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Currently Digging – Creative Squad Edition with Josefine Fouarge

It’s time for a special edition of Currently Digging – with my Creative Squad! Once in a while I like to share with you some nifty finds – like an Artist whose work caught my eye…, some Inspiration that got my creative juices flowing, and Tools & Techniques I am currently digging. Today we asked Josefine Fouarge from my Creative Squad what SHE is Currently Digging :) Hope you enjoy this.

Yayoi Kusama’s polka dot pumpkins are breathtaking and it gets even better when you look at them as part of her mirror room exhibition. Hundreds and hundreds of them, just mesmerizing. Some of her other pieces include huge murals that are full of texture and spikes in all sorts of shapes and sizes.

Religions based on nature: Paganism, Druidism, Voodoo, Wicca are some examples of nature-worshipping religion. I enjoy all the iconology of these religions, scanning through books that describe them, the style they are published in, etc. The images are usually eerie and full of meaning. You can look at them for a long time and always find something new. The way things are arranged on i.e. tarot cards inspire me to let my creativity flow and do what it wants to.

Torch Enamel: I just recently heard about torch enameling and was immediately hooked. I love trying new things – from blacksmithing to glass blowing – and always try to think about how to combine it with my art. Torch enameling seems to be a little bit of both worlds and it’s easy to play with the glass powder on smaller surfaces, even using existing supplies like stencils.

Thank you Josefine! I hope you all enjoyed hearing a bit more about what inspires Josefine as an artist. Stay tuned for the next Currently Digging Creative Squad edition for more from our other members :)

Nat

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Foam Stamplifier Challenge Prompts 11-15

Day 11 – Stencil

No surprise if you know me…I also love stencils and stencils are perfect amplifying tools for your foam stamps.

You can add paint to the solid back side of your foam stamps and then stamp through a stencil.

Lift the stencil and stamp right away again to receive a second but inverted print. You can also use foamstamps which have a more solid pattern – and stamp with the pattern side through the stencil. Another favorite of mine is to roll out a color onto the foam stamp with a more solid design and then put the stencil on top and add a different color with a cosmetic sponge on top of it.

It gives you so many more and unique possibilities with your foam stamps and for that matter also for your stencil.

Now that’s what I called amplified.

 

Day 12 – Pigment Ink

Love love love using my foam stamps also with pigment inks. I love how the foam creates some soft texture in combination with the inks and you can easily clean them after use with some water and a rag or a baby wipe.

Moonlight Duos by RubberMoon are a great hybrid ink and their colors are just sooo amazing. I also love using Distress Oxides and sprinkle the stamped image with water drops to lift off some of the ink with a paper towel and create even more visual texture.

So much fun and another medium you can easily use with your foam stamps.

 

Day 13 – Fabric

Can you say perfect relationship? Foam Stamps and Fabric love each other.

You can use acrylic paint but for fabric I want to wear or when I want to keep the fabric soft I use fabric paint. Besides using the foam stamps on a solid colored piece of fabric using it on a piece that already has a pattern is my total geek out fun.

You can use the fabric many many ways- but here…I give you my heart :)

Day 14 – Embroidery

Oomphing up your foam stamped image by adding some embroidery on top of the image is super fun! You can either just add some accents with certain embroidery stitches or fill in the actually design with satin stitches.

My Creative Squad Member Jennifer did a wonderful job creating some napkins with embroidered foam stamping and they are so beautiful. So many possibilities by combining foam stamping and embroidery.

Day 15 – Hugs & Kisses

I think the right term is stampkissing but I think Hugs & Kissing is perfectly adequate for this foam stamplifier technique. Use two different foam stamps- one that is more solid and one with a small pattern, apply different colors to each of them and then stamp them on top of each other – lift and stamp the more solid patterned foam stamp.

You can stamp off the other stamp on a different paper and get a nice color scheme. Make sure to use colors that mix well together.

