Crusade No. 55

Michelle Ward has done it again!  This month's crusade is crazy-fun.  Before you even read this you should just click on over to her site to see the challenge and her gorgeous work.  Aren't you totally inspired?  Don't you just want to play along?

(Okay, if you can't tear yourself away from my riveting blog long enough to check that out, here's the scoop:  paint a background with 2-3 colors, paint a stamp with the same 2-3 colors.  watch the way parts of the stamped image "disappear" when matching colors align.)

I decided I would simultaneously work on my new index-card-a-day challenge while working on the crusade.  (because you KNOW I couldn't give up ICAD, so I've signed up to play along in September).  Unlike my summer index cards, I'm going to follow Tammy's prompts in September because I think they might challenge me and keep me out of a style rut.  The color theme of the month is red - a color I rarely use, so right off the bat I'm stretching.  The topic theme is "paths" and the style theme is "curves".

So to start my crusade I lined up a bunch of index cards and worked with red and turquoise paint.

I got out my favorite swirly, curvy rubber stamp and applied the paint.  Interesting, but I'm not sure I like these.

I tried it with 3 colors by adding some black:

Wild, but kind of ugly too....

Let's switch pallets and try red and orange.  

In addition to the swirly stamp I'll use some big foam stamps I found on clearance and never use.

Better, but not enough contrast. 

 Let's add some black, and let's spray the background with water first to make it more splotchy....

Now let's stamp with red/orange/black

Cool! I'm loving these.

And I haven't tried stencils yet....

The results are interesting.

I even managed to pull an interesting mono print from the circle stencil before I lifted it off the background:

Time to switch pallets again.  When I use red at all, I use it with black and grey.  

These turned out to be my favorite of the whole bunch.

Instead of using my red craft paint on those I used my red Liquitex Basics.  I like the way it's kind of shiny and semi transparent.  

Now....which of these will I choose for my index card today?  Surprisingly I went for one of the garish red/turquoise/black ones.  Since the topic theme for September  is "paths" I was picturing a path with a sign that says "This Way" - and that immediately made me think of the hilarious little bit from Dan Zane's version of the song "Side by Side" in which Dan and Father Goose get lost in the woods on the way to a party and fireflies come along to light up the way, and he introduced the most excellent word "bashment".  (If you have children born in the last decade you might know what I'm talking about.  Otherwise you'll have to take my word for it because I can't find any youtube clip of the song)

STILL reading this?  Turn off your computer right now and run to your paint supply and play along with this month's crusade.  If you don't paint (and I surely don't understand why you wouldn't) please follow the fireflies to the bashment.  I hope they remembered to bring the snacks.