In Progress

This is one of my "Works in progress."

Its an 18x18 canvas-its so close to being complete it hurts! I have agonized over this for days.

Created By Hand Challenge: Red and/or Pink

Collage image and phrase by Quietfire Design

More pics!

These are more pics from yesterday. I have to say, the pic of me and Gillian stamping together is very special. This is the first stamp show I have taken her to-and she seemed to really like it. After Gillian stamped something, she would hand it to whoever was watching us at the demo table :)

Stamp Show

I went to a stamp show today-what fun! I got to meet Ank from Stampinback-she is here from the Netherlands! We had a great visit and I got to see her do some of her amazing stamping-and she wanted to see me stamp too so I demoed a little bit at the IBFS booth as well! I even got to bring home an "Ank" original! ;)

Here are some pictures from today!

Gillian had some fun doing "Faux Carnival Glass" at the After Midnight Booth , right across from IBFS! This was the first time I had taken her with me to a stamp show.

"Pears"

16x20 on canvas

collage, acrylics, stamping, charcoal and graphite

New Work In Progress

I did the background for this one back in July-I transferred an image of a pear and it just did not turn out the way I wanted. Then I had my health issues then my surgery and I have stared at this thing everyday , not knowing honestly what I was going to do with this thing. I thought earlier today, "maybe I will just paint over the failed transfer" .......but it just didn't feel right.

Then I walked by it later and had an "A-ha" moment! I would piece the pear with magazine clippings.I am really loving all this piecing images together. It brought new life back to this piece and I am excited about it again.

Hopefully I will have the inspiration to finish (or at least work on) this one tomorrow. I have several ideas, I just gotta see if it works. This is a 16x20 canvas. The photo of the pear is just a small portion of the canvas. I am also including a photo of the entire backround I did back months ago. I would love to display this piece next month at Redlands Art Gallery for my "Program" night if it comes out the way I want it!

Fun at a New (to me) Art Store today!

I was in Art Supply heaven today...........literally! I had learned about this great place out

in Palm Desert called "The Art Colony" quite a while back and have been wanting to go. I finally went today and OMG I about died. That place is so awesome! I live in a small town and we don't have much in the way of art supplies nearby-I always have to drive or else order online. The normal places I go do NOT carry Golden brand products. I wanted to get some more Soft Gel Medium and some of that new Digital Grounds stuff they have and this place has the whole entire Golden line-so it would not only save me $$ on shipping but also I can have it today!

I was beyond excited about this store-everything, and I mean everything...........I am really glad its NOT close by, because I would be flat broke and our mortgage probably would not get paid!LOL

They had some really kewl papers too-had to get some of those. I scanned some snippets of a few of them-I was really crazy about the circle meshy papers I got

and I had to have one sheet of every color-the colors other than the white are actually metallic.

Very cool!! They had alot more and I wanted one of each kind , but, budget won't allow that. Besides, my husband is using everything I buy as leverage to get a special metal detector!LOL

So I guess now I have to watch what I say to him about how much I spend!

Theme Thursday:2x4's

Here is my contribution to Theme Thursday!

All stamps are Artistic Outpost

For the Rt 66 one I used Caran D'ache Crayons for the background and the Einstein one sponged distress inks .

Josephine reworked

As I kept looking at this piece everyday something was REALLY bugging me about it. It just needed a little something more to make it feel connected. So that was today's goal, to make this piece better connected. I am liking her much better now!

To the Right is the "before" and on the left is the "after"

Everything seems to connect now!

"Patches" is done!!

8x8 Portrait collage


No paint involved-just paper :)

I did one like this a year ago of a woman (Not sure if my blog readers remember or not) but it took me 18 or so hours to complete her.

This one took around 5ish because it is much smaller.

Created By Hand Challenge: Hearts

This is my contribution to the CBH Challenge for Hearts. I am not normally a person who uses alot of hearts, so this was a challenge :)

I used Colorwash Sprays for this using the Colorwash Batik technique out of a past Technique Junkies Newsletter

The heart image is from ISC

The word stamp is from Quietfire Design

The embellishment is grungeboard sprayed with colorwash and sprayed with webbing spray and edged with a leafing pen.

A Heart

Images from IBFS. Background created with Colorwash Sprays

Beginnings of a new piece

I still have a ways to go on this one............Its a dog :) I was just inspired to do a piece of a dog and have been for a while. This is taking some time-no paint involved-just cut and paste :)

Mr Brown

The text on this reads "Mr Brown was a natural diplomat"

He just looked diplomatic to me, with the fancy foreign looking windows behind him :)

Unfortunately the scan made the gel transfers look more shiny than they really are!

