practice pieces

Well folks, my brayer arrived yesterday, as did my Mountain Meadow big and juicy ink pad, along with a couple of other goodies.     And today Barbara Gray was on Create and Craft so I got all inspired.  First of all I thought I'd try a bit of a scene, but I also wanted to use my new Tales of the Ocean, designed by Sylvie Ashton for Joanna Sheen.   Sylvie has the most fantastic blog, she is very talented and gives away amazing free digital stamps.

So I went all nautical, with limited success it has to be said.   After a few experimental runs with a brayer on some ordinary copier paper I thought it time to take it onto the silk art card.   that bit was ok.  But then it came to the stamping.  That wasn't too bad.   But the little bit of colouring with promarkers was not good at all.   It seems to go ok when she does it on the TV, but then she does it direct onto the card, not once it's been brayered - at least not that I noticed.  So perhaps that needs a bit more experimentation.

But now for the specimen



Then I thought I'd have a go with the technique when you stamp in clear ink (versamark) first, then print over it - resist technique I believe, but the stamp was too big for my acrylic blocks, so I thought "oh what the hell" and inked up with versamark then gently put it on the card and pressed.   Took it off then ran over the card with the inked up brayer.  It would have been lovely, if only I'd remembered to take some of the ink off first, so it took forever to dry.  And I didn't leave it long enough before I fiddled with it.   So I had another go.   Which was better in terms of the quantity of ink, but I think I pressed a little too firmly when stamping the image.

Then finally I ran the brayer over the stamp, and as it has a repeating pattern , if you line it up properly will look seamless.   You can see my seam, but if I make it into a card, I'm sure I can find a bit of ribbon somewhere.

I do have plans for at least one of these specimens that involves a mermaid, might not get it done today, but  when it's done, it shall be shared.

And here is the link to Sylvie's cards - just so you can see the full potential of her stamps

Oh and I've invested in an Extreme knitting cushion kit. 

Laters

xxx