Monday 4 December 2017

Books Hold The Secrets And Reading Provides The Keys

This tag used up die cuts and stamped/die cut images from my bit box and was created in response to the December challenge on Mixed media Art Journey.  Six word dice are rolled and the resulting combination of instructions sets the challenge.
'Make a tag' was the easiest step as I have a stash of #8 manilla tags.  'Use mask/outline' was obvious once I'd chosen the die cuts I was going to use.  I stuck the medium sized full moon mask (Claritystamp Moon masks) directly onto the tag and then created the background.  A blending mat and a Speedball brayer as well as the Claritystamp stencil brushes were used to add colour.  First a base of Hickory Smoke distress ink was brayered onto the tag, then Midnight Blue Artistry ink was brushed over the top.  Pampas Artistry ink was brushed over the bottom of the tag and the mask removed.
'Use red' was covered among the colours of Ecoline pens chosen to colour the stamped and die cut stack of books (Sheena Douglass Learn to See stamps and The Knowledge die).  I used Carmine, Sepia, Scarlet and Warm Grey (from bottom to top) with the Flesh Kuretake Brush pen for the pages.  Once the book stack had been added, I used a water brush to add some Avocado Artistry ink below the books.
'Add cut out' was also fulfilled using the Whimsical tree Spellbinders die cut from black card.  I had a couple of tiny keys left over from stamping and die cutting the Heartfelt Creations Key to My Heart background.  These were coloured with the Yellow Ochre Ecoline pen and hung from the tree before it was added to the top of the pile of books to represent the tree of knowledge.
I made up the quote to fulfil two instructions; 'hide a secret' and 'free quote'.  The secret is obviously hidden within the pages of the books.  As the quote says; 'Books hold the secrets and reading provides the keys.'  It was printed off using my Dymo Letratag in extra small print, trimmed close to the text and added to the spines of the books.  The beige and light grey Kuretake pens took away the starkness of the white background.  Once again I am reminded why I never throw anything away, as all the focal elements (book stack, tree and keys) were found in my bit box and just required added colour.

No comments: