Blog Hoppin'

Welcome to the Inchie Arts and StencilGirl Blog Hop!

Hi, it's me Kae Pea! Owner and artist at RubberMoon.
We are so excited to be a part of this hop.
Here at RubberMoon we love Inchie Arts art squares and StencilGirl stencils!

I created a great piece of framed art using a few supplies and I wanted to share this fun project with you.

Here are the materials I used for my piece of art:

• 4" Inch Inchie Art Square (I used white but other colors would be great too!)
• Wheel In the Sky Stencil ( I designed this one but there are so many awesome stencils to choose from!)
• gouache and acrylic paints ( I used my favorites but you choose yours!)
• paint brush
• baby wipes 
• RubberMoon stamp "True Free Spirit" (this one is by Mindy Lacefield and there are so many more great sayings and images at RubberMoon.com!)
• ready made frame with a 4 x 4 opening
• black ink pad

1. Paint your Inchie Art Square with gouache*
(it is important to use gouache for this layer so you
can easily remove color with your baby wipe.
 you may use acrylic, but it will not come up as easily.)

2. Place the portion of your stencil that you want to use
over your painted Art Square and remove
color with your baby wipe by gently rubbing and patting.

3. Remove your stencil and now paint and stamp with acrylic
paints. I used some texture/mixed media stamps from RubberMoon.

Here is my Inchie Art Square...painted, stenciled and ready to stamp!

I used the "true free spirit stamp" I only used the words
"free spirit" by masking off the word "true"...
I placed my finished art into a 4 x 4 white frame.

Would make a great gift but also looks perfect in my studio!

Thank you for visiting! And thank you to Inchie Arts and StencilGirl for inviting us to hop!

Leave a comment ON ANY (or all) of the blogs involved in the hop as your entry

We'll be picking one lucky winner to receive a 

$25 StencilGirl Gift Certificate and

1 package each of White 4", 3", ATC (2.5" X 3.5") and Swatch (2" X 4") size Art Squares!

All comments left on the hop list participants’ posts will be entered. 

One comment per blog. 

Comments close on January 30^th @ 11:59PM Central.
Winner will be announced on January 31^st.

January 25

StencilGirl Talk
Mary C. Nasser
Mary Beth Shaw
Lisa Lee

January 26 
StencilGirl Talk
Maria McGuire
Gwen Lafleur
Dina Kowal

January 27 
StencilGirl Talk
Janet Joehlin
Sharon Harnist
Kae Pea  <<<YOU ARE HERE! Thank you for coming by!

Given to Whimsy

I could go on and on about what attracts me to RubberMoon's stamps. 

I could tell you how awed I am by the quality of the product, the variety, the artistry, etc. 

But if I had to sum it up in one word? 

That word would be whimsical.

I love RubberMoon's stamps because they are whimsical. 

Which means they play right into my flights of fancy 

and my inability to take art seriously.

So, when I saw the catfish and the "Holy catfish!" sentiment stamps,

I had to have them. Had to.

For this card, I began with one of my favorite background techniques.

This one is so easy and so much fun!


Begin by smooshing (that's a technical term, right?) various ink pads 

on a non-stick craft sheet.

Spritz the inked sheet with water and swirl the colors around.


You can use an old chopstick for this, 

but I like to get messy, so I just use my finger.

Then just gently place a piece of glossy paper on to it.

Lift it up, and ta-dah!

The bonus is that there's usually enough left over smooshy stuff

on the mat to do another background, 

and it'll be completely different from the first.

Next, I stamped the catfish in green on the background.

I wanted to make the head and tail different from the body, 

so I stamped that in brown on a separate piece of paper.

I cut the head and tail of the brown catfish and set it aside.

I added some glitter to the green catfish's fins and

 colored in the eyes and whiskers on the brown catfish head.

The background seemed a little bare to me, 

so I sponged on some blue ink to give it a little more oomph 

(another technical term).

I added some fishy friends for my catfish 

using a Stencil Girl stencil, a sponge and brown ink.

After that, I added some seaweed using RubberMoon's Large Fern stamp

as well as the "Holy Catfish!" sentiment.

The only thing left to do was to assemble the piece.

I used some double stick spacing tape for the brown catfish head and tail 

to make them stand out from the page a little bit.

I glued the piece to some matching green cardstock,

then glued that to my card base.

Now I can send it on its way and fill a friend's day with whimsy!


For more of a glimpse into my whimsical world, please stop by my blog at:
In the Studio With Barb


Happy New Year!

"Three Horses in a Corner" Acrylic painting by Teresa Cox Kolar of Sweet Mare Studio

Hello Fellow Creative Ones! :-D

 This is Teresa Cox Kolar of Sweet Mare Studio 

and I am truly pleased and honored to 

return to the RubberMoon blog as a guest artist.

My last post was in February. It is exciting to be back for a visit! 

Today I will show you how to create the painting below 

"Three Horses In A Corner."

"There Horses In A Corner"

Acrylic painting

1.Your Painting Surface

 You will need a 12x12 inch artist panel, 3/4" deep 

or any other size you might prefer.

This panel is made by Ampersand and is wonderful

 to work on as it is a hard surface, perfect for stenciling. 

