Finding my arty side

I've been watching lots of painting shows on TV recently and feeling very jealous of the painters skills.  Whilst I love to colour and paint, I have never felt confident drawing or painting so having stamps to use is my way in and provides the confidence I lack when faced with a blank canvas!  One of the things that really stuck with me from the portrait artist of the year show was a portrait they showed with a gilt background and whilst I will never be able to paint a portrait I thought I could try the same technique with a big bold stamp.  So here is where my inspiration took me.

I stamped the large floral image from the new You Are Here stamp from Concord & 9th and stamped it directly onto the centre of a canvas (put something underneath the centre to get a solid stamped image) and then I painted the background with teal acrylic paint and allowed to dry.

The flowers were then painted again in acrylic using the wet into wet technique to get the detail in the petals and leaves.  Painting one petal at a time allows you to go right onto the lines giving a similar finish to the no line colouring technique when you stamp in pale inks.

Once dry I use flitter glu and carefully painted around the image leaving a teal border, allowing to dry before adding a mixture of gilding flakes, fading out towards the edge and just adding small patches around the edge for a shabby aged look (I need to work on my shabby-chic skills - I'm a bit too neat!)

I really enjoyed doing something a little different with my stamps for a change and having a piece of art to hang rather than a disposable card makes a pleasant change so I do hope you let out your arty sides too!

NEWS FROM THE STORE

• We have some restocks from Altenew in transit along with the first of their releases this month (stencils and ink sprays) and expect them this week (customs willing)  We have the newest release and the flower of the month sets on order but are awaiting a shipping notification for those so can't give a firm eta as yet but hopefully in the next couple of weeks.
• We'll have some new papers, stencils and dies from Echo Park in store this week 
• We will also have a small restock order from Paper Smooches along with a few items from recent months that are new to us.
• We will have the new release and some restocks from Lil' Inker Designs when it releases in early April.
• We have found a new way to work with Thermoweb so will be able to get lots of lovely new foils and other products including those with their new collaborations in store soon.
• We are waiting for Lawn Fawn restocks to ship and again hope to have those in the next couple of weeks.
• We have our order in for the gorgeous new release from Stamping Bella and hope to have it soon after it releases next week.