Show Us Your Media 5 - ideas time!

I'd not seen Dina Wakley's awesome competition with Ranger each month - #showusyourmedia - until last month and my mixed media composition "Fear" was my entry to Month 4. Month 5 is now upon us "What makes you you" - that's a tricky one and quite exposing so I'm trying to come up with ideas that aren't too logical or linear. I think I will do it in my Dina Wakley Media Journal (which is nearly finished - good thing I have 11 more so I can do a whole year with them!) on a burlap page (to stretch me) and it will probably be an acrylic-based mixed-media piece - though I'm kind of tempted to go all out and use a linen canvas as then I can work on it separately to the rest of my journal and I do love the linen backgrounds. I can stick some burlap onto it for texture. Trying to move away from my temptation to use earth-tones and keep it very soft - I don't use bright colours enough when painting myself - I think it's time I tried... Ooooh maybe I could monoprint this...

PSA: Faulty batch of Dina Wakley Media Acrylic Paint in "Magenta"

I just wanted to put up a quick post to let everyone know in case they've had a bottle from this batch - please contact Ranger's Customer Services people. They're really helpful and swift in what they do and it was honestly really easy to deal with them, unlike many companies nowadays! They offered to ship me a replacement immediately but I didn't want one as to be honest, this paint is still useable and I've had no issues using it for monoprints or for painting with, but I wasn't planning to do any impasto work with it right now. By the time they'd get a new bottle to me from the USA, the carbon footprint and cost to them would not be justifiable given I'm happy to use it as it is - but that may not be the case for everyone so if you have one of these bottles and are struggling to use it, speak to them about it. Even if you're happy to use it like I am, contact them anyways as it'll help Ranger to trace how widespread this is. When there are issues like this, I do feel strongly that it's up to the community to help our valued suppliers by reporting how widespread the batch has gotten etc. Please also post a comment on this blog post as it may help others to know where you got it from - and obviously contact your vendor so they know to speak to Ranger themselves and maybe take it off of the shelves.

Per my recent haul, I got many 2 fl. oz. bottles of Dina Wakley's wonderful acrylic paints - all of which have a lovely thick body and dry in the conditions of my studio in under 5 minutes. The Magenta though was like milk or a thin cream - could not hold its shape and took over 30 minutes to dry. Not right! Weirdly, the bottom of the bottle didn't have a Lot Number or Date of Manufacture per usual, but Ranger's people DID manage to trace the issue to a batch that somehow got released when it shouldn't have and that was missing an ingredient - I was the first to report it so we don't know how widespread the issue is. I know the batch mine was from came into the UK between 25th Sept and 10th Oct based on it having been out-of-stock at my vendor of choice on 25th but in stock on 10th when I ordered. It only seems to be impacting the Magenta paint as far as we can tell.

Here's the bottom of the bottle showing the lack of lot/date:

And this shows the consistency when it came from the bottle - note it POURED out on its own - it didn't need squeezing. It did not hold this shape for long and formed a uniform puddle that then took hours to dry, whereas the other thick wiggle swatches I did at the same time took 15 minutes (as they were a thick layer, 5 minutes normally).

Doctor's Orders....I'm not even sorry....

Yes, I know I did a haul post yesterday but EVEN MORE stuff came today... This is a mix of stuff from Amazon UK and from Art From The Heart - I've organised the post by the line it's from, rather than from where I got them. I DO want to do a big shout-out first to the lovely people at Art For The Heart. I've not placed many orders, but they've always been prompt, and super-helpful when you ask about anything. I've shown you previously the cute red tissue and heart charms they wrap everything in, which is a lovely touch. Today though, they had done something else that made me really happy as I do like nice surprise - so I'll tell you about that. At the bottom of the box, under all the little packages wrapped in red tissue, was one of Dyan's postcards [from this set], which I flipped over to find "Enjoy, Dyan" on the back - lovely and totally unexpected - always a good combination. 

There was, however, a small problem. I always say "you find out who your real friends are when the chips are down", and I do think you find out how good a company really is in terms of how they handle a problem. It's only a small problem and I'll add an update to this post once it's resolved to say how it went as I know it's useful to potential customers. Short version - I'd ordered a particular colour of ink spray and they must've picked up the wrong bottle as they sent something else. To be honest, I would usually just accept it and not care too much but I really wanted that colour damn it! I emailed them outside of business hours today, so we'll see.

UPDATE: within 3h of my emailing them, Ben (Mrs R's son) emailed me back (at 2100h!) to say he'd ship me a bottle of the missing colour first thing tomorrow - can't say much fairer than that!