I hope you enjoyed these prompts- here are the foam stamps I used for them:

In case you missed the prompt list and want to follow along – here you go:

Nat

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A Look Back – Cool Stuff You May Have Missed 03

A Look Back – a blog series to show you some projects and posts that you may have missed – sometimes going WAY back in the archive. I think it will be fun to revisit a few ideas that we haven’t seen for a while. I’m excited to see how a little look back might inspire something new in the future :)

This time I’m going to show posts and projects using one of my favorite tools – stencils! Here is A Look Back at some ideas. Enjoy!

First up is a classic – use your stencils with acrylic paint! But wait, there’s more: in this Art Journal spread I chose to use 2 different stencils that have the same pattern but in different scales: my Amsterdam 9×12 and my Amsterdam 6×6 stencils for an all over background. It is a subtle variation that gives more push and pull in the background.

How about taking your stencils and using them on fabric items? I did that here (in 2013 wow) with my Elephant March stencil, some acrylic markers, and acrylic spray paint on what we Germans call a “Heel Porsche.” Stencils are a great way to personalize everyday items.

Embossing paste is another fun medium to use with stencils. In this art journal spread again from way back, I used my Circuit stencil and some shimmery gold embossing paste to start the page and then added and subtracted inks overtop. You can gently wipe away the inks on top and reveal the embossing paste. And it has nice texture. Win win.

How about a little subtraction? Here I created a pan pastel background and then used my What’s the Point stencil and erased through it for some nice dots here and there. I love the softness of this technique.

And then I took the same What’s the Point stencil and embellished onto it with some acrylic markers for this art journal spread. Once you have the stencil pattern down you can jazz it up in all sorts of ways. So many options!!!

I hope you enjoyed A Look Back through my archive and maybe you are inspired to try some of the stenciling techniques I shared.

Here are some of the supplies that were used in these pieces:


Nat

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The Stencilfied Journal – Prompt 9

My wonderful friend Tina Walker is at it again – she invited several people to join her Stencilfied Prompts. The prompts are music related and each week she is posting a song. You can be inspired by the lyrics, the video, the album cover or anything related and the only restriction is that you have to use StencilGirl Product Stencils. Here is my take on Prompt 9:

This week’s prompt was Hotel California by The Eagles. I had fun playing with my Manhattan Stencil on a small gelli plate – using the plate to stamp into the art journal.

I sketched the figure over the background and then painted him partly in with Inktense Blocks- I love how the stenciled areas areas creating a pattern and texture for the clothes.

Here are the supplies I used for this prompt:


Nat

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Foam Stamplifier Challenge with the Creative Squad – Josefine Fouarge

  

This month my Creative Squad is playing along with my new Foam Stamplifier Challenge: All month long you can follow my daily prompts on Instagram and on the blog to amplify your foam stamps!!! Today Josefine Fouarge is following the prompt Pigment Ink. She’s using my Maze Hex, Space Oddity, and Weave foam stamps to create some gorgeous cards. And this will be Josefine’s last post with the Creative Squad so we would like to say a HUGE thank you to her for her awesome projects and wish her the best on all her future ventures :)

I love foam stamps which is why Nat’s challenge is so much fun. I hope that you’re getting a lot of inspiration from all the posts and enjoy playing along.

Tuesday is Creative Squad day and of course, we are playing along. Today’s prompt is Pigment Ink and I picked my favorite – Distress Oxide (technically, it’s a hybrid between Pigment and Dye Ink, but sometimes you have to be a rebel ;) ).

To add a third favorite, I chose the hexagon designs and the Weave design from Nat and I decided to create a set of notecards. I ran out again, so I needed a few quick and easy ones. I prepared a few card bases and decided to stamp directly onto them.

I went with two colors per stamp design and applied the first one directly onto the Maze Hex foam stamp.

Then I added the second color. I don’t worry about which color to use first since I always go back with the first color and blend both together.

Because Oxide’s are water reactive, I added water directly on top of the ArtFoamie. You can stamp without adding moisture. I did it, because I really like the effect.

I varied the way of the ombre effect. For some I went from left to right and for the Space Oddity foam stamp from the middle to the outside.

Once I was done with the backgrounds, I started decorating the cards. That can be as simple as adding an outline with a black fineliner…

…or some dots and lines using an acrylic marker.

