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The Land Of The Midnight Sun
by Lea CiociStamping Deck Crewmember
Welcome aboard the ship as we travel on to our new artistic destination, Poland! Poland has so much to present in the way of art forms. I think of “Wycinaki” and ”Pysanski” in particular. Wycinaki is the art of painting in patterns, and Pysanski is what everyone knows as wax dyed, patterned eggs. To create the Pysanski eggs you must dye the egg, layer wax in patterns, and dye again, repeating the process until the whole egg is covered in wax and dye. When the wax is removed, you have a beautiful work of art. These beautiful art forms of Poland can be translated to express stamp art by what I call overstamp collage. This is a process of using patterns with ink, stamps, and even collage images. All stamps may be used as a tool for collage, but often I like to go further and add embellishments or collage images.
This month I received some great products to create my overstamp collage designs with. The first products were a Rusty Pickle paper set “Under the Stars.” The set included double-sided 12x12 papers, punch out die cuts, and alpha stickers. These all coordinate with a masculine vacation/fishing theme. I love how all the colors harmonize together and the 12x12 papers have something different on each side so you are really getting two papers in one. I started playing by punching out all the tags and decided I wanted to create a tag book for the outdoorsman. The tags already had a splash of contrast color for a shaded effect, but I wanted to bring out the color and used stipple/stencil brushes and dye-based ink to do so. A stipple brush has many wide-spaced bristles on it so when you pounce the color onto the surface you are working on, you get an air-brushed look. On the stencil brush, the bristles are close together so you get concentrated colors on your surface.
Also with the products this month, I received the “Serenity” stamp sheet from Artistic Outpost. This set had words, images, design patterned images, and two images with a saying. The next step to creating my overstamp collage was to start stamping with a flourish pattern image. I used several colors of dye-based ink pads to achieve a multi-color look.
To complete the tag, I cut a fish and some of the patterned paper from the paper set, and collaged it on the front. I also used the alpha stickers to spell out the word “fish.”
To complete the tag book, I did much the same as I did above, with some pieces having several colors of the same and different pattern images in first lighter colored ink and then adding the images on top (layering effect) with darker inks. I layered the most solid images last. I also added cut and ripped images from the paper set and collaged them. They are held together with a book ring.
A closer view of the layered stamping to create an overstamp collage is illustrated here. With the beautiful stamp images, I used a range of ink colors layered one by one with different stamp images. I started with soft muted colors and added stronger colors as I went a long.
The last products I received worked so wonderfully with overstamp collage! Stewart Superior sent “Memories Mist” in Blue Lagoon, a “Palette Hybrid” ink pad in Noir Black, and a “Palette Stamp and Stick Gluepad.” For one of the tags made above, I used a light colored ink in blue, and then sprayed a fine mist of the Memories Mist. Next, a sponge was used to get color right from the bottle and I put the ink directly on the stamp image – direct to rubber, and I stamped the words and other images. I collaged a fisherman and then did another fine mist of Memories Mist. For the last piece of art, I did a total collage in several layers of stamping and collaging. Here I used all the products together. The Hybrid inkpad gives a clear, crisp image when stamping and works well over patterns already there either with a patterned paper or over a stamped image. To add accents on the long tag, I tapped the Stamp and Stick Gluepad on the stamp image and stamped then applied leafing foil. For the other areas, I randomly tapped the pad and added more leafing foil. For depth and texture I used the Memories Mist and sprayed on the alpha sticker “a,” on the upper tag, and on the long tag, as well as doing direct to rubber to stamp on the long tag.
Here's wishing you a safe and creative journey on your travels into art. See you again next time –
Lea
Lea Cioci
leacioci@ssreflections.com
Stamping Deck Crewmember
Reflections Publishing Group
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