The end of the old year and the beginning of a new year always makes me want to turn inward and spend some quiet, quality time in introspection. I don’t believe in resolutions, yet every year I focus on creating an intention or two to focus on throughout the year. This intention helps me maintain my motivation, inspiration, and to keep on track towards my true north star of following my heart and dreams (goals).
Still in the midst of a global pandemic, I’ve really been feeling the need for more peace, calm, and stillness in my life. Inspired by a generous free art class offering from StudioWorks, I completed a class in painting stones, which was the jumping off point for the meditative process of stenciling each stone with intentions, goals, and focus.
Mother Earth is my greatest inspiration, and so I created these two artworks to pay homage to both earth and sea, with mindfulness, gratitude and great intention for the coming year.
“Zen Stone Balance”, 11″ x 7″ on watercolor paper (unframed).“Mother Nature”, 11″ x 7″ on watercolor paper (unframed).
Hi there! Have you seen my latest post over on The Crafter’s Workshop blog today? It’s all about this gorgeous fall wreath assemblage artwork and how I created it using turkey feathers and watercolors paired with faux botanicals and wooden beads.
Hello! Check out my newest post over on The Crafter’s Workshop Blog today, featuring my latest creation: A double-sided, midori-style traveler’s notebook. I just love the flexible functionality of these journals, which allow you to switch and change the content out whenever you like!
Handmade Journal 8 3/4″ x 4 1/2″ – Midori-style traveler’s notebookThe outside covers of the double-sided handmade journal.This journal contains the options for three inserts or less.
I’ve got a bold ask to make. I’m really trying to grow my following on my social media accounts, but I can’t do that alone. Would you be willing to help me by sharing some of my posts or telling your friends to follow me? If you are, thanks ever so much! Here’s the list of all my accounts to make it easy for you!
My Website and occasional blog posts: Teal Hare Creations My YouTube Channel with fly-by process and tutorial videos: YouTube Channel My Instagram account where I post my daily adventures, sneak peeks, and works in progress: Instagram My Pinterest Boards – Join me and my 1.5K followers weekly for inspiration! Pinterest My blog posts over on The Crafter’s Workshop Blog (every other week)
Did you get to meet Winnie yet? If you’re a cat lover or an animal lover, head over to my latest blog post on The Crafter’s Workshop Blog.
In this blog post, I walk you through the process of how I created this tribute pet portrait for my best friend Cindy and her husband to hang above the mantel in her studio.
No time to read a long blog post? No worries, I’ve got you covered. Click this link to hop on over to my YouTube Channel and watch this short process and fly-by video I created.
As always, thanks ever so much for following me, it truly means the world to me. Have a hoppy day and happy creating!
Hello! How are you doing? I’ve been crazy busy lately with many happenings in my art world. All good, of course.
Today, I have a new post up over at The Crafter’s Workshop blog. It features a grungy steampunk lightbulb on a 6″ x 6″ mixed media board.
If you have time, hop on over and check it out. Click the blog link above, or the photo below, to navigate directly to the post to read it.
Don’t have time to read a post? How about less than a minute to watch a fly-by process video? Click the link to navigate to the video on my YouTube Channel, or click the YouTube embedded video, below to open and watch.
Thanks ever so much for following me, I really appreciate you! Have a wonderful and happy day.
If reading’s not your thing, time is of the essence, or you just really prefer to watch videos, then I’ve got you covered! Hop on over to my YouTube channel and watch the 1:04 min video.
Many thanks for hopping by and checking my work out today! Please come back soon.
Check out my new blog post today over on The Crafters Workshop Blog! What is frisket, and how do I use it? How did I use it with stencils to create this amazing multi-layered background? Click the link to read step-by-step instructions. Let me know if you have any questions or comments via my Contact Me page on this website (Instagram messaging). Happy creating!
Close up image showing the finger painted stencil butters background.
Hello! Recently, we had a TCW Design Team meeting where our wonderful leader, Jaime, showed us a painting she did using stencil butters with her fingers. I wanted to use the same technique using stencils to see if it would work, and it sure does! Just be sure to go slow so that you don’t accidentally nip yourself on a stencil edge (like a paper cut, owie!).
The Crafter’s Workshop provided me with some product to create this project. The opinions I share are solely my own.
I started out using our Colorsparx powders in my favorite cool colors of turquoise, cerulean blue, lime green, and chartreuse, with the TCW932 Peruvian Lily stencil and our water spritz bottle. I lay the stencil down first, sprinkle a tiny bit of the powders over the stencil, then spritz with the water bottle. It’s great to leave it dry naturally if you can, because you get an amazing stenciled effect on the paper! You’ll notice I left a towel under the page to catch the run off and to protect my work surface. Be aware that it may also splash as you spritz, so cover anything around your work that you don’t want to get color on. For this project, I’m working on watercolor paper (300 gsm/140 lbs) hot pressed, smooth paper.
Next come the stencil butters and finger painting. These butters are creamy, brightly colored, and so easy to use (but not edible, so please do not eat them!). I used the TCW924 Lush Petals stencil with the cool colored stencil butters in turquoise, ocean blue, terre verte green, and lime green. I love using stencil butters over ColorSparx powders because the stencil butters reactivate the ColorSparx powders in places, and create an even greater range of color variation in the background. I also love to layer different stencils to build up layers of pattern and depth for greater visual contrast and more interest.
