Scattered minds

1 May is always the start of the Duck Shooting season.  The guys (and girls and kids) are out before dawn in their maimais, ready to take pot shots.  This year it is delayed at least a week. Damn that virus!!!  Being in Lockdown yet working fulltime (from home) also leaves me as scattered as the autumnal leaves gracing our yards.  So how about some little bits and pieces of art:

THE VIRUS ITSELF,

as depicted in so many news pieces:

 I was browsing through a drawer of MDF pieces for something else.  These hollow-centered drip-like not-cogs struck me as being perfect to represent the virus shape we see in all the news pieces, along with some blobs of flowersoft.  People are trapped in their bubble (ie glued behind a large glass cabochon, which fit over the centre hole).  The company making the mdf cutouts (Things to Alter) is no longer in existence.

Stuck in our Corona-virus bubble, almost 5 weeks Level 4 lockdown, now part-way through 2 (+?) weeks at level 3, hairdressers still are not allowed to open.  Now,

Every Day Is  A Bad Hair Day

Mercy!  Please!!!

I thought I knew who created Zombie Chicken stamp, but can't trace it.  ATC card, stencilled, and again can't identify the covid-shape little stamp either :(  Never mind, I need those scissors!!!

The final piece uses an MDF winged skull shape from Paper Whimsy

It's amazing the bubbly texture you can get from using a heat gun on Jacquard Lumiere paints.
Don't you think Asylum Anne has bubble-prisons on her mind?

We have a reward for the "best" dark piece you share with us on the right.  When entries reach #40, we will be choosing our favourite between numbers 21-40.
So keep expressing your darkest dreams with us all - they deserve to be aired!

Valentine???? Mate, yer Dreamin'

Ah Poe, what did you start??? Those @#!!#* ravens quothing "Nevermore" all over the place, then less than a month later all those pink-loving "romantics" are running round saying...

The mdf word is Kaisercraft I think.  The raven/crow is part from another Paper Whimsy Crow stand.  The squishy floppy skellies draped over the "sentiment" are from ali express, started yellow, were painted brown then some of the paint rubbed off as it should be.

The mdf has several layers of paint dabbed around, plus 2 of crackle paste.  I love interference paints.

We still need to see a few more of your dark dreams on display to the right of this, before we can award someone with happy mail.

How Spiderman got his uniform

Contrary to whatever is in the movie, there is a far more ridiculous/darker/shameful reality:

 Guano!  Or whatever you call the draconic equivalent.  Spiderman was resting in the bushes, avoiding persecution from some of Poe's ravens, when oops, a dragon flew by, perched, and relieved itself!  Stupidly, Spiderman looked up, and copped a faceful as well as all over his black disguise.

What more can anyone say?  The true story is out now.
All that's to be said is that the tale was outed with assistance from Creative Embellishments and Paper Whimsy
Of course I couldn't stop at using just one crow tree set.  The sun came out to reveal all the colourfulness of the next one:

 Paper paste, pumice paste, sand paste all got a workout on this piece.
Dancing queen WITH ravens LOL

Keep sharing your dark dreams to the right, we're keen to reward one of the next 20 Dark Dreamers

Dear Reader... don't read so long that the spiders web you over.

Centuries after her death, (well, it was 200 years this July) people are still captivated by Jane Austen's writings.  It may be that a rather portly gentleman has  been reading since the first edition came out, never stopping to notice the spiders webs growing round him.  Even within Jane's tales of romance, there are some spooky places, creepy assumptions. What was the story behind Mrs Tilney's suite of rooms, wondered the heroine... and that got her into trouble before the Path Of True Love could be straightened, of course.

Paper Whimsy's Lacy Triptych with stand provided the foundation for this project.
The arched frames were given 3 coats of Emerald Creek embossing powder, then stamped while molten with the barbed wire brick fence stamp.  The side panels were done in Northern Lights colour, the centre panel in Midnight Sky.  The Lacework "roof lines" were painted with Jacquard Lumiere in Indigo, then a coat of Halo Blue-green, and heat gunned while wet for the bubbly texture.  The individual frame backgrounds were painted with white gesso.  Before completely dry, Lindys Gang moonshadow Tawny Turquoise was washed over, then a few drips of Moonlit Mulberry encouraged to flow down.

The barbed wire fence stamp with Indian ink was stamped over each panel, before gluing down the fussy-cut Austen stamps.  Strands of spider web are Helmar 450 glue (hot glue guns aren't a common part of my toolkit, else I'd have done that).  When this gentleman was glued down, the book was left unglued, for a touch of 3-D.  From his expression, novels are a new concept to him.

I used Emerald Creek embossing powders - they also have an American web site, or you can swap between the two (top right toolbar in the web page)  The box part of the stand was covered in some Graphics 45 Typograph paper..

Sin City Stamps have 2 new plates of Jane Austen stamps out, and here :)
Farewell Jane, and thanks for the hours of imagination you've stimulated.

