LOVE (Jessica Sporn Designs bloghop & giveaway)

Welcome to this  blog hop for the Jessica Sporn Designs Creative Team – and yes, THIS BLOGHOP COMES WITH A GIVEAWAY! Read on to learn everything about it.

Today I’m hopping along with Denise Alloca, Sherry Canino, Karen Gaunt, Kristin Van Valkenburgh and Jessica Sporn to share our LOVE creations using Jessica Sporn Designs stamps & stencils and DecoArts products.

LOVE: of course that had to be the theme for today’s bloghop because it is almost Valentines Day. I understand in the USA it is common to give/send Valentines cards to all of your friends, but here in The Netherlands the focus lays on your partner and/or the one you have a (secret) crush on.

As you may know, when I refer to my partner I always use the word “beloved” so it’s obvious I love him very much, but we both are not the cliché roses-candles-fireplace romantic types (we are ‘romantic’ in our own weird way…) Creating a Valentines card was out of the question then… so what to do with “Love”??

I thought a bit more about the theme and reflected on ‘falling in love’ – and how I hated it to fall in love when I was young… well, ‘hate’ is too harsh a word, but I did not like the feeling either. I didn’t like how “some guy” could take over my logical working brain and be on my mind all the time, I despised how I acted silly and were not able to control my thoughts. There were happy and energetic moments too, I agree, but the overall feeling was “can we skip this part, just be together and go back to normal please.” I’m so glad my beloved and I love each other deeply without all that butterflies and pink bubbles….

And so I decided to create a face of a person who just fell in love and add the sentence “It’s just a silly phase I’m going through.” Yep, that’s a phrase from a song. Not the best song if you ask me, but it totally fits the feeling I want to express on the page.

Before I take you to my creating process let me tell you that you can find the giveaway at the end of this post… read on and you’ll get there 😉

 

First: preparations… I create different elements that I will combine on the page to collage a character/portrait. I start with creating a design that I want to use for the guy’s sweater.
I use DecoArt Fluid Acrylics Primary Yellow, that I smear on a blank piece of paper.

I like the design of the Dots and Dashes stencil

By mixing DecoArt Fluid Acrylics Primary Magenta with Titanium White I get a nice, pink color…

… resulting in this design.

I want a little texture on the background so I use Jessica’s Hebrew Calligraphy Hamsa Stencil and smear gesso through it (small, white photo.) When it’s dry, I spray some DecoArt Shimmer Mister Turquoise on the page and use a baby whipe to tone the colors down.

I want to add at least one heart to the page… to use as an eye. I search high and low in boxes and closets and I finally come up with this little chipboard heart BUT… it has two holes in it! (I remember a few years ago it was a trend to use all kinds of buttons and ‘button-like’ embellishments on your scrapbooking layouts… this piece must be a left over from that time.) However, it is the only heart shape I have so I go with it.

I paint the chipboard (Titanium White) and when it’s dry, I paint the heart again with DecoArt Antiquing Cream English Red Oxide. Do you know that stuff? You can give things an antique textured surface with it and create a distressed, aged effect.

There’s a tutorial video on how to use Antiquing cream (by Andy Skinner) here but in short: paint a background. When it’s dry, paint again with Antiquing Cream. Use a damp cloth to wipe off as little or as much ‘cream’ as you like. Seal it with a varnish.

My heart ends up looking like this.

Now it’s time to combine my elements… I cut a sweater from the earlier designed paper. I cut a head-shape from old left-over painted paper and position the ‘eye.’

Now it’s going fast…

• I don’t like how the heart looks on the face, so I paint it a bit more reddish. I also cover the holes with a ‘pupil’.
• I cut out a round shape to make for the other eye.
• A left over piece of monoprint goes as a nose.
• I paint the mouth with DecoArt fluid acrylics Cadmium Red Hue and
• for the hair I use a tiny little stamp from Jessica’s stamp series Build a Villa – Window Cube
• Finally, I add DecoArt Crackle Paste (mixed with a little yellow and red acrylics) on the cheeks and under the eye. The paste needs to dry on air (“do not try to force dry any of the crackle products with a heat tool, fan or blow dryer”) so I let this page dry overnight.

Next morning: I go back to my page and color the hair green to go with the nose.
I also outline the image with Fluid Acrylics Carbon Black for a bit more contrast.

Almost finished… all I have to do is handletter the phase I want to use on the page with a black marker and color the letters, using a small brush, with Fluid Acrylics Titanium White.

Now that was rather a long blogpost, I hope you liked to see and read about my creating process.

And now for the GIVEAWAY

One lucky commenter will win this Seven Hearts Stencil designed by Jessica Sporn. All comments on all the blog hop participants count – so make sure to visit everyone and leave some kind words. The list and links of the blog hop team members is at the end of this post.

And one commenter will win this little piece of art created by yours truly!

 

It is a small sized mixed media face that is a bit similar to the one that I created in my art journal. Wanna win this “original Marit”?  Let me know the NUMBER of the artist/band name that sings the song the phrase on my art piece comes from. (Does this sounds cryptic to you? Then you probably have no idea who the artist is… )

So, go on then. Leave me a comment if you like to be in the draw for both giveaways and visit the other members and comment there to enlarge your chance to win the Seven Hearts stencil.

Marit Barentsen (you’re here)
Denise Alloca
Sherry Canino
Karen Gault
Kristin Van Valkenburgh
Jessica Sporn

The comments for these giveways closes Monday morning the 13th at 9 AM EST (for the Dutchies that’s 3 PM on Monday.) Jessica announces the winner on her blog on Valentines day, February 14th and I will post the name of the winner of my mixed media art piece on Wednesday, February 15th.