Make it Crafty Challenge time

OK firstly, where did the last 12 days go............holy moley, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the date - I sure hope the rest of 2012 is not going to fly by in a blur!!

Anyway, abject apologies for not posting since the 1st (oh the shame)

Make it Crafty Challenge

"Create Blades of Grass"

Nah, I don't mean go grow some grass (clarification - as in lawn not the illegal plants!!)

Oh before I dig myself in any deeper here is my interpretation of this challenge:

I wanted to choose a very simple image so the grass was not swamped, nor did I want to go mad and make it look like the fungi were growing in astro turf or green shag pile carpet.  As I have said before "less is more"!

Initially, I printed my image out twice, once on my cardstock and then again on Eclipse Masking tape.  I used to use masking film, which is fine for rubber stamps as you can use Stazon ink, but printer ink, like Memento just doesn't like it, I've tried it and got inky fingers and splodgy messes for my efforts!! However as Eclipse is like a Post-It printer ink works fine.  Why do this you may well ask - ah ha, once I had trimmed my mask mushrooms I stuck them over the ones printed on cardstock and set to work with my Copic Airbrush.  However hard I try to get smooth backgrounds by hand, the air brush, pardon the pun beats it "hands down" - so the faff of masking is well worth the effort..........................especially when colouring and creating grass.

Little Toadstools Digi Stamp available at MakeitCrafty.com

As you can see from the above image - I was quite restrained this time with my colour palette!  My grass base was created with G40 and it was there that I started when inking in my tufts, working my way through G82, G12 and G84 with various W greys to add depth and those all important shadows. Delicate little flicks from base to tip are sufficient to give the impression of grass.  Keep the darker shades at the base of the tufts, and the lighter shades to create the blades of grass NB - be light of touch - if you are too heavy handed with the tufts it can start to look like a bad hair transplant - not a good look for crafting or middle aged men!!

Another thing to bear in mind when adding grass to an image - where is the focal point in your picture - if you only want a little bit of grass to ground or enhance your main subject then keep it light in both colour and density - it's all too easy to over do the grassy tufts and before you know it you have a lovely dense green carpet that draws your eye away from the main focus...............been there, done that!!!

 I and the rest of the Make it Crafty team would love you to join in this challenge - your entries can be posted here at the Make it Crafty Gallery where my teamies have posted some wonderful examples to inspire you.

Well I hope this is of help to those of you wanting to experiment with ways of "grounding" your stamped images...........as always if you have any questions feel free to email me.

Crafty Hugs