Express Yourself with Art ............

Good morning and a very happy weekend!

I've had a play with my Visible Image stamps again and as usual, I've put my "twist" on things!  Well, either that or the bowler hat man is having a rather bad day!!!!!!!!

I have recently made a piece of artwork with the bowler hat man from the Ahead Of Our Time set from Visible Image so I've mixed things up a bit and changed the head for Mr bone jangles (also Visible Image) !!!!

Now, this wasn't the easiest card to do, particularly because there is no paper piecing or attached pieces, it's all on the one layer so I'll talk you through how I got there.....

The first thing that I had to get right was Mr bone jangles skull face.  I stamped him in watering can Archival ink and then stamped him again over the top with a slate coloured Spectrum Noir aqua pen to give me a two tone face (you can see that his face has the blue tint to it but this was added later on).

I then masked off the skull face with drawing gum so that was nice and safely covered.  I then stamped the "shoulders" of the bowler hat man being extremely careful to get them in the right place and I then masked those off too.  So with a head and shoulders I stamped just the bowler hat with black versafine ink and again, then masked that off as well. So, by this stage I had all three main components stamped and masked off.

Then the nice, messy, inky bit came!!!!  The background has been done using distress oxides, I just love them!  Both for backgrounds, for stamping and indeed for diluting and painting with - so versatile.

So, I got the main background done and then added some drippy stamps from the Visible Image drag and drip set which were stamped using the same distress oxides.

The sentiment of express yourself with Art is from the Visible Image never grow up set and I have split the "Art" away from the rest of the sentiment (I didn't literally split it, I just inked up "express yourself with", stamped it, cleaned the stamp and then stamped "Art" three times separate to the rest.

All the masking fluid was rubbed away and I shaded in the skull face and the shoulders and popped some yellow on the bowler hat to match everything else.

The birds were stamped (also in the Ahead of Our Time set) and the two tumbling figures were stamped in black versafine to look like the man was jumping off of the hat and the lady is swinging from the Art sentiment - it does get a bit nerve wracking when you've done so much and you are hoping that you don't mess up the stamping right at the very end!!!! So if you ever feel that way, panic not, I've been stamping for almost 20 years now and I still get a bit "edgy" when I get that last sentiment or image on there!!! Trust your ability and go for it!

I did a bit of highlighting with a white pen around "Art" and the skull face.

Mat and layered in white and black.

I'll share this with my friends on the Visible Image Facebook page.

Thanks for stopping by today, I hope I've inspired you to get a bit more out of your rubber stamps?

Leanne xx