Jill's Quills: polychromos

Showing posts with label polychromos. Show all posts

18 May 2013

Cricket Birthday

This is a card that I actually made quite a few weeks ago even though the Birthday was not until this weekend.

It was a commission for someone I didn't think I would easily see for a bit so was also done rather speedily!

I was given a couple of subjects and chose the cricket option with this lovely Papermania nostalgia stamp designed by John Byars.

I stamped it in Memento rich cocoa which I also sponged round the edge of the cut out image. I stamped the image a second time and cut the cricketer & ball out and mounted on 3D pads for some more dimension. I then used some polychromos pencils in matching shades to define the stamp a little.

Finished off with some layering, card candi and peel off sentiment all mounted on an A5 kraft card.
(Only a couple of days until the heart project is completed!).

6 October 2012

Parchment Day

A lovely non-crafting crafty day out today!

I went along to a South West gathering of the Parchment Craft Guild and what a great day it was.
I first started parchment about 20 years ago when Pergamano was first introduced to the UK. I was lucky enough to be taught by a fabulous quiller who had been one of the first Pergamano tutors taught by Martha Ospina. As I then got in to rubber stamping and many other things I have lapsed in and out over the years but still love it. It's a shame it is one of the more time consuming crafts when we all seem to have so few hours in the day.

Today there were 40 very friendly ladies and we were lucky enough to get 4 different 'sessions'.
Alison Yeates from Kingfisher Crafts did a great demo using watercolour (and the lovely polychromos pencils) on parchment, Linda Williams who is Chair of the Guild had some great tips on using grids and gave a demo on shadow writing as featured in a fabulous (currently out of print) Christmas book she has written and Gail Sydenham made painting with acrylics look amazingly easy!
We all had to miss one of the 4 demos so the demonstrators could have a break, unfortunately I didn't get to see Christine Coleman today but thanks to Sue Pritchard for telling us all about the Guild exam system, showing us examples and giving us some tips.

Well done to Celia Preston for pulling off a great day and keeping us fed and watered.

Much more inspiration and I will have to now see what parchment tools I can dust off to use!

1 May 2012

Pussy Willow

This is the 'test piece' we did on last weeks course before we embarked on the Kingfisher.

I started off a little heavy handed with the grey to start with but the willows looked much better at the other end of the branch.

The branch and willows were then lightly embossed and the background is made up of 7 different layers to create an 'in the tree' effect.

Quite pleased overall and now got the bug to play with my pencils.

26 April 2012

Kingfisher

Here is the result of my last couple of days!
I have had my lovely box of Polychromos pencils for sometime and not really used them much.

When I then saw that Christine & Alison had a Parchment Art master class using them and the subject was Kingfisher and Pussy Willow (two things I am a great fan of) I had to go!

Day one we produced a Pussy Willow piece and then started on a second and slightly different pussy willow branch for this picture.

We then spent day 2 with Alison giving us many demos on how to build up the picture with blending the pencils and using the right colours.
There are some things I would do slightly differently but for a first go I am pretty pleased.
There is only some slight embossing on the back of the willows and then the pencils are used as a dorso effect on the back, blending in with zest-it.

My pencil tin doesn't know what hit it!
Thanks for popping past.

18 December 2010

Christmas Cards

So busy making cards this week in between working and a spot of attending Christmas - Do's that I haven't had enough time to stop and post!

This is one made using a clear Pepper & Friends Christmas stamp. Simply coloured with polychromos. A touch of fluffy stuff added for snow and some white peel off snowflakes.

The card is a lovely aperture one from Craft Creations.

Slowly catching up - have made 36 wedding invitations as well since I last posted so looking forward to a day or two resting over the festive period I think before I get in to playing with all the bits I have spent the year accumulating again!!