Creative Squad

Pattern Lovers – Marsha Valk

  

Happy Tuesday from the Creative Squad! Today Marsha Valk brings us a fresh and colorful set of tiles for the home using my  Santiago stencil and my Embroidery stamp set. This month’s theme is: Pattern Lovers Love Patterns: We admit it – sometimes we go a little crazy over cool patterns. We see them everywhere and whether it’s in the human-made stuff all around us or in the designs by Mother Nature, we love them all. So this month we’re playing with pattern and giving it the attention it deserves!

I love patterns! I’m especially drawn to clear, graphic designs and that’s why I love Nat’s stencil designs so much!

We’re in the middle of painting our living room and I’ve been dying to add a splash of fresh colour to our home decor. So that’s why I decided to decorate a couple of plain white ceramic tiles, that I plan on using as coasters or to put plant pots on.

Here are the steps I took: First clean the tiles before you start. They need to be dry and free of grease.

Place the Santiago stencil on top of the tile. Use tape to keep the stencil in place. You can also use washi or masking tape to block off parts of the tile you want to keep white.

Use a cosmetic sponge to dab porcelain paint through the stencil onto the tile. Dab the cosmetic sponge in the paint and dab the excess paint off before applying it to the tile. Keep the sponge as dry as possible to prevent the paint from seeping under the stencil.

I used a hand-cut stencil to apply the circles onto the tiles.

Dab paint onto one of the stamps from the Embroidery set (in this case the Cross Circle stamp) using a cosmetic sponge and stamp the image onto the tile.

Let the paint dry and then let it harden following the instructions on the porcelain paint you are using. To become wash resistant, the porcelain paint I used needed to harden in an oven at 300F/150ºC for 45 minutes.

Thank you Marsha – these are a great project for the home! Marsha used the following supplies (some are affiliate links):



Play along with us too! I love to see how you interpret our monthly themes. Email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share your projects in my “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.

Nat

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Pattern Lovers – Cheiron Brandon

  

Hello from the Creative Squad! Today Cheiron Brandon is sharing a beautiful and colorful art journal page using my Toledo stencil and my Embroidery stamp set. This month’s theme is: Pattern Lovers Love Patterns: We admit it – sometimes we go a little crazy over cool patterns. We see them everywhere and whether it’s in the human-made stuff all around us or in the designs by Mother Nature, we love them all. So this month we’re playing with pattern and giving it the attention it deserves!

Hi there! It’s Cheiron here to share a monthly project with you. For this month’s project I created a journal page. You may notice it’s not actually in a journal, but it will be! I like to create pages outside of my journal, especially when I am using the gelli plate, then tip them back into the journal I am working on. Let me walk you through how I created my page….

To begin my project, I painted some Matte Acrylic paints in various colors. I know it doesn’t look like much, but this will really make the next step pop.

I rolled out some titanium white paint onto my gelli plate, to give some added texture, I went through the paint with a comb tool. Then I laid my Toledo stencil on the gelli plate and pressed my already colored panel into the white paint that has been covered with the stencil.

This is what it will look like. That colorful background really makes the white pop!

I never like to waste paint, so I pulled off the stencil and placed another piece of paper into the paint that was left.

This will leave you with a nice textured piece of paper. Since it’s white paint, you could always use this as a resist with ink too.

To add even more pattern to my page, I stamped with the Running, Star Fish, and Grannies stamps from the Embroidery set all over the page in coordinating colors.

I cut a tag out of the 2nd white textured piece, and stamped on that too.

I added some letters and the Chain Link stamp from the Embroidery set in black to give the tag some contrast. I also inked around the edges.

I did the same thing on a piece of old ephemera.

I glued everything down with collage medium and added some butterfly dies.

When it was all done, I stamped a few more images from the Embroidery set over the entire page. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and will try making some easy patterns with stencils on your own!

Thank you Cheiron! In addition to a piece of ephemera, Cheiron used the following supplies (some are affiliate links):



Play along with us this month and join the 30 day Artful Adventures Stroll Challenge! I love to see how you interpret our monthly themes. Email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share your projects in my “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.

Nat

Comments (1)

  • Stephanie

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    Great project jump start technique! Thanks.

    Reply

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Pattern Lovers – Tina Walker

  

Happy Tuesday from the Creative Squad! Today Tina Walker is starting us off on a new theme for June with a super cool canvas and a fun art journal spread using my Hamburg stencil and my Cardboard stamp set. This month’s theme is: Pattern Lovers Love Patterns: We admit it – sometimes we go a little crazy over cool patterns. We see them everywhere and whether it’s in the human-made stuff all around us or in the designs by Mother Nature, we love them all. So this month we’re playing with pattern and giving it the attention it deserves!