In this are:

Acrylics, collage, graphite, handpainted papers, gel transfers, water soluble crayon and peerless watercolors were used to color in the guy.

"Found" Mixed Media Collage on Canvas

I have to say-this piece really did not turn out at allllllllllllllll the way I expected! I am so hyped I even scanned it before the objects on the bottom dried completely (so pardon the white adhesive stuff!). Anyway-I started this out , challenging myself to use different colors than I normally work with-I don't work with red much (at least on canvas that is). I also challenged myself to use some print papers and embellishments. I have not used embellishments on a canvas in at least a couple years. Normally I just don't like the bulk. But, it fit with this and it really finished it off nicely. This canvas has layers and layers of paint..............I was about to throw this one out until I started working on what became the final piece. This is 9x12 in size.

It includes: Collage (obviously), Acrylics, image transfer, metal objects, gold leafing, and graphite

Created By Hand Challenge: The Word Love

All Stamps by Quietfire Design for the Created By Hand Tuesday Challenge!

"Photographing the Future"

This is 11x14 on canvas-VERY hard to get a good photo on this one.

My husband pointed out to me that the photographer herself is from a different time period than the people in the actual photos. I had to explain to him that the beauty of art (especially collage art) that EVERYTHING does NOT need to be accurate-and I told him she could be photographing the future, so that is the name I chose for it. That is one of the reasons I LOVE this medium-you can do whatever you want!

Lots of texture on this one-it does not show up in the photo. Layers of paint, old text underneath........ohhhhhhhhhh!!! :)

"Miss Jessie Emery"

Here's another collage on canvas I just completed. Actually this one started a year ago and I set her aside-I just lost inspiration to finish. I had forgotten about it, and just picked her up again and finished her. She didn't need much to finish. Feels good to have gotten her done!

I am calling her "Jessie Emery" after the name in some of the old text I used.

Faux Designer Paper

This is a technique from Technique Junkies that I just tried today! I must say it is now one of my favorites for sure!

Images from I Brake For Stamps

Created By Hand Challenge: Flourishes

Here is my contribution for the Created By Hand Challenge

The flourishes are by Quietfire Design and the main image , is from Katys Corner out of the UK which sadly is no more :(

I used Radiant Rain Daubers for the background, along with the "Painted Mesh" technique out of the Technique Junkies Newsletter.

My rubber baby

I had forgotten about this picture..........This is my Gillian sitting in a tub of RUBBER STAMPS back when I had Time To Stamp.........isn't it funny? She would climb in that tub of rubber quite frequently then.........she was around 2 1/2 I think in this picture.

Josephine

This is one I am just finishing up...........I call her Josephine because the back of the photograph said that was her name, or at least the person who signed it! This is 12x12 on a gallery wrapped canvas.

The background has a texture to it, you really can't see it in the photo.

Painted Mesh

Painted mesh is a technique in the latest issue of Technique Junkies newsletter.

I had to give it a go! The images used here are by Time to Stamp (available of course from I Brake for Stamps). The main image is one I am proud to say I designed :)

New CafePress Store

I have wanted to open a Cafepress store for some time now..........I finally did!
Not alot on there yet, as I am still trying to figure stuff out!
There are a few things though!
Here's the link:
http://www.cafepress.com/KristyChristop

Scrapbook for a friend

I have a friend who just recently had a baby and I wanted to make her a scrapbook-she has loved the scrapbooks I have made for friends in the past and really doesn't do scrapbooking at all (not that I myself do much) but I figure I have all the stuff here so I went ahead and made it. I think it came out great and I hope she likes it. Here are some pics of the cover and some of the inside pages. I made the color scheme brown, pink, and green. The baby's name is Payton, hence the "P" :)

The cover is made using a stencil-which alot of you know I LOVE stencils :)

An Award

I got the Kreativ Blogger award from my friend Wezz recently-I am really late doing this!

The rules for passing this award on are:

1. The winner may put this award on their blog

2. Put a link to the person who sent this award to you

3. Nominate 5 blogs

4. Put links to their blogs

5. Leave a message for your nominees

Here is who I nominate (all just awesomely creative people!):

Lori Blau-Marshall

Seth over at The Altered Page

Shelly Hickox

Lisa Gallup

Jeannine Peregrine

Visit their blogs :) And tell them I sent ya!