Fire with Water(colours)

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Fire With Water(colors)

Creating Wood

My husband is into woodworking and he often shows me stuff that inspires me too. Like this box. After seeing it I wanted to work with papers like they were wood. Carve with my pen and all!

Here's my own little piece of wood, only on paper!

First, I only had an idea of how wood is constructed as a material. It's lots of layers. I made the bottom layer with inks and chose deep orange shades. Then I took one of my illustrations, converted it black and white with computer and printed it to a transparent film. It was pretty full of everything - as my work usually is - even in black and white, but of course it was not quite enough. I added some more doodling over it with a black marker. It already began to look like wood when setting the transparency over the orange background.

I was not finished though. The two layers were then scanned and manipulated digitally to make the black look like it's gone deeper into the orange layer. The result was printed on paper. I added "the carving" using white pen. Then back to the computer! I cut the piece in Photoshop and added the original scan as a background. Some fine tuning and there it was!

An american artist Georgia O'Keeffe said: "To create one's own world, in any of the arts, takes courage." I do not know about courage but it surely is the best art can give to me: to create my own world!

Faberge Revisited

Now is the time to grab those handmade patterned papers and make your own Faberge eggs! I used the smallest scraps here!

I begun with styrox egg and covered it with gesso. After the gesso had dried I glued the paper scraps with matte medium. Then I drew few extra doodles on it and added some faux jewels.

The stand is made from used tealight candle tin. I covered it with paper and added a decorated ribbon on it.

You can't have too many details here! The more the better!

Have a creative Easter!

Easter Is Coming!

And how do I know that? Without Pinterest I probably would have not noticed it yet. Last easter I made an Easter themed illustration and people have been pinning it now. Also I love Faberge eggs and discovered via Pinterest that many other's do that too.

So, thinking of eggs like a minute or so, I had to begin to make my own ones!

Jewel Tones

I have been doodling rugs recently. The woolly texture of them is very appealing so I find it fun to try to make illustrations that imitate them. This one had colors that I really like so I repeated them on wool too.

Here's the first set of wool that I dyed. (Available at Etsy)

And here's the second one. (Also available at Etsy)

These jewel tones get me in a good mood, hopefully you too! Colorful day!

Starting with Simple Things

Here's my first exercise for the Pattern Design Course: die cut circles on a painted background. This is terrible simple for me, it felt awful to leave it like this!

Frugal Crafter's Guide To Hand Decorated Papers

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Sometimes I just want to overlook all the expensive materials and make art from plain and basic materials. While watching a video about embossing powders I got the idea of using color pencils as a resist for watercolor. So, if you are filled with ideas but hate to see instructions were special materials are required, this is just for you!

You only need

• paper
• at least one color pencil (basic one, not water soluble)
• watercolors

Here's what you do

1) Grab a paper! I prefer quite thin (90 g/m2, 43 lbs) and smooth papers, but you can choose whatever you like or have.

2) Start doodling with the color pencil. You can use any color(s) you like but using white makes the result especially interesting, I think.

3) When you have filled the paper with your doodling, paint the paper with watercolors. Paint over the doodling! Use a lot of paint as we will wash some away in the next phase.

4) Let dry. Seriously. This is the only step where the patience is required.

5) Wash the paper with water. The idea is to get the color pencil strokes appear again. You may have to use the fingers to remove the color if you want a nice pastel background.

5) Let dry!

6) Here's my example. You can use papers for collages, cardmaking, bookcovers, all kinds of papercrafting!

Here are some of my experiments showing various colors of pens and paints.

Using Hand Decorated Papers

A greeting card, available at Etsy

One of the most popular posts in my blog is How To Make Your Own Patterned Paper. If you have made some, I want to encourage to use those!

Or buy some that I have printed from my artwork, available at Etsy!

In one of the previous posts, I gave a glimpse of an art journal that I made recently. I want to show better pictures this time! In this journal I have combined my artsy photos with the papers, some printed, some originals.

I hope you enjoyed the art journal!

Preparing for a Craft Fair

Set of 3 handdecorated papers, available at Etsy.

I am attending a craft fair in Helsinki after a couple of weeks. I have been spinning, dyeing, doodling and painting like crazy and even if it's fun, it is also hard. I do have my day job too. And it is always nerve wracking to put stuff for sale. People might not like it. They might find it too expensive. And the biggest fear: they might not get inspired at all!

I love seeing people who are passionate about what they do. I can tirelessly listen to anyone who talks enthusiastically whatever their specialty is. And I want to be one of them too. Even if I can criticize my own work endlessly, I want to forget all that critique when going to the fair. Being able to talk what I have been doing in the late evenings and weekends for years, it is a luxury. Like this blog is. Hopefully the things that inspire me will inspire some others too!

Marie Antoinette

I love the Marie Antoinette movie. I have watched it again and again and I love to examine the photos of the scenes. I wanted to doodle something overwhelming and overanything so I picked one photo, some paint and plenty of pens.

You can see the conceptual illustration in the lower right corner. I have found out that helps to figure the shapes of the doodles first. After the concept sketch, I made the original paper, shown in the upper right corner. Then I took photos of it and made some more versions on the computer. Romantic Monday!

Never Not Doodling!

I am participating this week's Get Inspired scrapbooking challenge with this layout. It has my budgie's childhood photos. The first two of them has been taken by her breeder Annica Haga. This is a digital layout and most of the elements are from Michelle Underwood's Wild Hearts kit.

What I really like in digital layouts is adding some doodling with the pen tablet. I have Wacom Intuos 4 in medium size. I have used it for the title. The digital page looks so much more personal when some hand writing or hand doodling has been added on it.