Hi! Tina Walker here today with a new month and a new theme. June’s theme is a theme that I am super excited about – Patterns!

Patterns and repeating images are some of the best ways to create interesting and eye-catching art. I am always looking for patterns in nature and for ways to create patterns out of patterns. My main project this month uses 1 stencil and 1 stamp to create an interesting piece full of pattern on pattern. Not only was it fun to make, it was quick and easy.

Place your favorite Nat StencilGirl stencil over a primed canvas, I used Hamburg. Using spray-mist, acrylic paint, or inks, paint over the entire canvas. I used Marabu Acrylic Art sprays that are permanent. Once they dry, you can layer one spritz over another without creating a muddy brown color. Love!

Randomly stamp canvas. Here I used Pie Top from Nat’s Cardboard stamp set.

Repeat this step, rotating the stencil 90 degrees so that the stenciled image overlaps the previous layer.

Repeat until you have a base that is full of yummy layers and pattern on pattern.

Place several widths of artist or masking tape over your stenciled/stamped canvas to create a pattern. I trimmed the edge for an interesting look.

Make sure the tape is securly adhered to the canvas.

Using your favorite spray paint, spray entire canvas in contrasting or coordinating color, I chose white. Then allow to dry completely. Remove tape.

Reveal the magic of pattern on pattern. This project took approximately 30-45 minutes, from start to finish! My kind of art.

As I was adding my stenciled layers to my canvas, I didn’t want to waste the gorgeous paint on the surface of the Hamburg stencil, so I ‘stamped’ the stencil to an art journal page. Not only did my patterned canvas create a super easy and fun piece, I had an instant background started on an art journal spread.

Here’s the spread I created with ‘stamp off’.

I love it when one project creates another. And pattern on pattern…be still my heart! ♥

I hope you enjoyed my projects today. Have a great day!

Thank you Tina for two projects that definitely celebrate PATTERN! Tina used these supplies – some links are affiliate links:



Play along with us this month and join the 30 day Artful Adventures Stroll Challenge! I love to see how you interpret our monthly themes. Email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share your projects in my “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.

Nat

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Out and About – Michelle Rydell

  

Hello from the Creative Squad!  This month the Creative Squad will be playing along with my Stroll Challenge and today Michelle Rydell is sharing a really cool canvas panel using my Stroll Through the Hood #2 stamp set, and working with the prompt words Sky and Loud and the theme Out and About – Sometimes it’s hard to see all the cool and inspiring stuff that’s right under our noses. This month we hope you will join us in our 30 day Stroll Challenge and get Out and About where you live, and find some local inspiration.

I took a bit of a different direction with my prompt word – Loud. You see, when I lived in the city, there was loudness everywhere and I loved it; but now that I live in the country, the neighborhood is just the opposite. It’s very quiet, and I love that too. So I had to think about it awhile; and then it hit me. What’s loud in a different way, and also connects my old neighborhood in the city to my new one in the country? The gloriously loud colors of the sunset!

This was my photo for the prompt “sky,” and I’m also using it for “loud.”

My idea was to recreate the colors of a city sunset with watercolors. Here is the step-by-step…

I first stamped the Main Station and Warehouse stamps from Nat’s Stroll Through the Hood #2 stamp set numerous times onto dictionary paper, to give it a bit of a grungy look…

I cut out the buildings and arranged them on the background till I had them how I wanted them to be. This gave me an idea of where to start with the watercolors…

I put the buildings to the side, and started on the sky. In order to create soft edges and allow the colors to blend, I wet the paper first… From there I slowly started building the layers of color, always allowing them to bleed together. They were very light at first, but with each layer got more intense…

Stars were added to the sky by flicking some high flow acrylic with a stiff brush…

When the page was completely dry, I pasted down the buildings with a glue stick. The warehouse in the back was colored with a light grey tombow marker, to make it recede a bit…

I outlined each building with a stabilo pencil and added water to grunge it up a bit. I also added a mixture of stabilo pencil and grey acrylic to create a street in front of the buildings…

I finished off the page with a quote and outline done with paint marker; and some journaling on the bottom done with a white gel pen.

Thank you Michelle for a beautiful spread and a gorgeous cityscape :) She used these supplies – some links are affiliate links:



Play along with us this month and join the 30 day Artful Adventures Stroll Challenge! I love to see how you interpret our monthly themes. Email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share your projects in my “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.