Close up image showing stencil butters applied over the top of the ColorSparx powders.
I don’t know about you, but for me, finger painting is messy fun that reminds me of my childhood art days. I love to spread the stencil butters around with my fingers because they blend so easily together to make wonderful shades of the colors I’m using! Please, try it for yourself and play. Of course, if you don’t like getting your hands dirty, please feel free to use our plastic palette knife to apply the stencil butters instead of your fingers.
Now, I wanted to add some additional patterns and colors on top of the background to add pops of color for contrast and also to add some more shapes to the composition and break it up visually a little. First, I applied Crimson stencil butter through the TCW922 Ethereal stencil randomly over the background. I had some stencil butter left on my fingers, so I smeared it onto the page too!
I like to add yellow to my projects, because I think yellow always makes the other colors sing. In this case, I added the TCW9067 Gamboge Stencil butter through the TCW2303 Rock Wall slimline stencil randomly in places around the work. Again, after stenciling, I smeared the excess stencil butter from my fingers randomly onto the page.
And here’s the finished page (in the following image) without the white gesso dots added yet. I wanted you to be able to see just the finger painted stencil butters in their own gorgeous beauty.
Close up image showing the completed stenciled butters background.
Hello! Recently, I created this fabulous background using our stencil butters. For fun, I made up a bunch of postcards and mailed them to art friends to see if any of them could guess how I’d created the background. While there were a few elements guessed correctly and some pretty close guesses, no-one actually guessed the correct combination of products or techniques. Today, this post reveals the process and products I used that kept them guessing!
The Crafter’s Workshop provided me with some product to create this project. The opinions I share are solely my own.
I decided to use some dark blue textured drawing paper, TCW926 Bubble Rebound stencil, and delicate surface tape (which is less sticky than painter’s tape and less likely to tear the paper when removing). Now, the real trick with this background technique is to choose an analogous color scheme (colors next to one another on the color wheel) that matches the color of the paper that you are using. Since I chose royal blue paper, I decided to choose three cool colors to match, and white to provide contrast against the darker blue paper. I chose shades that were lighter than the paper in order to have the paper texture show up and be more visible in the end design.
Textured Paper
TCW926 Bubble Rebound Stencil
3M Delicate Surface Tape
Caran D’Ache NeoColor II Aquarelles (Water soluble wax pastel crayons)
For this technique, you’re going to work with the stencil under the paper. Tape the paper in place over the stencil. For the first step, I chose to work with NeoColor II water soluble, wax pastel crayons. I wanted a water soluble product so that it would react later in the process, as you’ll see. Laying the crayon almost horizontally on the paper, color random patches of each color over the entire paper. Don’t press too hard, or you’ll lose the paper texture, yet press gently enough so that you can see the edges of the stencil’s outlines on the paper, as shown in the image, below. (You might want to try a couple of practice pieces first to get the amount of pressure just right).
Close up image showing the stencil taped under the paper, and the NeoColor II crayons applied to the top of the paper.
Next it was time to apply the stencil butters. Again, I stuck within the same analogous color palette, so I chose to use the TCW9064 Turquoise stencil butter and the TCW9066 Orchid stencil butter. Using a fairly wide palette knife, I applied the orchid stencil butter randomly over the page first, immediately followed with the turquoise stencil butter randomly in other places (yet overlapping here and there so they blend a little). The trick with this technique is not to load the palette knife with too much stencil butter, don’t press hard with the palette knife, and just lightly scrape the palette knife at a 45 degree angle across the top of the paper. The stencil butter will get caught by the stencil cut out areas, showing the shapes and outlines of the stencil. It’s important that you don’t cover the paper completely, you still want to be able to see some of the Neocolor areas through and under the stencil butters in places. This is what gives the background depth and dimension. Do not wait for the stencil butters to dry!
Use a wide palette knife to apply the stencil butters
Stencil butters – metallic, pretty, creaminess. Goes on just like buttah!
Orchid Stencil butter – just look at that sheen!
Stencil butters applied to the paper
The next step is to use a spritz bottle to add water drops to the top of the entire paper. You want random drops in different sizes scattered across the page, not a shower or a soaking. Think of the drops as adding a new layer of design to the background. Let the water drops sit on top of the butters and paper for 2 minutes. Note: The water will activate the NeoColor II crayons, blending them where the drops have landed.
Lay a dry piece of kitchen paper towel, with the embossed design down, over the stencil butters, and the entire paper. Using your hands horizontally across the paper, very gently pat the paper towel to remove the water drops and impress the paper towel texture into the stencil butters. This creates two levels of texture, one from the water drops (where the stencil butter will lift off the paper when you remove the paper towel), and one from the paper towel embossing impression pressed into the stencil butter.
Love this adjustable spritz bottle!
Close up image showing water droplets on the page
Page resting for 2 mins with water drops. Paper towel at the ready!
Your background is now complete. It is also able to be reactivated by any moisture or wet product, so keep that in mind if you want to be able to work over the top of it. You will want to apply a coat of matte or gloss gel medium to seal it. I would use either an old credit card or a silicon catalyst blade/mini scraper to apply the medium, but you’ll have to work fast and light so as not to smear or reactivate the background design! Pro Tip: Get your medium set up on the tool first, and start it on a scrap piece of paper to adjust it before applying it to the actual piece.
Teal Hare Creations 