Art Panel: From ugly duckling to ballerina swan

In september I had the amazing opportunity to attend a workshop by Nika Rouss (aka Nika in Wonderland)  at ArtChicks Studio. Since the site only updates the newest workshop, I'm sharing the flyer that was posted about it.

I attended the Saturday midday workshop and I honestly didn't know what to expect, except awesomeness, because Nika is pretty awesome! The workshop was "intuitive painting with roses" (like this video) and this is how I started my canvas

We took some modeling paste mixed with paints and the pallete knife to form the image of a rose bouquet. But there were some well unforeseen circumstances in the day - it was hot and humid and the "peeks" of the roses would not dry.  So it took a chunk of the lesson time to dry which was unfortunate. In the end we had to hurry to finish up the piece and this was what I went home with (next to awesome times with the other workshop participants and Nika, of course!)

The end result I had made was really not to my liking and I worked on it at home to create something that was more true to my own style and imagination. As Nika said, There are no mistakes! If you don't like it, Gesso over it and try again! So that is what I did at home.

I turned the canvas to the left and took apart the drywall tape and applied some heavy coats of black gesso over it. Then started to add some colors and layers of paints with Deco Art Media and paper Artsy fluid acrylics paints. But alas I forgot to photograph the coloring process (I was in a really good flow!) but I do have images of the next stages when I used the Alpahbet Spagetti stencil from Ady Skunner (decoarts mixed media)

I rolled on some lighter paint over the stencil.

And this was the colorful result. So much better and happier at this point! I wanted to tone it down just a little bit so I glazed some blue paint over and around the edges.

The blue glaze made the roses pop out more and this is where I was fully happy with the background. So then I added my focal point.

The ballerina swan (a magazine cut out)! I added more depth to the piece with caran dáche neo oil pastels and spatters with a white posca paint pen. The sentiment is a part of a Viva Las VegaStamps! sentiment ...

"tired of trying to cram into society's beige square holes" I thought it was powerful to add this piece of text over the square shaped drywall tape. And combined with the swan, it makes the piece complete.

Now I am 100% happy with the finished piece! I do want to thank Nika for the inspiration and fun workshop and all her YT tutorials helped with understanding certain techniques. She isn't afraid to share her mistakes and also show how you can correct them, which is the biggest inspiration of all. So that would be my biggest take away from this workshop. 

Hope this got you inspired to work on a piece you gave up on initially and create from that ugly ducking a beautiful swan yourself!

I would like to enter this piece in the following challenge:

Craft Stamper take it make it november 2017


MMW#30 Anything mixed media goes

Moo Mania and more - Make it Feminine 

Thanks so much for stopping by and have a great day!

#MTepicgiveaway (CLOSED!)

Hey everyone! Like I have announced over on my social hang outs, I have been working on an epic giveaway for you guys as gratitude for your support in my creative journey. I have gathered so many wonderful goodies for you which includes a TON of my favorite products which you can see below.

This giveaway package will include:

Dina Wakley white Gesso

Liquitex Muted collection heavy body paint in Rose

Cloves and Honey LE Dr. Girlfriend shimmering watercolor

Cuttlebug embossing folders

3 Andy Skinner Mixed Media Stencils

Dovecraft rubbertamp pigment ink cacao

Dovecraft alphabet stamp set

Aurelie tulip clear stamp set

Joy crafts poppy clear stamp

Steadtler micron drawing pens

Sakura Gelly roll sampler pack

Tombow Dual Brush Pens sampler

Caran 'd ache Suracolor Discovery set

and more...

Some close up pictures

YES! ONE lucky person will receive all of this yummy goodness!

What do you need to do to enter this giveaway?

1) Follow @MissThundercat on instagram

2) Repost the giveaway picture

3) Make sure to use hashtag #MTepicgiveaway AND have an open account but no giveaway accounts! (yes it is open Internationally!)