I also enjoy the texture as it so closely resembles real canvas. 

Cloth-like texture on a super sturdy surface-perfect!

2. Your Under Painting

For this step you will need the following acrylic paints and one brush:

Burnt Sienna

Manganese Blue Hue

Naples Yellow Hue

Wide, flat, scrubby, inexpensive paint brush

The brands I use are Golden and Liquitex. 

Other brands should work just fine too.

3. The Final Details

Various handmade stencils. I have drawn

 and cut out  my own stencils in the 

shapes of a horse, bird, oval.

Feel free to create any designs that you prefer.

For my stencils I used a manila folder. For the smaller white circles

I used the RubberMoon Organic Circle Stamp #TK6F. For the triangle designs I used the stencil shown. I found it at Michael's Art Store.

Paint colors for these final detail were Burnt Sienna, Gray, Blue Gray, White and Cobalt Turquoise.

VOILA!!

"Three Horses In A Corner"

Many thanks for taking a look at my tutorial. I hoped you enjoyed it.

Happy painting and creating!!

Please feel free to visit my Etsy page where you will 

find more of my work. 

All the very best,

Teresa

Baby It's REALLY Cold Outside!!

"Beautiful Blizzard"

At this very moment I am working in my studio. A perfect way to spend the day when being outside is not even a remote possibility. All schools have been closed. The high temp for the day is well below 0 degrees! Baby it's REALLY cold outside!! No use complaining (even though I do!) Instead let's work on a wintery art piece with the help of RubbrerMoon Art Stamps and some homemade stencils.

The Under Painting

Below is a photo of the initial stages of an acrylic painting. You start with a canvas the size of your choice. Here I used an 8x10 inch canvas. You will need acrylic paints-French Blue Gray, white and cream. The paints with a more liquid consistency work best. Here I have used a handmade stencil shaped like a white pine tree. I also used a stencil with a filigree type design. These will be part of the under painting. The colors used for the under painting were a variety of medium toned colors with a small amount of warm colors like Burnt Sienna and Yellow chre. The trees were created with very dark tones like Burnt Umber. The filigrees were done with French Blue Gray. The best brushes to use are stiff bristled, scratchy type brushes. They work best for achieving the wispy brush strokes seen here.

Handmade Stenciling

Next is a photo of stylized circular shapes created by cutting out a stencil from a manila folder.

Think "airy energy." Situate the circles all around for a light airy feel- blizzardy.

There are also stamps available for this airy effect. Organic Circle stamps can be purchased from Sweet Mare Studio just call 218-590-8484 or from RubberMoon Stamps by clicking on this link.

This is the type of brush that works best. Stiff,bristled and flat.

Stamping

Now it's time for stamping! Below is a photo of a stamp from RubberMoon. 

It is called Inksplat. It is sold on the RubberMoon website. Simply click the Inksplat link.

 The color used here is French Blue Gray. Stamp your entire canvas to suggest wintery/snowy shadows.

Painting

Time to start painting your pines. The brush that works best is a pointed, round brush. Here I am painting suggestions of tree shapes in white. These stand out against the medium toned background colors and also tie in nicely with the stenciled circles.

Continue painting..........

Use your French Blue Gray to add trees that tie in the blue "snowy shapes."

More Stamping.......

This time with white paint.

 all around your canvas.

And Voila!!

A wintery, snowy, blizzardy painting!

Many thanks for visiting RubberMoon's blog page. It was so much fun creating this tutorial for you to try. I hope you have enjoyed it. If you should have any questions, just leave them in the comment box.

************

 Visit  this wonderful company, RubberMoon Art Stamps http://www.rubbermoon.com/

You will find oodles and oodles of amazing artsy stamps in addition to the darling chicken stamp used here.

***************

Find more of my art on my blog: http://teresacoxkolar.blogspot.com/

Also, check out my Etsy shop: http://www.teresaketsyshop.etsy.com

I am on Facebook too: Teresa Kolar and/or Sweet Mare Studio

All the very best!-Teresa :-D

Experiment and enjoy!

Friday Feature

Hooray! It's Friday! And, so, to mark the beginning of a (hopefully) artful weekend, we thought we would have a little fun and feature some of our favorite images, products and ideas!!
Here goes....
We LOVE Inchie Arts! These are high quality, artist grade materials for creating small format works of art! They are the perfect foundation for making all types of great projects.They work wonderfully with both wet and dry color application.  

Look at these Inchie Arts products! They come in other great neutral colors and black too!

We LOVE stencils! StencilGirl Products make great artist stencils and they are owned and operated here in RubberMoon's neck of the woods too! (We love USA made!)

Take a look at this cool stencil, designed by RubberMoon's own, Kae Pea!

And finally, we thought we would feature a favorite RubberMoon image! This image is 'vintage' RubberMoon. It was one of the first stamps in the original 1993 catalog and still is a much loved image today! It is the art of Jane Cather.  Cool stamp huh? Just love Jane's work...

RubberMoon item # jc631h It is titled, night hair.

That is our Friday Feature for today. We hope it gets you thinking about how you will be creative this weekend! So pull out all of your inchies, stencils and stamps and PLAY!!

Sending Moonbeams,