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Stencilbop Challenge Prompts 1-2

Yeah so excited for the #stencilbop challenge that got started yesterday. I cannot wait to see what you do with stencils throughout the month! If you want to play along with us check out my prompt in my insta feed and join us to let your stencils bop!

Here is an overview of Prompts 1 and 2:


Day 1 – Standard
Let’s start with my standard way to use my stencils – with acrylic paints. The reason I love using acrylic paints is that there are so many fun ways to apply different colors and blend them or mix them up making for some awesome backgrounds or even just small stenciled areas of a page.

My preferred way to apply acrylic paint is using a soft cosmetic sponge or a foam wedge and dab into the paint, then dab off the excess paint and dab over the stencil. The trick is to not have too much paint on your applicator otherwise you won’t get crisp lines and the paint just seeps underneath your stencil.

For the art journal spread here I used three different colors and lined them up next to each other and mixed them up through my Versailles Stencil. Since the application is quite thin it also doesn’t become too muddy and I love how this pops and came out. I just added a little bit of journaling and some of my circle stamps and there you go – an easy peasy art journaling page.

August 2 – Eye Candy

Well to be honest I think anything with stencils looks like eye candy – LOL- but I especially love the way how spray paints applied of stencils look like and how you can apply different colors in different areas.

Since I spray a lot inside I mostly use low odor acrylic spray paints in a well-ventilated room. If I spray a lot I actually wear a mask. The trick is to hold the stencil nice and firmly down – sometimes I use different brush ends to add extra fingers and hold down my stencil and then spray evenly and not too close. Always start spraying off the page to make sure the cap is not clocked or weird things are happening. 

Here I used white with my Amsterdam Stencil on a background I had painted with acrylic paint- I love how the the white makes everything pop. 

Here are some of the supplies that I used in these prompts:

And here is the prompt list so you can play along too! Follow the daily prompts on Instagram and tag your creations with #stencilbop

Nat

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Online Workshop Sale

Guess what? I am having an Online Workshop Sale! Right now all my online workshops are 15% off here on my website. This is your chance to use the last of summer to get back into some art making.

The sale runs through August 4th at 11:59pm EST and includes both project and technique workshops. AND if you purchase BYO Art Journal, Trace Transfer Transform, and Acrylic Ink during the sale, you can save an additional $10. You just have to enter the coupon code BIGTHREE when you check out (previous purchases do not apply).

BYO Art Journal will help you build your very own art journal from scratch – you will make covers, inside pages, bind it together, and then fill it. Yes, all that – WOW! This is how I make most of my art journals now and it is definitely a fun and satisfying skill to have.

Trace Transfer Transform will teach you various techniques for introducing images into your art journal from photographic and magazine sources. Then by transforming these tracings and transfers, you will learn to integrate them into your unique style of creating.

Acrylic Ink will walk you through the basics and all the way to some more advanced techniques with one of my favorite mediums. Get inspired to use acrylic ink more in your mixed media!

In addition to these 3 great online workshops, there is my perennial favorite Art Journaling Demystified or if you want to apply some mixed media techniques to a project on canvas, there is Season Canvas Fall.

I hope you join us in some of these and use your final weeks of summer to get back to your art journal, crafting and creating. Check it out HERE. Remember: sale ends at 11:59pm on August 4th, 2019.

Nat

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Food for Thought – Judi Kauffman

Hello from my Creative Squad! Today we have a post from Judi Kauffman. You can learn more about Judi from our Nice to Meet You blog post featuring her creative story and artwork. This time Judi is sharing some upcycled folders and some new bookmarks that she creates using my Downtown Stencil and my FANtastic Large and Solid Fan rubber stamps. This month’s theme is: Food for Thought – Let’s take a lighthearted look at food! While the culinary world has become an art and a science in terms of preparation and presentation, sometimes it is the simplest foods that bring us the most joy. Simple fare or elaborate family traditions, we all have our favorite foods. What is yours?