Nat

Comments (5)

  • Diane T

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    Loved the city/country connection and the quote at the bottom. Great job!

    Reply

  • Sue Clarke

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    LOVE how you used the stamps and the colors you chose for the page.

    Reply

  • Julie Tucker

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    This is gorgeous! LOVING the colors and the buildings!!!!!!!!!!

    Reply

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Out and About – Marsha Valk

  

Hello my friends!  This month the Creative Squad is playing along with my Stroll Challenge and today Marsha Valk is sharing some super cool cards. She’s using my Stroll Through the Hood #1 & #2, Cardboard, and Embroidery stamp sets, and working with the prompt word Pattern and the theme Out and About – Sometimes it’s hard to see all the cool and inspiring stuff that’s right under our noses. This month we hope you will join us in our 30 day Stroll Challenge and get Out and About where you live, and find some local inspiration.

Merriam-Webster has 11(!) definitions for the word ‘Pattern’. One of these is:
3: an artistic, musical, literary, or mechanical design or form, the geometrical pattern of the carpet, the strict pattern of rhythm and rhyme for a sonnet — Gigi Marino

…and it’s super fitting for the pattern I saw whilst Out and About.

I see patterns everywhere and all the time: tiles, bricks, grids, shadows, on flora and fauna… and I have quite a library of photos of patterns found right here where I live in Amersfoort, the Netherlands. But… there is a different pattern plastered all over my city right now and this particular pattern ties my place of residence to New York. And as my assignment was to combine today’s Stroll Challenge prompt with the Stroll #2 stamps, going with this pattern made sense to me.

2017 has been declared the national year of De Stijl, because the art group was founded a hundred years ago, in 1917. Amersfoort is taking this opportunity to celebrate one of its most famous former residents: Piet Mondriaan (or: Mondrian).

Mondriaan was born in Amersfoort in 1872 and he died in Manhattan in 1944. He lived in Amersfoort until 1880, when his family moved to another part of the Netherlands.

His birth house in now a museum where you can see some of his early (still naturalist) works and learn about his life.

Now onto the project!

I started out playing in the journal I keep for the Stroll Challenge prompts and then moved on to square and rectangle pieces of cardstock. I didn’t have to think about colours. I searched my stash for suitable stamping inks in the De Stijl colour palette: red, yellow, blue, black, grey and white. I covered each base with gesso first because I felt the plain white paper was too flat and stark.

And then I just stamped my compositions on top, starting with the grids and then filling in the spaces with colour and pattern, using post-it tape and scraps of paper to mask off and protect parts of the design whilst stamping. I’m not sure why, but I didn’t feel that the compositions with straight lines looked right. So I tried some more on a diagonal square piece of cardstock, which I liked much better.

But then it occurred to me that having the paper diagonal wasn’t very practical for, for instance, making cards. So I continued to play with diagonal lines and blocks of colour and left the paper straight.

Once the ink was dry, I adhered the cards I liked best onto black folded notecards.


Conclusion: creating pleasing compositions with just blocks of colour and lines is much harder than you might think. I hope you try it too. It’s an interesting and fun exercise!

Thank you Marsha – these rock! And so cool that your ‘hood is celebrating such an important artist! Marsha used the following supplies (some are affiliate links):



Play along with us this month and join the 30 day Artful Adventures Stroll Challenge! I love to see how you interpret our monthly themes. Email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share your projects in my “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.

Nat

Comments (2)

  • jbonomo

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    thank you for the inspiration today! Love the transition from the physical idea to paper. I will have to try this.

    Reply

  • Michelle

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    This is so much fun. I’m from The Hague (also in the Netherlands) and my city is also covered in Mondriaan prints. The “gemeentemuseum” has a year long Mondriaan exhibit.

    I love your interpretation of all this and how you translated it into your own art, Marsha!

    Xx Michelle

    Reply

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Out and About – Cheiron Brandon

  

Hello from the Creative Squad!  This month the Creative Squad will be playing along with my Stroll Challenge and today Cheiron Brandon is sharing a really cool canvas panel using my Stroll Through the Hood #2 and Embroidery stamp sets, and working with the prompt word Sky and the theme Out and About – Sometimes it’s hard to see all the cool and inspiring stuff that’s right under our noses. This month we hope you will join us in our 30 day Stroll Challenge and get Out and About where you live, and find some local inspiration.

