One background for many projects

Hello dear friend of Rubber Dance Art Stamps! My name is Gabriele, I am a mixed media artist from Germany and a proud member of the Rubber Dance Design Team. Nice to see you here.

Did it ever happen to you, that your muse left you, when you need her badly? Hm, happens to me every other day. But what to do?? Usually it helps when I stop pondering about what I want to do, get a nice cuppa, get a comfortable seat and browse through some magazines, books, Pinterest - whatever, to get some new ideas. I highly recommend a new book curated by Dawn DeVries Sokol - "A World of Artist Journal Pages: 1000+ Artworks - 230 Artists - 30 Countries"

This book gives you a great lot of fodder to bring back your muse and if not, you spent a great time with a really big, fat book full of wonderful art journal pages of any style you can think of. I love it! And I am super proud to be part of this fabulous publication! You find me on pages 90 and 91.

Also a clip from page 90 on the content page. Happy dance!!

When this doesn´t work, I take a big piece (approx. 35 x 50 cm) of thick watercolour paper and spread paint randomly. No planning, no thinking. Now I take my stamps and ink pads in various colours and stamp, stamp, stamp. No planning, no thinking. Then the paper may end up looking like this:

Here I used the Rubber Dance stamp sheets called Round in Circles and Stitch and Frames.

I dabbed some more paint with a sponge or my fingers just how I feel. Most of my backgrounds start like that. There is a variation in combination of colours and stamps and stencils, but mostly it is the same. I hope next month I can show you this work around in a video, as building up layers is still a mystery for many people. Layering gives a lot of depth to a painting, but in the beginning it is hard to give up some painted areas you consider as beautiful.

There is a lot you can do with these background sheets, in the next example I cut a sheet into 17,5 x 12,5 cm pieces that can be used for cards. Here I used some stencils for the black accents and more text stamps like Herbal Text, Vintage Script, Chinese and Old Book Page from Rubber Dance:

This way you get unique cards for all kinds of purposes. I choose 3 cards to work on and you can see you really don´t have to invest a lot of effort in finishing touches.

Card #1

Card #2

Card #3

Now here is what happened to them:

Card #1 got some more stamping with stamps from New Retro Beach. I added some accents in blue tones with the cheesecloth like background stamp. The text "Memoirs" was stamped on tissue paper and the beach picture was stamped on watercolour paper. Some doodling with black and white pen completes it:

On Card #2 I embossed a heart from I Heart Art in a creamy rose with glitter tone. You can hardly see the glitter, but it sure is shiny! The sentiment from the stamp set Think Again is stamped on watercolour paper, background acrylic paint. Some doodling with yellow Posca pen and pencil:

Card #3 is stamped with a beautiful figure from the stamp set called Aztec Art Dolls, the sun you can find on Celestial Images, the birdie creature on Rock Carvings and the sentiment is from Think Again. These unique stamps can be combined so well, it is amazing. Some doodling with pencil, Posca pen in yellow and white:

Supply list:

The following Rubber Dance stamp sheets: Aztec Art Dolls, Celestial Images, Rock Carvings, Think Again, I Heart Art, New Retro Beach, Round in Circles, Stitch and Frames, single stamps: Herbal Text, Vintage Script, Chinese and Old Book Page

StazOn and Archival ink pads many colours

Pencil, Gel Pen white, Posca pen yellow and white, Pit pens

And various brands of acrylic paint

Thanks a lot for spending some of your time with me today. I hope you had some fun and it would be lovely to see you next month. You are also very welcome to visit me on my blog artatag.wordpress.com.

I wish you a very happy and creative time!

Gabriele from Art-a-tag

Rubber Dance webshop: www.rubberdance.com

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