 

Food for Thought is such a great theme. I asked a neighbor, age 8, what it meant to her and she said it was about reading because reading is food for your brain! Out of the mouths of babes, right? 

I’d been considering recipe cards and a mixed media spoon doll, but her comment took me in a different direction: Bookmarks and a folder for storing newspaper articles, drawings cartoons, clippings from magazines! Of course the bookmarks could be tucked into recipe books, making it easy to find favorites, and the folder could be used for recipes, but I think if I went that route I’d use lighter, brighter (more ‘appetizing’) colors.

Instructions for Folder:

1. Using black acrylic paint, randomly add portions of the 9×12 Downtown stencil to the front and inside flaps of the folder.

2. Using copper metallic acrylic paint and black permanent ink, stamp Solid Fan and Broadway Fan onto the cover and inside flaps of the folder. 

3. Using a stiff brush, add copper paint to the left side and all edges of the folder, and randomly on top of the stamped and stenciled areas. 

4. Using a craft sponge, add teal ink here and there, masking some of the fans to add color around the shapes.

Instructions for Bookmarks:

1. Using a light butterscotch ink, randomly stencil portions of the 9×12 Downtown stencil onto a batch of bookmarks. 

2. Using ginger and black inks, randomly stamp Solid Fan and Broadway Fan onto the bookmarks.

3. Using teal ink followed by copper metallic acrylic paint, stamp Broadway fan on top of inks from step 2. Allow to dry.

4. Stamp a fan, cut it out to use for a mask, and use teal ink to smudge around some of the fans for contrast and to create a mottled background.

5. Add copper paint around the edges of each bookmark. Allow to dry.

6. Add fibers to the hole at the top of each bookmark.

Thank you Judi! I love this take on our monthly theme! You can find all of my Rubber Stamps and my Stencils in my online shop. Here are some of the supplies Judi used:

If you are working on something yourself that you’d like to share, please do! I would love to share your projects in my next  “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.

And TODAY is the last day to buy Creative JumpStart 2019 (the one that was released back in January of this year) so if you haven’t yet you can sign up here. It is an amazing lineup of artists, full of inspiring and fun content, and you have until November 15th to download all the videos.

Nat

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Perfectionism – Art Journal

“Perfectionism is the fear of being criticized.”

I used some suminagashi collage paper and embossed a sketch that I mounted on top of the paper.

I built a patterned background using the stamps from my Hex Set Small and Moonlight Duo ink pads.

Then I wrote the quote with embossing ink and embossed that as well.

Here are some of the supplies I used:


Nat

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Join the StencilBop Challenge August 1

Come and join me in the Stencilbop Challenge throughout the month of August, and “let your stencils bop!”

Follow me on Instagram for the daily prompts but I will also occasionally post recaps here on the blog. Each day will bring a new prompt and a new way to have some fun with your stencils.

Here is the Prompt List:

Each day beginning August 1 on my Instagram page I will post my take on the prompt. You can either try the same things or just try and do your own approaches following along with the prompts. I so hope you will share what you do and if you post on instagram, use the hashtag #stencilbop

Nat

Comments (2)

  • Laurie

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    Is this only being done thru Instagram? I know alot of people don’t do Instagram including myself.

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      I will also post every couple days about it on the blog- so you can easily join if you would like to!

      Reply

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New Fan ArtFoamies Stamps: Summer 2019

My latest ArtFoamies foam stamp designs are here and they are FANtastic :)

These are my new favorites for making patterns as they can all fit together in a number of ways and you can use the back side of the stamp for a solid fan shape too. For this release I have 4 fan pairs that have the positive negative versions of the designs, and then a little 4 piece set of Mini Fans.

Here is the Broadway Fan Positive Negative pair – love this bold design.

And then Fairview Fan Positive Negative pair – an Art Nouveau inspired design.

Here is the Jewett Fan Positive Negative pair that features a lovely botanical element to the design.

