seaside nights

 Maybe I should have chosen to show you more cheerful cards, considering the horrible grey weather outside!
I love trying to capture night scenes, and here are 3 of my latest efforts for the Chocolate Baroque shows on Hochanda last month
The seaside scene is perfect for this, as it shows a lighthouse and a setting sun - couldn't be better!
I stamped it using black versafine ink onto white card, and coloured it with watercolour pencils and a water brush in greys, adding a touch of yellow and orange to the sun , clouds and sea.
The background uses the big ammonite stamp, stamped in grey ink randomly round the edges of the card blank, with the sentuiment added in black versafine.

The beach huts came next, stamped in black onto pale grey card, shading again with the pencils. I masked off the huts and used distress oxide inks sponged over the sky to create a sunset.
Sentiment stamped in versamark and whitye embossed onto a black card blank, then the beachhuts mounted above it.

Same method for the final card, apart from stamping onto black card, this time with clouds and a moon in the sky.

gothic gypsy

The postman brought me a load of new stamps this month, and here are some of them.
The gypsy is designed by Mark Gould (available from Chocolate Baroque here) , and reminded me of the fortune tellers that were on all the seaside piers when I was a child - yes, I know it was ancient history, from before the days of video machines! - so i just had to show her with a crystal ball.
I diecut a circle mask and masked the ball on a piece of white card. The background stamps are from the gorgeous new gothic plate designed by Andy Skinner for Illusionary Artists , also available from Chocolate Baroque, stamped in slate grey ink. Peeled paint, dusty concord and hickory smoke distress inks were sponged over, then black soot round the edges.
Removing the circle mask I sponged tumbled glass, peeled paint and broken china into the circle to create my crystal ball, stamped another of the images from the gothic set using second impression slate grey ink, then sprinked water over to give random highlights.
Gypsy rose stamped on white card with black versafine ink, coloured with alcohol pens and fussy cut then glkued over the edge of the crystal ball.
Thin mats of black, bluegreen and more black added before mounting onto an 8" sqaure white card blank.
I am linking this to Craft Stamper Challenge blog - anything goes
corrosive challenge blog- anything goes
crafting from the heart - anything goes

The Gent

Finally got round to inking up one of my new stamps after Christmas is over - this one is the Gent from the new series by Mark Gould, available from Chocolate Baroque.
This fits so well with the eccentric edwardian stamps I mostly used in the background, plus the hat from steampunk travel - or I thought so anyway!
Sentiment is from words of wisdom, also from CB.
I  am linking this to
 the Male Room challenge - new beginnings   Craft Stamper challenge blog, anything goes

mernaid queen

 The first post of 2018, so I would like to wish everyone a very happy New Year, even if it is a bit late.
I have a sample from the  Chocolate Baroque seaside tv show in December to show you  today.
A 7" canvas board, that started out being sprayed with some very elderly blue and green glimmer mist sprays,....no idea which were the actual colours, just the ones that surprisingly stillworked!
I used some pearlescent paste through a wood grain stencil to represent movement in the water, then sprayed again with the blue that worked. I sponged blue acrylic paint through the silhousilhouette ette palace stencil, then randomly across the canvas below it to ground the building.
The mermaid queen was  stamped onto white card with black versafine, clear embossed, then painted using equally elderly H2O paints. I fussy cut her out, and also several shells and the starfish to create the foreground. I used micro beads glued below the shells to create the sand on the sea bed, though they don't show up on the photo.
The small mermaid was stamped directly onto the board using distress ink, as I wasn't worried about a clear image. The bubbles were some very ancient pearl drops in silver - it's surprsing what you find when you are forced to do a major clear up!