Hi there! It’s Cheiron here and I hope you have been having fun with the Stroll through the Hood photo prompts this month. The word today is SKY and here is the picture I was inspired by. It is taken straight from my “hood” in New Jersey. Not the neighborhood I thought I would ever live in, but living here allows me to have a dedicated studio space. In my hood, I try to find adventure in the little things each day.

For my project this month, I decided to create a small canvas panel with some iridescent gelatos.

I started by scribbling some gelatos onto my panel.

Then I blended them into the canvas, added darker shades to highlight the edges.

To create my “sky”, I used a baby wipe through Nat’s Kassel stencil to remove some of the color from my canvas and reveal the white underneath.

I added more color and blended the edges even more.

Then I added Nat’s Star Fish stamp.

I then stamped the Grannies stamp and the Warehouse stamp from Stroll through the Hood 2 and added some crackle texture paste through Nat’s Beacon stencil to make the sky come alive even more.

I added Nat’s Running and Cross Circle stamps, and some word stickers to complete my canvas.

Thank you Cheiron for such a beautiful piece. Cheiron used the following supplies (some are affiliate links):



Play along with us this month and join the 30 day Artful Adventures Stroll Challenge! I love to see how you interpret our monthly themes. Email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share your projects in my “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.

Nat

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Out and About – Tina Walker

  

Hello from the Creative Squad!  This month the Creative Squad will be playing along with my Stroll Challenge and today Tina Walker is starting us off with a really cool mixed media project using my Stroll Through the Hood #2 stamp set, and working with the theme Out and About – Sometimes it’s hard to see all the cool and inspiring stuff that’s right under our noses. This month we hope you will join us in our 30 day Stroll Challenge and get Out and About where you live, and find some local inspiration.

Hi! Tina Walker here today with my take on this month’s theme, ‘Out and About’. During the month of May, as part of n*Studio’s 30 day Stroll Challenge and getting out in my neighborhood, I thought it would be fun to take one of the photographs from the challenge and use it as inspiration for my project. We hope you will join us this month and get out and about and say hello to your neighbors and enjoy the spring weather.

To kick off the STROLL, I used this photograph as inspiration this month. I was ‘strolling’ to my mailbox and captured this shot of my walk, mid stride.

Because my stroll was taking me to the mailbox, I immediately spied the fabulous Mailbox stamp include in the ‘Stroll Through the Hood #2’ stamp set. It was serendipitous!

I haven’t created a trio of ATC cards for a while, so I thought I’d pull out some blanks and get creating.

To create the background of each ATC, I covered each blank with a sheet of dictionary paper. I then heat embossed the Warehouse, Main Station, and E-Train stamps also included in the set.

I added lots of distressing with Distress Oxide inks, reacting the inks with water.

The mailbox embellishments were created by stamping into oven back clay. Once hardened and cooled, I distressed each piece with acrylic paint.

To finish each ATC scene, I added people die-cuts, stamped fabric sentiments, and a hand-cut and colored Flag stamp (also included in the set).

Each ATC was machine stitched to a scrap piece of leather and cotton batting, incorporating a fabric ‘hanger’.

I love how my patriotic ATCs turned out. Each vignette made me think about the generations of people, strolling to their neighborhood mailboxes, sending well wishes, happy thoughts, and joyous news. It seems all so simple and uncomplicated, in our new world of electronic media, and impersonal communication.

I hope you enjoyed my project today and join us this month. Have a great day!

Thank you Tina for taking us back in time and inspiring us to get Out and About wherever we live! In addition to scrap fabric and a sewing machine, Tina used these supplies – some links are affiliate links:



Play along with us this month and join the 30 day Artful Adventures Stroll Challenge! I love to see how you interpret our monthly themes. Email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share your projects in my “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.

Nat

Comments (5)

  • Sue Clarke

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    Love those “romantic” ATC’s Tina. My favorite is the optimist one.
    Perfect for Memorial Day and 4th of July coming up!

    Reply

  • julie b

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    oooh! What a great post….I love that mailbox stamp and it was cool to see the embossed buildings in the background. Just might have to try this technique with the fire hydrant as my walks to the mailbox always include walking the pug (who likes to mark the neighborhood gnome as every other dog has done so too). Shhh, she also has a favorite mailbox she likes to mark (the only one out of 60+ in the neighborhood).

    Reply

  • Gerrie!

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    These are really awesome Tina!! Love how you incorporated the stamps into the background, and people!