Ranger Dylusions ink sprays in:
   Pomegranate Seed [BUY NOW: USA, UK]*
   Vanilla Custard [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
   White Linen [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
   Vibrant Turquoise [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
   Rose Quartz [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
   Melted Chocolate [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
(* this was the one that Art From The Heart slipped up on, hence the photo shows the Ground Coffee [BUY NOW: USA, UK] that they sent in error]

Some of these are re-stocks, some of them are new to me - including Vanilla Custard and Rose Quartz from the deliciously pastel Sept 2017 release of 6 colours. I've only got these 2 as inks and I have 2 more as paints, and I've not yet got the blue or the brighter pink.

These are from Amazon UK and were dirt cheap - it's a bag of book-rings in mixed sizes [BUY NOW: UK] and I wanted them for storing my Ranger and Stampers Anonymous stamp sets as I don't want to put them into binders, not to mention keeping my stencils tidier, and for displaying tags.

Tim Holtz Idea-ology Tissue Wrap in:

   Postale [BUY NOW: USA, UK]

   Melange [BUY NOW: USA, UK]

These are quite good value as you get a 12" wide roll that repeats a roughly 15" pattern 15 times over, so that's a lot of tissue at a low price. It's uncoated so perfect for use in mixed media where you may want to add something over the top.

Dina Wakley Media Scribble Sticks [BUY NOW: USA, UK] - these are sticks of pigments without wax and with minimal binder - you get 12 sticks - White, Black, Umber, Blackberry, Night, Sky, Turquoise, Lime, Lemon, Tangerine, Ruby and Magenta. I've had a super-quick play with them and I'll post that in due course.

Ranger Archival Inks in:

   Tea Rose (Wendy Vecchi) [BUY NOW: USA, UK]

   Dina Wakley Mixed Media Palette (Ocean, Tangerine, Night and Ruby) [BUY NOW: USA, UK]

As you can see below, the Mixed Media palette from Dina is four full-size ink pads so it works put pretty economical actually. I love Dina's 4 colours so it's really nice to be able to use Archival over her paints (which I already do) and have more coordination.

   

Dylusions Creative Flip Journal (Small) [BUY NOW: USA, UK] - I use a similarly sized (8" by 5") sketch book of the same kind of shape a lot, and I thought this might make a cool alternative, plus it gives me the means to make smaller layouts too I guess.

Tim Holtz Idea-ology Found Relatives [BUY NOW: USA, UK] - these are a quite large selection of 24 useful 3" by 5" cards with reprints of old playing card backs on one side and reprints of old 1900s-1950s photos on the other size. There used to be a greetings card line in the UK some 15 years ago that was similar photos to these and would have pictures much like the girl on the bottom right with the dog with the caption added saying something like "Beryl beats up little old ladies for fun" and the one in the middle of the couple would say something like "Sally hoped Isaac was as heavily into anal as she was" or something similar - I'm basically going to use a few of them in similar ways, but other ones will be used in softer and more beautiful layouts.

Sizzix Tim Holtz Bigz Tattered Leaves Die [BUY NOW: USA, UK]. This is a steel-rule die set, so it will cut through anything really - I don't have any leaf dies and I love the Sizzix Bigz range as they're actually quite economical so I thought I'd get one in time for autumn.

Ranger Dina Wakley Media Heavy Body Acrylics 1 fl. oz. in:

   Blushing [BUY NOW: USA, UK]

   Sky [BUY NOW: USA, UK]

   Lemon [BUY NOW: USA, UK]

   Lime [BUY NOW: USA, UK]

   Tangerine [BUY NOW: USA, UK]

   Umber [BUY NOW: USA, UK]

I have loved the 3 (Night, Blackberry, Rosy) that I already have and I wanted to get a primary triad and went with a CMY set as they make for bolder, more synthetic-looking colours and would be awesome for mixed media - I did want Magenta but Art From The Heart were out of stock, so I got Blushing which is much too warm for mixing but I can get Magenta at a later date. Given I already had a violet, I got 2 more secondaries - Lime and Tangerine, and Umber felt like a good neutral. Elephant may be my next! I love the thickness, ease of use and versatility of this line.

To go with my Wendy Vecchi bags from my last post, here are the Ranger Dina Wakley Media Bags [BUY NOW: USA, UK] - very economical for a pack of three and perfect sizes for storing basic small items. I talk about my motivation for these in particular a bit in that last post so please go check it out.

Dylusions Journal: My Love And I In A Small Cafe (Part II) - working towards the foreground

I posted recently a gessoed paper that I then used Dina Wakley Media acrylics and mica sprays from Ranger on - and I was loving the colours. I've since attached it into my Dylusions main Large Creative Journal that I used for just random things. As I've just obtained the Dina Wakley Media Circle Patterns stamps I couldn't resist adding some foreground to that background!

WHAT I USED:

"My love and I in a small cafe" acrylic on gessoed paper background previously prepared.