You can also use die-cuts or magazine cut outs to decorate the cards. For this one, I used a picture from a magazine ad and adhered it with gel medium. Usually, I would add the gel medium to the background, the back of the picture and all over the card to seal it. Since I used Distress Oxides, I just added it to the back of the picture. Otherwise the ink would have moved.

Then I decorated the picture with dots and lines.

It always surprises me how you can create great looking cards with just a bit of stamping and adding dots. They all look different but started out in very similar ways.

Foam stamps are so versatile and work for every style – from clean and simple to super grungy and are great for cards, art journal pages and so many other mixed media techniques.

Don’t forget to join the Foam Stamplifier Challenge over on Instagram and share your own projects using foam stamps.

Thank you Josefine – I love how the foam stamps work with ink!  You can find my Foam Stamps in my Online Shop. Here are some of the supplies that Josefine used:



Feel inspired? I hope you join us for the Foam Stamplifier Challenge this month. As you play along, don’t forget to tag me when you share your creations – I would love to share your projects in my next  “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.

Nat

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Foam Stamplifier Challenge Prompts 8-10

Day 8 – Emboss

I love to emboss with my foam stamps. The foam surface creates some added texture even if you use super fine embossing powder.

Simply press the clear embossing pad onto the foam stamp and then stamp on paper. You can add just one solid color of embossing powder to your image and then heat emboss.

Or for even more fun, add several different colors of embossing powder and heat emboss one after the other.

Another fun way to use embossing powder is to use the positive and negative sets and layer the embossing. I hope you try it

Day 9 – Resist

I am a huge fan of resist techniques and this has always been one of my favorite ones.

Apply clear embossing ink to your foam stamp. Stamp onto paper. Sprinkle UTEE (ultra thick embossing powder) on top and heat emboss. Let cool and then apply a very thin layer of acrylic paint or acrylic ink over the surface.

The paint or ink will dry slower on top of the UTEE as that area will resist the paint. Use a moist rag or a baby wipe and gently wipe over the raised UTEE pattern to remove the paint.

What remains is a wonderfully textured clear pattern.

Day 10 – Pastel

I love using Pastels with my foam stamps. In order to make the pigments stick you need a little trick though. I usually use a clear embossing ink pad and apply it to the stamp, then I stamp onto paper.

My favorite pastels are PanPastels but you can use over pastels as well.

I apply the pastel with a tool over the stamped surface and wherever the embossing ink is on the paper the pastel will accumulate more and collect more of the pastel.

The stamped design will appear darker.

Here are the foam stamps I used for those prompts. Hope you enjoying the Foam Stamplifier Challenge!


In case you missed the prompt list  here you go:

Nat

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Stamped Paper Wreaths – DIY Play Date

Last week Kim and I decided to do a little Spring Play Date with my rubber stamps. We saw some cool pictures of paper wreaths online and thought we would try our own. We had just an hour or so and had fun making ours and dreaming of beautiful spring weather :)

You will need rubber stamps (we used my Stroll Through the Hood 1 and 2 stamp sets including the Powerhouse, Main Station, Brownstone, Warehouse, Lady Liberty, Mailbox, Hydrant, US Flag, Art Tag, and Love Tag stamps), ink pads, colorful paper, scissors, glue gun, and a cardboard ring. We cut our cardboard rings from old boxes, using plates to trace a circle and then cutting out the center.

Choose paper (and maybe even inks if you have a lot of colored ink pads) in an analogous color scheme – colors that are next to each other on the color wheel.

Then start stamping! Fill up the entire page with stamped images. It doesn’t matter how they line up – the point is to have some design and pattern all over the paper. Here is my Warehouse stamp in action.

Here is Lady Liberty and Brownstone filling a page.

We recommend stamping 3-4 sheets of paper.

Then cut out leaf shapes. 2-3″ works for a smaller wreath and 3-4″ works for a larger wreath.

Try to get as many out of a sheet as you can. It’s ok to cut through your stamped images at odd places.

In the end you will have a pile of leaves.

Try arranging the leaves on the cardboard ring to see how they fit.

You can experiment with color patterns too.

