Hi there creative souls

Tammy here today to share another vibrant creation. I had so much fun last month creating butterflies that I’m going with butterflies again! You can never have too many butterflies? Right?!

TCW provided me with some amazing goodies but the art and opinions are solely my own.

This time I began with a black Dylusions Art Journal. I forget to dig this one out! If you don’t have a black journal, you can just add a layer of TCW9002 Black Gesso to your page first.

For this page, I began by quickly adding some Dylusions paints to my page. I didn’t overthink this part, just whack it down with a brush in large strokes. I’m a big fan of bright color, so I went with ‘Fresh Lime’, ‘Vibrant Turquoise’, ‘Crushed Grape’, ‘Cherry Pie’, ‘Funky Fuschia’ and ‘Polished Jade’.

Now I decided to again use the stencil TCW925 Nature’s Circuitry. I love love love this stencil – I love not only the gorgeous creatures, but the way the cell circuitry has been highlighted on one side of them. So cool.

I laid it down on top of my background on the right hand side, directly in the middle and swiped TCW9047 Black Modeling Paste over the top using a spatula.

I repeated this from the right hand side across to the left hand side of the page, drying off in between so each time the stencil was placed down it didn’t smudge the gorgeous image.

I then used TCW9002 Black Gesso to add a border around the edge. I wanted this to be grungy and messy, so I used a palette knife. I also flicked the gesso over the page to create some black splats.

Leave this to dry and now it’s time to work on the foreground. I again use TCW925 Nature’s Circuitry in 6×6 size and a few of the TCW Color Sparx. I selected ‘Lime Green’, ‘Cerulean Blue’ from TCW9057 Poolside ‘Fuschia’ and ‘Orchid’ from TCW9055 Berry Punch. I laid the stencil over some cardstock, and added a few sprinkles of  each Color Sparx.

Now for the magic….add spritzes of water…. this is why they are called Sparx….

Now lift….and whilst stencil still wet, grab another piece of cardstock, lay on top and mop up the excess. You will be left with this….. a positive and a negative image.

Ok back to the page, I wanted to brighten it up more – a way to do this is to add some white – especially as I would be adding some images with white (the cut out butterflies). I needed to tie this in to the background by ensuring there was white there too.

I used TCW219 Punchinella and sponged white paint through it in various places on the background. I also used a white gel pen and a black pen to trace around a few of the cell/honeycomb shapes and add in some scribbly lines.

This is the moment when it all came together, and I felt happy.  That elusive magic moment!

Finally I added my cut out images, settling on just two of the butterflies, and adhered them with gel medium. 

I only applied the medium to the centre back of each of them as I really wanted their wings to have movement and for them to sit up off the page.

A few final scribbles, flicks of paint and a quick word sticker and it is done!!!

I really love the black. I must remember to dig this album out more often. It’s got my mojo flowing…..do I really need to work? Or sleep?

See you again soon.

Tammy Klingner aka Tambarambaa

TCW Design Team Member