Ranger Wendy Vecchi Archival Inks in:
   Buttercup [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
   Cactus Flower [BUY NOW: USA, UK]

Ranger Dina Wakley Media Circle Patterns Stamps [BUY NOW: USA, UK]

WHAT I DID:
STEP 1: I selected the stamp that looks like a pen outlining a circle, as I want to put a similar motif in acrylic paint as the focal point at a later date.

STEP 2: I applied some stamps without a block down the righthand edge of the page, using Buttercup - Archival Ink goes on so well over acrylic that it's a great ink for this kind of project!

STEP 3: I then did the same using the delicious Cactus Flower - it reminds me so much of the Schlumbergera truncata Lem. (Christmas cactus) that my late Grandmother had and the beautiful magenta-violet flowers that seemed magical to me when I was a little boy and we went to visit her - the colour has stayed with me and after all these years - that vibrant colour standing out from the north-Bristol council estate browns and greys that I could see out of the window where the cactus was kept. I love this colour! I added a bit more of this colour in other areas on the page just to help join the foreground and the background a little more. There will be a focal point coming up in Part III! I've shown some close-ups below where you can see the 'fire' from the blue and red mica sprays and how cool it all looks!

Doctor's Orders: Oooops? #arthaul

So erm...well...what can I say? The worst part? This isn't even all of it - there's at least 5 more instalments to come...! It's quite a big haul because there have been some fabulous discounts on at Amazon and at Art From The Heart! Everything herein is from Amazon UK.

The Ranger Wendy Vecchi Mica Sprays (BUY NOW USA, UK) - at long last! Ranger released Mica Spray sets of 3 colours for each of their 4 signature designers some time ago - Tim Holtz (Brushed Pewter, Antiqued Bronze, Tarnished Brass BUY NOW USA, UK), Dina Wakley (Ruby, Lapis and Evergreen BUY NOW USA, UK), Dyan Reaveley (Bubblegum Pink, Crushed Grape and Vibrant Turquoise BUY NOW USA, UK) and, of course, Wendy Vecchi (Buttercup, Pearl and Forget-Me-Not) - I've struggled to get hold this set from Wendy but I love her palette - I also love Dina and Dyan's ranges but Tim's have not appealed to me because they're more or less the same as the metallic Distress Spray Stains. Wendy's Pearl excites me - there is no Pearl in the rest of her line of Archival Inks or Embossing Powders or Enamel Accents - and the name doesn't "fit" with her tradition of garden-related-words - Snowdrop would have been better, I think. I am now living in hope they'll release some more Pearl items from Wendy as a nice off-white to sit nicely with her other colours would be awesome!

I've posted on Twitter recently a lot of mini-monoprints I've been making (post on those coming soon!) and I decided getting a little gelli plate would be really worth it for a lot of techniques - I researched online and found this Gel Press Reusable Gel Printing Plate, 6" by 6" (BUY NOW: USA, UK) - they make a lot of different sizes and it's actually a faux gelli plate. It's a vegan-friendly mineral-oil-based reusable gelli plate, and it has a wonderful service. My YouTube Friend Mrs Weirich (aka Lindsay The Frugal Crafter) used a very similar one of these some time ago, and she got lovely results, which has made me want to try one for some time now. I've used normal gelli plates made of gelatine before but I like the very perfect surface of this - it really appeals to me - plus it's quite stiff so you can pick it up and use it like a stamp.

These Derwent Techniques Brushes (BUY NOW: USA, UK) were a bit of a whim item really. I was looking for something else and they were heavily discounted to just over £8 from £17, and I do want a sword suited to acrylic painting (check) and a rake for use when monoprinting (check). I'm sure these will come in useful!

A little bit of restocking! You can never have too many Ranger Dylusions Size 10 Journaling Tags (BUY NOW: USA, UK) and I have used a lot lately. Likewise, I needed to restock my favourite embossing powder - Ranger Wendy Vecchi Watering Can Embossing Powder (BUY NOW: USA, UK) - this powder is a deep, warm grey and thus a lot less harsh/cartoon-y than using black. I really enjoy how it looks and like all of Wendy's line, it is an ultra fine detail powder and just beautiful - blending it with other powders makes a nice bit of texture, even with beautiful bright colours like the vibrant yellows and purples.

Mwahahaha I struck a bargain here ;) I've wanted this Tim Holtz Idea-ology Clippings Stickers (BUY NOW; USA, UK) pack for a while for use in mixed media, cards and art journalling...and when I ordered it and paid for one, two packs arrived yaaay! So for just £3.98, I got almost 600 stickers, 2 of each of them. Lovely!

Another item I've wanted for a long time - this Ranger Dina Wakley Media Circle Patterns stamp set (BUY NOW: USA, UK) looked so useful for mixed media and for framing elements like collaged images. I love circles and how even crappy patterns or bits of waste artwork look brilliant cropped into circles with a punch or die and then stamped with a pattern - try it - it really looks great!