And the Van Vorst Fan Positive Negative pair – a perfect one to show how the back of the stamp makes a fine solid fan shaped stamp too.

Here are the positive negative stamps in action in my art journal.

Finally the charming Mini Fan Set that gives you 4 designs to play with.

Loved stamping all these out for my art journal page here – the different patterns just work so nicely together!

Check out all the new foam stamps today!!!

Nat

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Stroll Through the Hood – July 2019

Strolls through my hood get me out of my studio, they help me get unstuck and often I get inspired by what I see and get new ideas to create something. It is part of my philosophy about Artful Adventures in Mixed Media – which is the subject of my book. Here are some photos that I gathered in the last couple weeks.

July is my favorite month of the year – well first of all it is SUMMER and then its my birthday and I am one of those dorks who like birthday and then you can sit outside all the time and just enjoy life :) Loving the view from our terrace ..and will enjoy it of the last couple months.

I am also very inspired by my new instrument …A Ukulele. Well – I have no musical bone in me and I tried learning the guitar when I was a teenager (any German here who remember Peter Bursch’s Gitarrenbuch?” hahaha). I failed miserably and mind you, no internet back then, no youtube etc. But for a while I had on my bucket list to learn an instrument and so my very musical husband gave me one for my birthday and I loooovee it! I have been playing every day since I got it and signed up for in person classes.

This wouldn’t be a stroll through the hood post without a picture from one of the bike rides through the park- here is Manhattan on an extremely hot and humid day …it was 87% humidity – blech.

Our house reno is coming along -and I learned this beautiful ceiling reveals the typical Balloon Framing invented in the States. I love it and almost wish we could expose the ceiling in one of the rooms- but you know you cannot have everything in such a small house LOL

Some street art at the back of a building down town which I actually rarely pass.

Some under the bridge street art.

Our deck coming along …I love all those lines- I also feel strongly inclined to sketch this as I feel it helps me understand painting buildings better seeing all those raw structures.

When they started taking down the reclined ceiling in one of the rooms (Why the heck do people do that?) we discovered some of the original crown molding. Keep your fingers cross we can keep it. The rosette of the ceiling already came crumbling down.

I love all those old houses in my hood. This one with the cute onion tower is saying – sketch me, sketch me!

And then you have this gorgeous house on the brink of falling down. It looks like there is a permit in the window so it will be interesting to see if someone can bring it back to its old glory of if it is going …sniff.

I love this graffiti also in our new hood! Impressive!

And then one day I decided to check out this church -it is a pretty impressing brick church but I didn’t expect it to be so quite beautiful inside- I didn’t go in as there was a service going on and I didn’t feel it was the moment to take pictures- but I will def. check again one other time.

I hope you enjoyed the little stroll – until next month!

Nat

Comments (2)

  • Sheryl

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    I go around my neighborhood almost every day and find so many things inspiring. My husband walks me around and gets a little impatient because I stop so much to take pics. I put a dogs of Richmond on my Instagram and FB. People love it when you ask if you can take a pic of their dog. I just find so many beautiful things . I want to sketch them later but I think ….what’s the point if you already have a pic? Do you feel that way?

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      Hi Sheryl- love that you are feeling the same about your neighborhood. I know what you mean about taking pictures and then not feeling the urge to sketch anymore – I do however sometimes sketch little details I see in the photo that I find inspiring for stamps or patterns – it is fun and I discover often even more in the picture than I saw at first glance in real life.

      Reply

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Improve – Art Journal

“How wonderful it is that nobody needs to wait to improve the world.” – Anne Frank

I created a pattern with my Groovy foam stamp and even used the back of it to make the rectangular shapes. I added the hash mark area of the Jazzed foam stamp too, and some of the Fanfare rubber stamps. The whole thing reminds me of some vintage wallpaper – pretty and a little faded.

You can also see my Mini Toledo foam stamp peeking through in blue.

And now it is time to seize the day and start making the world a better place – in any little way that we can.

Here are some of the supplies that I used:


Nat

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