A Beginner’s Craft Journey

Project #1:  Lace-Up Moon and Stars

For this project I used: 

• Faber-Castell Gelatos
• Ranger Archival Ink stamp pad
• Sanford Uniball Gold gel pen
• Marvy LePlumm II art markers
• Delta’s stamp ‘woman in repose’
• paint brush
• gesso
• Recollections metallic broad point markers
• jump rings (4 and 6 mm)
• silver chain
• exacto knife

So, I started with the plain lace-up pieces and gesso’d first. Why? It seemed like a good idea at the time. I know it reduces how much color the chipboard absorbs and sounded like a good idea to get a brighter result. So I did it, ‘cause I’m smart like that….

Handy-dandy Tip #1: Gesso is glue. Don’t gesso your pieces onto to the paper underneath. Either pick them up when you do it, or move them around when you’re done, otherwise you WILL glue them to the table.

So AFTER I removed my lace-up pieces from the paper I accidently gesso’ed them on to, and wasted time cleaning and fixing them up- I was able to begin.

I liked the idea of a face on the moon and was envisioning a bright, shining partial moon with shining chain connecting the starts… After gessoing, I used the yellow gelato stick… I added more yellow, brought out some lovely salmon and then pink gelatos and added them- and then- wet them, like they do in all of the videos….meh.

Thought that maybe this was the time to add a stamp image to maybe give it some direction. I would up with an abrupt line of ink interrupting my image, and got gook on my stamp. Hmm. Not such a great idea.

But wait- I put it aside and let it dry a bit, and started again…using the black art marker’s fine tip to bring out the lines and images I wanted- nice. A little gold gel pen brought out the lips and eyes, and the fine point did a nice job with the eyelashes. The silver Sakura Pen-Touch paint pen? I made a mess, not only NOT getting silver on the image, but gunking up the point with wet gelato paint. Back to the drawing board with THAT toy…

The ink stamp did something I wasn’t thinking of- it left areas of black ink stamp on the lace-up that weren’t supposed to be there. I tried more yellow gelato…nope. no good.  Didn’t cover. I still had this odd-looking ink pattern interrupting the image. I decided to try using the border area of the stamp to fill in the rest of the moon with a similar dappled pattern, filling it all but for the facial image. THIS time, instead of getting the gelato paint wet with a brush, I used my finger to smear and mix the varying gelato colors and was pleased with the result- it was thicker, smoother looking, and it behaved more like charcoal than watercolor- burnishing under my finger into a soft, but relatively solid color fade. Nice.   This gave me renewed hope and I added more gelato color, a dash more salmon, and rubbed more- blending, taking my time to get all of the places and was rewarded with a wonderful softening of the extra ink I was worried about.

This was starting to work…. More color, more patient smearing…the ink blending into the gelato, the edges starting to blend…but what about the features? I brought out my black fine point again, bringing out the lips, the eye lines, the part of the nose- and then finally I brought out one of my favorite go-to’s- my gold Recollections broad point marker, highlighting the inside of the features, and the edges of the moon…

Yep. I’m happy now. But I still got the stars…

Chain, a fine silver chain…the brads didn’t work to well to connect the laceup with the chain holding the stars, so- being a closet jeweler- I brought out my jump ring collection aaaand- Presto! Great attachment! I know, I know…’scrapbooking stuff’ my bff says…’use scrapbooking stuff’…and I can. I did. And I will… But you know what? These lace-ups are good for a lot more than scrapbooking….

Tune in next month and we’ll see what I do with my newest creation!

Weekly craft take-away: 

Here’s what I learned:

• Soaking a too-stiff paintbrush in water for a while can save a good paint brush. Try it before you pitch it.

• Regular archival ink stamps don’t work well on wet gesso. Trust me.

• Not every mistake has to be a disaster. Be flexible and if you try something that doesn’t work out, work with what you’ve got and re-imagine it. It might wind up being pretty cool after all…

So guys- if you’re reading this, help me out. I’m just learning here. Send me your comments, your questions, your recommendations…I’m open to anything. The truth is, I honestly don’t have a clue what I’m doing half of the time- so fill me in. Or set me up and let me make mistakes…or better yet, tell me about yours.  There are enough professionals out there, and I’m not one of them. It’s my hope that by doing this, we can all learn this stuff together.

So: here’s to mistakes and marvels.

Until next week.

Christine O.