Keep It Real by Amanda Southern

Hi Everyone

Another Tuesday and another piece of my arty play, this time I have an art journal page as I use the first page of my 'Art by Marlene' small art journal. The reason I am playing in this particular art journal is because That's Crafty! now stock the fabulous Art by Marlene range, the shop has the entire 2nd collection by Marlene in stock and this is such a fabulous range to get totally arty with. 

I love starting a new art journal I think it's reminiscence of when I was at school and you started a new exercise book with every page pristine and waiting to be marked whether it be in words or pictures.

Here's What I Did:

Removing one of the pages from the journal I first laid down a layer of acrylic paints using a pale yellow and pale blue, onto that I added stencilling in bolder versions of the colours. I also painted blocks of acrylic paint colours and whilst the paint was still wet laid a stencil over it and removed the paint with a baby wipe. The stencilled effect you get is both negative and positive stencil space on your project.  I repeated this several times with coordinating paints till I was happy how my background had developed with its built up layers. I then added further interest by adding some stamping using my good friend and team mate Donna Gray's Hand carved backgrounds. I stencilled the pink bubbles using Archival ink and white paint.

Onto a separate piece of card I stamped the elephant and coloured using coloured pencils but obviously you could colour yours however you want. I cut it out ready to add to my background page.

Before I added the elephant I added some torn washi tape to ground her onto the page and balanced this by adding a little more to the top right hand side. Once I had glued the elephant on I stamped the hearts, I wanted her (I see her as a girl elephant) to be blowing hearts out of her trunk, these were also coloured with pencils. I stamped the words 'Keep it Real' and the last thing was to add a little highlights with a white gel pen.

Here's What I Used:
PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Paints - Lemon Meringue, Mermaid, Vanilla, Candy Floss, Blue Lagoon, Caribbean
That's Crafty! Multi Surface Paint - White
Art by Marlene - Small Art Journal
Art by Marlene Stamps - Stampbm16, Stampbm28, Stampbm29
Art by Marlene - Washi Tapes
Crafters Workshop Stencil - Botanical Dream (Designed by Marlene)
That's Crafty! Stencil - Clouds & Hearts 8" x 8"
That's Crafty! Stamps Designed by Donna Gray - Hand Carved Backgrounds
Archival Ink Pad - Magenta Hue
Stazon Ink Pad - Blue Hawaii
Versafine Clair Ink Pad - Nocturne
Coloured Pencils or colouring medium of your choice
White Gel Pen
That's Crafty! All Purpose Glue

Be sure to check out all the latest products, now available at That's Crafty! by "Art by Marlene" they are so much fun and you are sure to have fun playing with them.

See you all next Tuesday 

Love

Amanda X