    Funny thing….I live in a different area…southwest Florida – where I live we don’t have sidewalks, few houses…we have no mailboxes except for the ones in front of peoples homes, and a blue box in front of the post office. If I go for a stroll, I see some houses, and lots of vacant lots! We have no factories or industry……….our oldest house was built in the late 1950’s! I will really have to put my thinking cap on to play along.

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      You can take a pic of your mailbox, from an angle, upside down – it can be also your postoffice or anything- think in the widest sense, make up your own rules ;)

      Reply

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Live Like It’s Spring – Michelle Rydell

Hello from the Creative Squad! The monthly theme is Live Like it’s Spring – Springtime is when Mother Nature kicks it into high gear. It’s the time to wake up and approach life with renewed energy.  Let’s join Mother Nature in this reawakening and create some things in the Spirit of Spring! Today Michelle Rydell is playing with different parts of my stencils  to celebrate spring with a gorgeous mandala. Check out her nifty beautiful idea to use stencils!

When I heard that the theme for this month was about springtime, the first thing I thought of was flowers! Then I took out my Wanderlust stencils to see what I could see. I love looking deeply into Nat’s stencil patterns, because you can see so many patterns within patterns. This time, what I saw was a cute little tulip within the Santa Fe Stencil. Do you see it too?

That gave me the idea to create a springtime mandala with the little tulips as a starting point. I’m creating this spread on watercolor paper in a 9” x 12” journal. The guideline I’m setting for myself is to only use bits and pieces from the following Wanderlust stencils: Santa Fe, New Orleans, and Manhattan. Here’s the step-by-step…

I started with the basic diamond shape (from the Santa Fe) in the middle, tracing it with pencil in the middle of the page. Then I drew a line straight out from each point and side of the diamond. Then added a “tulip” at the end of each line…

From there I just started building outward with various shapes from the stencils; first tracing with pencil, then going over it with pen, once I knew I liked the way it looked.

When I reached this point, I started to see the center of a giant daisy emerging! I found a quote that felt perfect to tie the mandala in with springtime. I drew a circle around the mandala, leaving a little room to add the quote to the inside of the circle. In case it’s hard to read, here’s what it says…

“There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.” ~ Rachel Carson

Then I drew the petals, to complete the flower…

Colored it in with tombow markers…

And cut the shape of the flower out, so you can see the journal page before and after behind it.

Wow – I love how all those different parts of the stencils created something new and beautiful – stunning, Michelle! She used these supplies – some links are affiliate links:


Play along with us! I love to see how you interpret our monthly themes. Email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share your projects in my “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.

Nat

Comments (2)

  • Sue Clarke

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    It’s amazing how a crafty person can create such beauty while using different pieces of this stencil.
    Thanks for the ideas Michelle as I tend to create “in the box”.

    Reply

  • Julie Tucker

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    This is gorgeous! LOVING how you assembled that flower!!!!!!!!!!!

    Reply

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Live Like It’s Spring – Marsha Valk

  

Hello from the Creative Squad! Today Marsha Valk is officially ushering in spring with a collection of gorgeous collages using a whole bunch of my stencils and the monthly theme Live Like it’s Spring – Springtime is when Mother Nature kicks it into high gear. It’s the time to wake up and approach life with renewed energy.  Let’s join Mother Nature in this reawakening and create some things in the Spirit of Spring!

When it’s Spring again I’ll bring again… Tulips from Amsterdam! They’re actually from my craft room about 50 km east of Amsterdam… but that’s near enough I think ;-).

I started with mono printing a bunch of greenish, reddish and yellow/orangey prints on copy paper with my Gelli plate and Nathalie’s Buenos Aires, Manhattan, Mesa Verde, Santiago, and Toledo stencils. Once dry I cut them up into tulip leaves and stems.

I wanted to use Nat’s ‘Amsterdam’ stencil, with the tulip pattern, for the background. To achieve a softer ‘ghost’ print, I had to pull four prints: I applied paint onto the Gelli plate, layered the stencil on top and pulled two prints to remove most of the paint.

Then I removed the stencil and pulled another print to remove even more paint. And then for the final print I applied white paint onto the Gelli plate and pulled a last ghost print. And this last print is what I used for the background.

The last step was to collage the tulip parts onto the Gelli printed backgrounds.

Thank you Marsha! I love how you combined all those different stencil patterns with those gorgeous spring colors. In addition to some white copy paper, Marsha used these supplies – some links are affiliate links:




Play along with us! I love to see how you interpret our monthly themes. Email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share your projects in my “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.

Nat

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