Use a glue gun to adhere the leaves in place. I finally bought a glue gun – yes can you believe this is my first ever glue gun? lol

Three leaves across seemed to cover the cardboard.

In the end you will have a charming little spring decoration.

Look at all the stamp images peeking through.

The big one is just right for hanging on a door.

Two paper wreathes, ready for spring.

One on the inside of Kim’s front door.

Looks nice on a smaller door here.

You can even layer them up for more impact.

This was a great way to use up some colored paper we had on hand and to have some fun stamping. I love how the stamps give it some more visual interest, and you could really play with ink colors and different papers if you wanted to. I hope you try it!

You can find my rubber stamps in my online shop. Here are some of the supplies that we used in this play date:


Nat

Comments (1)

  • stephanie

    |

    your art play date projects are always an inspiration! thanks Nat

    Reply

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Foam Stamplifier Challenge Prompts 3-7

So much fun to see what everyone is doing with the Foam Stamplifier Challenge. Here are my posts for Prompt 3-7

Day 3 – Gradient

Now I hope this one makes you as happy as me- because I am a total color junkie and having the possibility to easily apply some color oomph with my stamp makes me just all smiles :)

I love to use 3 colors that either mix well or are in the same color family. Using the length of my brayer as a guideline I add three colors in stripes next to each other on the top of a palette.

Then I roll the colors out downwards – lifting the brayer and going back up until the brayer is evenly covered. At the same time I also shift the brayer slightly to the left and right (really just a tiny bit) to blend the colors and mix them as well.

 

And then I just apply the paint to the stamp and make sure that with every new stamped image I apply the paint to the same area of the stamp. So much fun!

Day 4 – Positive & Negative

I love how having sets of positive and negative stamp designs can totally amplify your designs. You can use each stamp individually – you can use the back and front as I showed in Prompt 2 but you can also stamp them with different colors on top of each other.

And as you can see the outline of the foam stamp from the side- it is so easy to line them up :) My favorite is when they are not perfectly lined up on top of each other – so they add a bit of dimension as well. Super fun!

Day 5 – Print!⁣

So much fun to use foam stamps for Monoprinting techniques.

I love the ghostlike image they leave on the prints.

Simply roll out a thin layer of one, two or more colors onto your Gel Plate and stamp into the paint.

 

I usually print off to another sheet of paper and then go back into the paint on the plate. If you paint already dried on the plate, don’t worry, just add a layer of white paint on top and print – you will peel off the dried layer as well and get a nice grungy effect. ⁣

Day 6 – Tape

I love including my own printed tape into my artwork whether it be in my artjournals or on canvas.There are two ways I love to create tape.

One is to print with different patterned foam stamps and colors onto my gel printing plate leaving some areas clear and letting the paint totally dry on the plate. Then I just add stripes of clear packing tape on top  of the plate and burnish the tape carefully to the plate. When you lift the packing tape of you will also lift off the pattern – your plate will be clean again. Depending on how tacky it still is, either apply as is to a paper surface or by add a thin layer of Gel Medium underneath.

I also love to create my own masking tape by adding strips of tape to a Teflon or craft sheet. Then I stamp over the masking tape strips with different foam stamps and leave the tape strips on the sheet until I actually need them in a project. It is a great way to use up some left over paint with your foam stamps as well.

Day 7 – Stick

 

The fact that foam stamps can be used with all kinds of paint media is for me the true amplifier effect. One of my favorite paint media to use with them are all kinds of paint sticks- like Scribble Sticks, or water-soluble wax crayons.

For best results spray a little bit of water onto the foam stamp so that the foam is moist. Then apply the paint sticks and rub them over the raised pattern area. I love that you have a lot of control to blend different colors or create certain color fields to different parts of the stamps. Then simply mist the foam stamp again so that the pigments get reactivated and stamp onto your surface.

Often times the paint sticks are so highly pigmented that you can even stamp more than once. The result is a beautiful watercolor-like stamped image. To clean the stamp use a baby wipe or wet cloth and gently rub the remaining color off.

Hope you had fun with those prompts- more are coming daily this month. Here are all the foam stamps I used for these prompts:


In case you missed the prompt list here -you go:

Nat

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