Of course, if you've been working on something weird, off-beat, creepy, daaaark, share it with us here

Addicted to Death

Addictions grab people in terrible ways, so here's a more sombre take on getting "spooked" to death today.   The Paper Whimsy Steampunk Queen kit, with one of the faces from their collage sheets, and articulate-able arms features today.  The body and cage were "painted" with Lava Gel tinted with my favourite rust-paint colour.  Because the face stamp on the other side  is larger than this, I had the opportunity to give her some hair - texture paste painted brownish

 Whether it's P, or PMT  a woman can turn into a bone-breaking raging hulk!  And with red-coloured tar gel as blood dripping from her arms, was she driven so such lengths? Is that barbed wire below, what she used, or some more sinister needle? Or do we "blame" a man? Steampunk man of course.

Further down, it's not crabs getting at her, but a skull-backed spider inside her.  The skull was resin cast in a mold with a bit of light blue put in before the resin.  Then glued to a spider.  And if you've missed finding any in the halloween shop-stock, try Silver Crow Creations (also for cockroaches and other insects)

Here's the other side of her - not any nicer!  She'll never make old bones, nor see the backside of 20 - those pills will be the death of her.

The Gibson Girl face stamp ( Lost Coast Designs) is larger than the collage face on the other side, so it dictated how much hair I could add on the other side. Things To Alter have a great variation of a hooded skull, which backs on to their steampunk man on the other side.They also do the barbed wire hanging down over the spider.  Most of what you can see added on are from Silver Crow Creations - the dresden spider web, hooded skullbead, wee metal bones, pill capsules, tiny posed lady...

So please take good care of yourselves, don't let yourself be Tricked into a downward, destructive spiral.  Instead Treat Evil Froggy by expressing and sharing the dark side in your art here

And then move on... to the next link in  this 31 Days of Halloween Blog Hop.

To backtrack to those Trick or Treat stuffies a few days ago, Val at Third Stone Stamps is still putting everything back in her new web site, so let her know you want the kids. 

And then move on... to the next link in  this 31 Days of Halloween Blog Hop.

A Match for All Eternity

Valentine Day, a Day of Love. One always hopes it will be Happy Ever After, but it's not my favourite theme:  I'm a big fan of the Day of the Dead concept, it resonates deeply within me.  Could I combine the two? So when I found my other stash of Paper Whimsy Alterables  the other day, one with a skull stayed on the desk.  In fact I rediscovered several stash drawer contents during this project - the roulette wheel really works, and I started thinking "Life is a Gamble with Death".  And relationships are also a gamble.  I painted the kit pieces Mars black, glued all together (except for the bones) and painted parts with the thinnest smear of interference colour paints.  So all those vibrant colours, including that blue, are what you can get.  The frame was then painted with graphic black, which is not as dark a black as Mars black.  My stash of peacock tails and maribou feathers has been neglected for too long - and yes, you can get tail feathers this small.  I just liked the grey fluffiness against the hard wings of the skull, and the pop of the peacock eye.

 The bride was a "scrap" hiding in a stash drawer, and my project crystallized.  Like the colours of the peacock feather behind the skull?

Where to place the bones (with a bicone bead glued to each end) was easy to decide after all, but what to put above that took a lot of auditioning before I settled on stamping on grey card then cutting to fit the Alterable's shape, and a chunk of mother of pearl shell.

Silver Crow Creations has all sorts of quirky stuff - like the roulette wheel, which spins when you twirl the nob in the centre and the ball spins round too.  They have all sorts of ephemera scraps too, some in random bundles, which is how the bride came my way.

Lost Coast Designs have a series of dictionary stamps - like "Eternity" used here

Paper Whimsy have a great selection of masonboard "kits", like the Spooky Terrarium.

Golden Paints are a good quality brand that I can easily get in NZ - unlike so many other goodies.

Perils of the Sea.

I have so many stamps relating to the sea, that when I saw Stitchy BearStamps Steam Punk Sail Ship by Coosty Creations, I had my "aha" moment.  I started with a sheet from my metre-high kiwiana scrapbook pages that is a seascape.  There is already a fishing boat in it, but I covered it over with the digistamp.  I printed the digistamp out at one size, and a few copies at a smaller size.  The larger one was easier to cut out the "sky" between the sails,and also meant I could glue it to the page with a bit of a "billow" floating above the paper.  (You can see their shadows).  I cut a small one to use as a mask over another small one so I could colour the sky to match what was underneath, without worrying about overlapping the boat itself, so I didn't have to fiddle with clipping out tiny bits of "sky".  Both boats were coloured with Tombow & Marvy markers.  A third one was swabbed with inkpad daubers, ripped and sunk at the bottom of the seabed.

Then it was out with the stamps to have some fun.  With a kingfish already looking threateningly up at the ship, the theme of "Perils of the Sea" came to mind. First up, why shouldn't pirate ships be stem-paddle-sail-powered?  Just need a skull & crossbones and they're in business.  Then there's the weather, and the weekend I was creating this page, we've been on the edge of a Tropical storm, and it's a vigorous warm Northerly - heat embossed with Lindy Stamp Gang's Twilight Blue Slate,

Have fun looking at all the monsters of air and deeps, and don't swim out of your depth!!!

Steampunk sail ship from Stitchy BearStamps
North Wind, Skull & crossed swords, from Third Stone Stamps
Butter Side Down stamps provided  the Jersey Devil, Mothman 1 & 3, Sea Serpent, Zombie hand, Pirate cook (you can only see the chest he's sitting on), and Giant Octopus.
Fancy cogs mini are from Paper Whimsy

Drop your offerings off HERE