Stretching Beyond the Standard Stamp Design

Who said penguins can’t fly? In the words of Robert M. Hensel, “Whenever everyone says you can’t, determination says, ‘YES YOU CAN.'” If you’ve been following me for awhile, you probably noticed that I love to stretch the use of my stamps and I also love to draw. I try my best to be creative and use my stamps in ways that it was not necessarily intended to. But in all honesty, not all of my ideas pan out, and I tossed out 2 other cards prior to this one, and was feeling a little frustrated. But I remind myself, KEEP CALM and CRAFT ON!

I eventually came up with this card, when I thought, this penguin looks like it can be parachuting! (Or perhaps on a swing and standing on the seat?) All I had to do was to remove the popsicle he was holding and I have myself a penguin ready to be in action.

I ended up deciding to go for the parachuting idea because I really wanted to make clouds with my blender and distress inks. I googled a bunch of parachute pictures and started sketching possibilities for the parachute. After I found the one I was most satisfied with, I outlined it with my Micron 005 Pen, to finalize the illustration.

I then planned out where I wanted the sentiment, which came from the same MFT BB Penguins in Paradise stamp set, but rather than use the sentiment in one giant line, I cut up the stamp so that I can separate it out in 3. If you have space in between the letters to cut it, it never hurts to rearrange your sentiment. I then heat embossed the sentiment in black.

Now, before I can work on the background clouds, I had to mask my penguin and parachute. And to do that, I used the Molotow Masking Liquid Marker, which is shown in blue. There are also many other masking liquids available as well, and rubber cement also works great. But I saw this marker suggested on Jennifer Mcguire’s Blog since it looked so much more easier to have the precision of a marker to work with.

After the masking liquid dried, I began working on the clouds. To create the clouds, I die cut out cloud shapes on acetate, and used that as my blending guide. For sky/clouds, I used the Tumbled Glass Distress Ink and gently blended the colors onto the card with my cloud-shaped acetate.

Let the distress ink dry, and then proceed to remove the masking liquid. I just used my finger to rub it off, and in some areas where it was being a little more difficult, I used a clean eraser. I then colored in my character with copic markers, cropped the card so that I can give it some borders, and put it all together!

And there you have it… a flying penguin! Nothing is impossible. I hope this inspires you to stretch the use of your stamps and I hope to share more along the way.  Thank you for stopping by and hope you have a wonderful day!

Cheers,

Keeway