So I have to say, these were SO economical and I wanted something to keep my stencils and pens etc tidy and to hand. I also wanted to have some of this artwork to hand, because these beautiful Ranger Wendy Vecchi Designer Bags (BUY NOW: USA, UK) of course feature Wendy Vecchi's beautiful artwork - I have shown below the larger two that you can't see properly in the above image as I think they're so pretty. I've got the Ranger Dina Wakley Designer Bags (BUY NOW: USA, UK) on order too. Each set gives you a large, medium and small bag as a set (just over £13 when I bought these) and they're pretty useful sizes. I'm also hoping that having Dina's beautiful, bold and expressive mixed media work around me will inspire me somewhat to loosen up a bit when doing mixed media - which I find hard! 

Seasons Out Of Time Layout: Les Feuilles Mortes

I've started work on an autumn layout for my Seasons out of Time journal project, and it is going to involve cascades of beautiful autumn foliage falling down the pages, and I wanted it to be bright and vibrant and in shades of orange, red, brown, and yellow with hints of green maybe. I decided to combine my Dylusions ink sprays and Tim Holtz Distress spray stain to get the colours I wanted, prepare a tag as a good surface then stamp on some leaves I could later cut out and glue onto the layout once it's ready and then they'll stand out and look beautiful. This layout is called "Les Feuilles Mortes" (the dead leaves) after the 1945 song, which was re-released in English translation in the same year of course as "Autumn Leaves" - obviously because the layout is based on falling, autumn leaves.

This is by no means a complete project, just one of maybe a dozen elements that will make up this layout, but it made a beautiful autumnal colourway and I wanted to share that.

WHAT I USED:

Ranger Dylusions Ink Sprays in:
   Tangerine Dream [Buy now: USA, UK]
   Fresh Lime [Buy now: USA, UK]
   Lemon Zest [Buy now: USA, UK]

Ranger Tim Holtz Distress Spray Stain in:
   Carved Pumpkin [Buy now: USA, UK]
   Vintage Photo [Buy now: USA, UK]

Ranger Dylusions Size 12 Tag [Buy now: USA, UK]

Ranger Dylusions Branching Out stamp set [Buy now: USA, UK]

Ranger Wendy Vecchi Archival Ink in:
   Potting Soil [Buy now: USA, UK]
(you can also get this same colour in the Wendy Vecchi Mini Archival Set 1, with Carnation Red, Sunflower, Garden Patina - which is actually very economical if you want to build your stash - BUY NOW: USA, UK)

WHAT I DID:

STEP 1: I first sprayed the tag in a generous coat of Lemon Zest rather than spraying it with water - the wetness will help the brighter, darker colours to blend and will fill any gaps with a beautiful yellow.

STEP 2: I sprayed Tangerine Dream and Fresh Lime over most of the tag.

STEP 3: Immediately, I switched to the Distress spray stain and added Carved Pumpkin and Vintage Photo. As you can see from the photo above, they don't all sit 'equally' on the page. The reason: Distress stains have a different density and hydrophobicity to the Dylusions products. To analogise firstly ionic strength. If you were to mix a very salty solution with pure tap water, you'll get all sorts of swirling and mixing and clear mixing lines visible in it (Schlieren as the Germans call it) - you can try it out and see - this is because one has far more salt dissolved in it and thus when it mixes with the other, they try and equal out and the salt tries to move around and equilibrate it - that's owing to both liquids having different densities - if you dissolve 200g of salt in 1,000mL water, then 1mL of that water has a mass of 1.2g (1mL water = 1g, plus the 0.2g salt in every 1mL), therefore, it has a density of 1.2g/mL - in short, they will try and equal out and you'll see mixing/swirling/etc happen, or, if they were mixed more slowly, the water will sit on top of the salt water and form separate layers. Hydrophobicity is a measure of how much something wants to adhere to surfaces and not be in a water-based solution - in this context, it's really a measure of "does this dye molecule want to be joined to paper or in solution?" - so what happens is that one of them adheres rapidly to the paper, one of them more slowly.

What does this mean in practice? It means you get amazing patterns - you get the two different products mixing slowly and naturally and producing mixes of colour in close proximity without making mud.

STEP 4: I left it without touching it at all to dry for 24h and it looked beautiful! I then stamped the open/spotty leaves stamp from the Branching Out set onto it with Wendy Vecchi's beautiful Potting Soil Archival Ink - this is an oil-based ink so it won't lift the products underneath. I didn't apply it perfectly - I wanted a rough look. When my journal pages are ready, I will cut out all the whole leaves and adhere them to the pages individually. I LOVE the colours this has produced! Every leaf is totally unique and has texture and usually 2-3 colours. I had planned to stamp with some random texture over this to add interest but I really don't need to now!