Talking about hand doodling, I have spent some non-digital quality time too. Here are the papers I decorated yesterday. The blue one is my favorite. They are for sale as a set in my Etsy shop. Check them if you are interested adding some wild stuff for your art journal, cards or what ever you like to craft from paper.

That Little Push from ScrapHappy.org

Here's a scrapbooking layout that's my entry to ScrapHappy.org's sketch challenge in April. It's about making circles and why I love it. I have used my hand decorated papers for the layout and I quite like it how they work with the photo and with the peaceful background. (I try to keep hand decorated papers available in my Etsy shop from now on so if you like to try them, see Peony And Parakeet at Etsy).

Now you might wonder what is ScrapHappy.org. It's a community hosted by Lain Ehmann, a famous scrapbooker. It has a monthly fee and each month you get blog posts that have challenges, videos, audios and other fun and inspiring things for scrapbooking. I like the way Lain brings her personality online. You also get to participate her Layout a Day challenges where you scrapbook layout a day for the whole month. Those repeat three times a year.

What I really like with Lain is that she really tries to make scrapbooking easy. The sketches are very simple and her tips about taking time for scrapbooking are practical. Sometimes I need that little push to get the page done!

How to Make Paper Flowers

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Once you have made your own patterned paper, why not turn them into adorable paper flowers!

I just love the way they go along with the papers. Once you have developed your own style, anything you do can be combined together. As I have said, the best shop for papers and embellishments is the one you can set up for yourself!

So take out your hand decorated papers (I have quite a pile of them) and start making flowers! In addition to papers, you will only need correction pen, black marker (I love PITT artist pens), some embroidery floss, glue (Tombow is my favorite) and scissors.

Pick three papers that work well together. Remember to ensure there's enough contrast between them.

Cut three circles, a small one, a medium one and a large one. My largest one is about 3 inches (7,5 cm) but you can make them in various sizes. Just be sure the smallest circle is big enough to add details like button holes.

If you have made your papers drawing layered circles, you have your circles ready to be cut. I cut the circles free hand as I am not so fussy about making them accurate.

After cutting the circles, take the biggest one and draw the shape of the flower with the black marker. I like my flowers to be asymmetrical. I think they look more artsy that way!

Cut by following the marker line so that the black marker line remains visible. The line frames your flower and make it look more dimensional.

You can also change the shape of the second circle if it feels right. I often find myself adjusting the shapes of the circles during the process.

Make the smallest circle to look like a button by drawing circles with the marker and the correction pen. Then add holes with the marker. Big holes look better than small ones.

Now you have the three parts of the flower ready to be attached. Glue the parts together. Then take your needle and sew the buttonhole. After this phase I often add details with the marker. Here I have added little dots around the button and circled the second circle. As I love adding layers to my work, I finally glued the flower to another paper (blue one in the picture) and cut it out.

Here's the finished piece. Have fun with your papers!

Painted Pottery

It all started with the two flower pots that I found at the antique flea market. I found them so inspiring! Then it continued with the few drops of wood stain that were left in the jar after some home renovation. I made some patterned papers by combining the stain with the watercolor pencils. Then I had to scan them just to see how they looked like at the computer. And then it all got out of hand ...

I made a digital scrapbooking page about the pots.

But before that I made my own kit.

It is available for you for free. Just remember: just for personal pages, no commercial use, no alterations.

Painted Pottery Digital Scrapbooking Kit (large zip file, over 17 MB)

Sales Table

I am going to a small crafts event tomorrow and here's the most of my sales table. Fabrics, cards and decorated papers. It has been fun to gather them all together and it will be fun to attend the event, sales or no sales!

How To Make Your Own Patterned Paper

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While preparing moving to a new house I have tried to avoid big projects. So I have done quite a lot of paper crafting recently. One of the easiest and quickest things to do is to make patterned papers. I use Canson sketch paper (90 g in thickness) and whatever paints and pens I possibly have.

I think that sometimes more really is more, so I call these "More Is More" papers! I am going to use these for my art journal pages. Before cutting them I scan them so that I can use the same paper digitally or print a copy of it. That way I have always some papers available.

Now I am going to show you one of the easiest way I know to make really rich and colorful paper. Besides the paper, you will need watercolors, marker pens, gel pens and colored pencils, correction pen and relaxed mind. Don't worry about the mess you make, it will look lovely in the end!

1) Paint the background with watercolors.

Use circular strokes. Don't think.

Dry the excess water with tissue paper here and there to create some lighter areas.

2) Make doodles with markers.

I love to use PITT artist pens here. Any medium marker will do.

I like circles and swirls but you can doodle what ever comes to your mind. Relax your hand and keep the pressure light.

3) Continue doodling with gel pens.

Now change to gel pens and make detailed doodles. I use Sakura gel pens.

Some might think that this is the last step but no way! More is more, remember!

4) Color areas with colored pencils.

If you look closely there might be areas where colors are grayish or not so prefect. Take your colored pencils and work the problem areas. Do not worry overlapping the doodling. The layered look is just what we aim here.

It looks like this now. Finished? Oh no!

5) Doodle with correction pen.

One of the best pens you can buy is a fine point correction pen. After you have colored all the white areas, you can make the white to come back with the correction pen! Now doodle over the paper, here and there...

6) Add contrast and shine.

Take your black marker and make pretty dots near the white areas.

Optional: If you have a gold metallic pen you can doodle mindlessly over everything to add some extra shine.

Isn't more really more? You can stop in any step, of course, I couldn't!

Painting Backgrounds

Today is a public holliday in Finland and I have tried to make most of it already. I have been painting backgrounds for my doodling. I put them all together here in one photo. The colors look great I think.

Here is a couple of finished doodling made recently.