Steps 4 and 5 are for additional entries

4) Follow my Facebook page and my blog and comment on both giveaway posts

5) Repost the giveaway picture on Facebook/Twitter and comment here with the link to the repost (tagging me on twitter is also an option)

The giveaway is open until September 8th midnight CET and the winner will be chosen at random via Random.org, will be announced in the weekend after the giveaway is closed 

The winnings will be shipped shortly after. 

Disclaimer: This giveaway is in no way sponsored or administrated by blogger/instagram/facebook or twitter. These are items I have purchased myself and are new or only used for review purposes.

Good luck Thank you all again for your support in my creative journey! 

Art Journal: There is no place like home

Today I am sharing a journal page I have made a while back on the theme "what is home?"

I've moved from Amsterdam to Leiden now I think 12 years ago and it took me a while to call this city my home, but I do love it here now. I tried to convey my feelings for this city in this art journal spread. It is going to be a picture heavy post of details of this spread, so you'll see more after the cut.

Her Sparkly Star Shaped Self - VLVS!

Hi all, it's my turn over at the VLVS! blog and I made a little something for you to inspire you for our August Challenge. I have made an index sized art card inspired by the colors and imagery from our mood board below

Isn't it gorgeous and don't you just long for a summer sunset at the beach? 

It has inspired me to make the following

I am just absolutely in love with that Fancy Mermaid, the large moon and all the mixed media journaling stamps from the latest release. I've mixed a few oldies too, like the sentiment which is is a part of Tired of trying to cram stamp, which I LOVE! A full list of stamps and materials used is (including a time to stamp process video!!) is to be seen at the VLVS! blog post.

Hope this will inspire you to play along with out monthly challenge where you could win some great quality rubber stamps!

Thanks so much for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

Love rocks, together always

Over the weekend I had this idea for a fun layout to make for Valentines Day and I've managed to complete it before today, yay! Happy to be sharing this with you, also this is my first layout ever as I don't usually do scrapbook type of layouts. But this is framed and on our wall now :) Let me share with you how I made it.

I started off by gelli printing a piece of 6x6 scrap book paper with a valentine theme. Took one without the modeling paste heart shapes because I was going to add some of that later. I transferred a photo of us using Amsterdam Photo Transfer gel, let that dry for about a day and rubbed off the paper with water and sealed with liquitex gloss varnish. Then comes the fun and rather messy part, stamping in modeling patse! I used the same techniques, like I did with this journal page. So I scraped some modeling paste around the photo, let it dry to the touch and stamped in Dina Wakely's Collage hearts into it and let it dry. It took me a couple of tries to get the texture the way I wanted to look, I sprayed some fuchsia Mixed media artist spray over it, used the same techniques for darker shading as I did with the poppies and rubbed metallic pearl rubs for the lighter tones. As you can see I also scraped a bit of modeling paste around the edges and when you rub pearl rubs over it it creates the loveliest subtle texture. Time to build up the sentiment layers!

The "together always" sentiment is cut out with my MM Slice and I used various scrapbook papers for it. Traced with Posca fine liners in black and white and added some sparkles to it with Zig wink of Stella's. Zig's two way glue is pretty great to adhere pieces onto worked on surfaces with.

I then used some paper heart embellishments which I had forever and the sentiment stamp "love rocks" from the Dina Wakely stamp set on top right of the picture. It is stamped on a piece of craft paper. Spattering is done with Liquitex paints in white, muted violet, gold and hot pink.

I doodled with white uni posca fineliner around it and matted it onto a bigger piece of scrapbook paper which had colors of the lettering I used.

Definitely happy how this Valentines Lay-Out turned out and so did my sweet husband. By the way this is one of my fave pictures of us together while we were on holiday in Barcelona in 2005. We celebrated out 13 years together last november in Seville and I can't wait for our next trip together in March to Valencia :)

Entering this to the Mixed Media Monthly #33 challenge Sweet Inspirations. 

And entering this in the Art Journal Journey 50 shades of RED. 

Feel free to use the graphic below to send as Valentines greeting to people you love :) 

Thank you for stopping by and wishing you all a wonderful Valentines day!