Mixed Media Artist Andy Skinner

Went on a fab course yesterday at The Stamp Attic with Andy Skinner.  We did various techniques for distressing and applying images to boxes using DecoArt products.  With the red box we applied a distressed image and further distressed the edges; in the second box we applied Traditions acrylic paints to get a vintage look and in the final box we transferred an image to the painted, distressed and crackled surface that we did.

In my next blog I will show you the box I made in Andy's amazing online workshop The Book of Secrets.

PSE Selection Videos

I have added all my Photoshop Elements selection videos to YouTube.  If you want to know when to use each type of selection method, watch the six videos and you will have a clear idea by the end which selection to use when you are editing your own photos.

Here are some of the photos that I used in the videos.  The mask I use in video 3 is by Shadowhouse Creations:

Summer!

Don't you just love England in summer when the weather is like this!

Gelli Printing on Fabric

Ah now, this is the way to go.  LOVE printing on fabric.

I used some pieces of sheet cotton and Pebeo Setacolors and Jacquard Lumiere.  I occasionally mixed the two types of paints together because the Lumiere gives a lovely sheen.  I also added Pebeo's Setacolor medium which meant my paints went further.

First layer I used textures.  My favourite were a fun foam stamp, bubblewrap (awesome), wallpaper and a grouting tool to make lines:

On the second layer I used positive stencils and some foilage.  Here are my best results:

Finally, I blended some of my not-so-good results with the better results in PSE and came up with these:

PSE 8-10 Beginner Videos

I have just uploaded all my Photoshop Elements 8-10 beginner videos onto YouTube for anybody who wants a quick crash course on how to use it.

If you want to be able to do the changes that I did to my prints in the previous post then watch videos five and eight.

Also, these 3 pdf files are a good beginners aid.  I use the shortcut keys a lot in the videos:

• Shortcut Keys
• Toolbar for PSE 9
• Toolbar for PSE 10

Happy viewing!

Getting on the Gelli Plate Bandwagon

I bought myself a gelli plate last year in the US because you couldn't get them here in the UK at the time.  It has been sitting in my cupboard, waiting to be used.  Suddenly, it seems that everybody is using them, teaching with them, painting with them - they've gone viral!

So, I thought, okay time to see what this gelli plate malarkey is all about.

Went out and got myself some vegetation and put together some mark making tools.

It wasn't as easy as it looks!  It needs a bit of practise and organisation.  Here are a couple of things that I learnt from my first run:

1. Don't use copier paper.  It buckles and there is nothing more soul destroying (particularly with this craft) than getting a decent print on a lousy piece of paper.  It also tends to stick to the plate if the paint has dried a bit.  Instead I used a 50 sheet pad of cartridge 120gsm and it worked nicely.
2. Expect that there is only going to be 1 good print for every 5 bad although I hope with practice this will improve!
3. When you clean your plate, do the final dry with a fabric cloth/towel.  The first time, I patted a paper towel on it for the final dry and took the next 10 minutes trying to scrap it off!
4. Don't use paper stencils.  Again, horrible to get off the gel plate and in the meantime the paint has dried so you don't get a ghost print.  Also, fatally I used a paper stencil with a previous layer that was wet and couldn't get it off my original - gutted.  I had some acetate stencils that I made some while back and they worked great.
5. I found that a smaller brayer worked better than a big one but might just be me.
6. I tended to clean the plate inbetween prints because otherwise the previous layer sometimes dried and you don't get crisp mark making.

Here are some of my prints:

The second and fifth are ghost prints and on the fifth you can see the white scratch marks caused by trying to get the paper stencil off the plate.

Ah, but the big thing for me is using them in Photoshop Elements.  I took a picture of the leaves that I had used because they looked so pretty:

And then I blended this photo with the third and sixth prints to get these manipulations (also changed the levels and colours). Some of them would probably look better in portrait: