamp that I knew I had bought recently and put "somewhere", then I had to locate the pristine canvasses that have been sitting in my craft room for the past year or so waiting for me to use them.  Sadly the canvasses are still missing in action, probably under a pile of "stuff" that is really important and doesn't yet have somewhere to live, so my artwork has ended up on a card! Hope you like it anyway, I really enjoyed making it.

Susan x

Masking and Stamping - April 2016 Claritystamp Challenge

Hello there

Finally I've returned to full health after my bout of flu, and I've been busy organising my lovely stamps into the Clarity Storage folders in my craft room. It's amazing how much easier it is to craft when there is space on the surface of the desk!!

I was quite excited by this month's challenge, as I love stamping and masking. I came up with this idea as I was sorting my stamps, and it took me a few goes on scrap to work out exactly how to cut my masks in order to get the finished result - it reminds me of the song about the woman who lived in the shoe, but of course the lovely Alice is far too young to be the lady who inspired that tale!

The main image uses the following Clarity stamps: Sketchy Shoe, Alice and a large and small Alium stamp. I stamped using black archival ink onto an old book page, and cut several shoe masks to enable me to stamp Alice into the middle of the shoe, then masked off Alice in order to stamp the back part of the heel, and another "outy" mask to create a pattern on the shoe using second generation ink and the small alium stamp. Then I left all the masks in place to stamp the large Alium in the background, and finally I stamped a couple of small Alium images in the top right hand corner for balance.

I coloured Alice and the shoe using Spectrum Noir pencils, and added a little shadow under the shoe to ground the image. Then I trimmed down the book page and edged the piece with a ruler and black sharpie pen, and mounted it onto a gelli-print from my stash, to which I added a little pink pencil shading so that it coordinated with Alice's dress. Finally I mounted it onto a 8x8 inch white card blank.

I have another idea to sit Alice on the feather which I'll have a go at another time. Hope you like my card, and please leave a comment to let me know what you think.

Thanks for visiting, Susan x