Miss. Jem

Meet Miss Jem, she is a curly girl. She is a collaboration between the fabulous PaperArtsy paints and Seth Apters dies and stamps. 

Of course I started with a loose face sketch. 

Then I started to block in the base colours of the face using Rose, haystack, Chalk, Blush, Irish Cream. these are my go to colours for fair skin tones. 

Refining and smoothing out, and adding Coral and Cherry Red for the lips. 

Now to start the hair, I knew most would be covered up, but there still needs to be a base there to peep through.  I brayered Smurf, China, Winter Green...

then added Zucchini and Chalk.

Over this I added the spotty stamp from Seth apter, using Cornflower Archival ink. How fab is this I am seriously in love with this spotty hair, bit sad that it will be covered up... but on we go..

Next I sorted out lots of scraps of painted and gelli printed papers from previous projects. 

on some I stamped circles, all from Seth Apter's ranges. 

other pieces were used to die cut more of Seth's circles from the following dies.. 

Robo Ring

Center of Drip Drop

Coffee Rings

Splatter Proof

Ring Around

Centre of Take Flight

Centre of Pocket Watch

Then I played around with the placement. 

Once they were stuck down I needed to make a mask to cover them so I could work on the background. I brayered with Vanilla, Banana, Coral and White. I then stamped with Seth's bubble wrap stamp in Pale Ochre Archival, the French Text in Orange Blossom and The stars in Cornflower. 

more work on the face..

and the face is finished.. 

The extra little stars tie in nicely. 

All the circles are outlined with a black pen and highlighted with white. 

The outer edge looked a little unfinished so I added the spikey bits from the splatter proof die. 

Here she is all finished . Miss. Jem. 

Darcy x

Big Hair

Well I had to... 

Meet Kala, my latest big haired girl. This time I wanted a different look, so I have tried a much darker skin tone. I started as always with a pencil sketch on heavy smoothy. 

I began with regular skin tones, and didn't get very far before I knew I just didn't want to do the same old regular pink tones. 

So I darkened my pallette, and introduced Brown Shed, Chocolate Pudding, Toffee, Nougat, Caramel, Green Olives..  plus a quick wash in the hair. 

Next I started adding colours to the hair, starting with black, I also adding Chocolate, and French Roast. 

The eyes are done with Chocolate Pudding, Caramel, Green Olives, Toffee, Nougat, Black. 

I also mixed some tar gel with French Roast and drizzled this over the hair, this turned out to be such a fantastic texture for the hair. 

Now for the background I applied Grunge Paste through my new stencil PS031. 

After adding some Treasure Gold over the dried tar gel, the hair looks so good. Using the centre of my new frilly flower I created a bindi.

More Grunge Paste down the sides, using the circle border from PS031. 

Now for some punchy background colours. I started with Captain Peacock. 

I also painted some card with Chartreuse and Green Olives, on this I stamped the leaves from EDY19, cut them out and added them to the base of the hair bun. 

more shading to the background, the outer area had some Caribbean Sea and Inky Pool added to it. The diamond shape is Eggplant, Bougainvillea and Cherry Red. 

Some Treasure Gold over all the grunge paste stencilled bits. 

I stamped the Popy flower from EDY19 onto purple card, cut out the petals and created this tiara. 

On Bougainvillea painted card I stamped the spikey flower from EDY18, layering the petals to creat a double  half flower for the hair. 

Here are the pink flowers in place, the nose has been shaded and the mouth is painted in Claret and Eggplant . The little necklace is the tall spikey grass stamp from EDY18.

I stencilled the butterfly from PS029 onto card using  Lavender, Glss Blue, CAribbean Sea and Bougainvillea, this was cut out and the wings cut apart so that a bridge piece could be added. I stamped the tall spikey grasses and added those as a handle. 

Using the same stencil I created 2 small butterflies, adding the veins with a black pen. 

Here she is finished, it did seem a shame to cover her pretty face, but I really wanted to create a butterfly mask. 

Because I didn't want to cover her face completely, I only stuck the butterfly down on one side, leaving the other sticking up. 

I do love this face.. 

Hope you like her. 

Darcy x

Clock Face for Halloween

This evening I am over on the PaperArtsy blog with a project featuring a face as that is our topic for this fortnight. I have had this MDF clock for a while and really wanted to paint this up. I had thought on and off about doing a skull on the clock, so when this topic came up it was the perfect opportunity to get this project done. 

I totally love how this turned out, especially the skull. I am not sure whether i like the flowers so much, but I do think they fit with the overall theme. 

Pop over to the PaperArtsy blog to see all the steps of how this came together. 

Darcy x

Miss. Noelle

helloooo.. I bet you were wondering if I would do a big haired girl? well I have and here she is.. 

Meet Miss. Noelle. 

I started with heavy smoothy card and a quick sketch. 

I began to work on the face using Chalk, Rose, Irish Cream, Pumpkin Soup and Haystack. 

Adding, refining, smoothing.. 

Next I gave her a red hairband using London Bus and Blood Orange. 

and the start of some green hair using Tinned Peas. 

Then I went back to her face to finish the eyes.. 

The hair is going to be all holly, so I started added that into the background using EDY04. I also blocked in the background using Smurf and China.. 

I added text from EDY03 and then snowflakes from EDY04. 

Next I added the reindeer from EDY16. I used WOW embossing powder in Vintage Peacock directly onto the card to stamp the antlers. Then I painted some card with Captain Peacock and Metalic Glaze and embossed the rest of the body, this was cut out and glued in place on the hand.

See how shiny.. 

I stamped the baubles from EDY16 and coloured them using Caran d'Ache Fibralo pens. I also added liquid pearls and stickles. The tops of these are the perfect sixe to be punched out using the small hole on a cropadile. 

Here is the rest of the hair filled in with Tinned Peas. 

 and the rest of the background stamped with leaves. You can just see the small trees from EDY16 resting on top of the hairband. I shaded in between all the holly using Holly Fresco. and lightened up some of the leaves using Hey Pesto. 

More holly leaves, some stamped in black archival then coated with gloss glaze, some embossed with WOW Earth Olive and some embossed with WOW Evergreen. 

I painted some tissue white, then stamped and coloured just the snowman heads from EDY15

Here they are in place... who remembers wearing Deely Boppers in the 80's???

I added some white paint onto the small trees as snow, and the baubles are glued in place. 

her arm looked bare, so I added the hanging bow from EDY04.. not sure if it is a tattoo or a bracelet. 

More smoothy painted with London Bus and the poinsettia flower stamped. The buttons were stamped onto Captain Peacock.. i love the contrast. 

and finally some stars stamped with WOW Gold Pearl. These were cut out and dotted around the hair. 

The flowers and loose leaves were all glued in place and the title added at the bottom. I added some shading to the flowers using Pitt pens, some shadows with a stabilo pencil and some more dots of liquid pearls and stickles here and there. 

I love the dimension and movement created with the loose leaves. 

Hope you enjoyed that. 

Darcy x