Monday 1 October 2012

Haunted Design House 'Cryptids'

Welcome everybody, new and old. Thankyou for stopping by.first of two posts today.
This week over at Haunted Design House our challenge is 'Creepy Criptids' If your not sure what a Cryptid is it's basicly a creature that is thought/believed by some or many to exist even though their is no scientific proof.
Nessie, Big Foot, Chupacabre  etc, etc.
 We are also sponsoured this week by Cryptocurium

They make the most amazing looking sweets etc. go check them out, it needs to be seen to be believed.

As you can see I stuck with the same theme as last week and did a Mermaid.
 I decided to do another fat page in my little book of dark arts.I started by using Dylusion sprays for the back ground, lime green, blue and turquoise.When that was dry I used a mask and some blue distress inks just to add some interest, I over stamped the whole thing with a cover a card stamp using light blue archival ink  to give it the look of some texture. The sentiment is from Dyan Reaveley and I though it was quite fitting for this challenge. The whole page was then covered with a thinish layer of UTEE, this really helps bring colours out and to make them pop, it also added to the under water feel giving a translucent layer and with it being on the thin side it has little pok marks and dimples that catch the light. To me it almost looks wet.
The image is from Stampotique and was sent to my by my blog friend Suzanne/Grainne who recently did an Atc swap with me (more in the week on that) it was just a happy coincidence that it was perfect for this challenge, so Thank you very much Suzanne. x
I coloured her up with my copic's. Keeping it very simple I did her skin a very light shade of blue, it almost looks white, I did her lower body in red to match the little squid and give me a contrasting colour as there was a lot of blue/green going on.To finish her and the squid off I coated them with Glossy Accents I left her skin clear of it so there was still some matt elements to the page.
There are also a couple of clumps of seaweed along the bottom, these were made with some hairy/frilly pipe cleaner ribbon stuff from the Craft Barn, they were also coloured with the Dylusion sprays.
It was finished of with a frame cut from an old cardboard box, this was also coloured using the Dylusion sprays but being on a brown box it looked a little heavy and dark so I used the picket fence distress ink over the raised part to lighten things up.
The challenge runs for a week and it would be great to see as many of you over there as poss, there are the other DT projects that are well worth stopping by for and to help you get into the mood.
We now have a list of the up and coming challenges for the next few weeks so you can get ahead of the game.

Again, thank you for stopping by.
I would like to enter this into a few challenges.
Anything But A Card are having a 'Shiny/Sparkly/Blingy' challenge
And now I finally have some stampotique images I can enter their challenge over at Stampotique Designers Challenge their challenge is 'Squares'



17 comments:

  1. Lovely colours and thank you for entering the stampotique challenge this week, and just so you know for the future challenges, you no longer need to use just Stampotique images to enter.x

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  2. Brill work Mark. Your backgrounds is amazing, brill sentiment and colouring. All in all an extremely tops project. :P

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  3. Amazing work Mark, the colours and bacground are fabulous.
    xxx Hazel.

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  4. Awesome Mark - that book is going to be fabbaroonie! xx

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  5. Hi Mark,
    that's absolutely stunning!! Just perfect ... love it, love it!!! Everything, the green, the texture, the seaweed, the glossy ... and of course the colors! Always knew Disney served us a big fat lie about mermaids ... this looks much more like the real thing :-D
    I'm so excited to see the book of dark arts in all its final glory one day.
    Hugs, Suzanne xx

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  6. Fabulous! Love the pops of red - and the glossiest octopus in the ocean! Wonderful background given a real lift by the UTEE effect - gorgeous!
    Alison x

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  7. Hi Mark, how fabulous is this! The mermaid and octopus are brilliant (really love that red). I have a bit of a fetish for cardboard so I love the background, it really sets off the colour of the ocean and all that dimpling makes the water look real. A really lovely page from your book. Anne x

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  8. Great card in fab colours. Thanks for joining us at Stampotique.

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  9. Hi Mark,
    Was just looking at the stampotique challenge blog, your card is fantastic! :)

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  10. Lovin this mark especially the octopode image.........Oh how I love the octopode stamps. Great idea you had with the utee on the BG Ingenious.

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  11. I love your squid most of all on this as it contrasts so well with the ocean and really makes the whole design pop (especially with the glossy accents). Hugs, Buttons x

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  12. Brilliant take on our Squares Challenge. Thanks for joining us over at Stampotique.

    Claire x

    PS you no longer need to use Stampotique stamps to enter our challenges.

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  13. Wow Mark, I love this!! The background is amazing with all the layers you've created and the final touch of adding utee has worked brilliantly. I'm in love with Stampotique and still don't own any :(
    Thanks so much for sharing with us again at ABAC - make sure you join us again please!!
    Juliaxx
    Craft Barn on Sunday?

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  14. Mark...this piece is really cool. I love all of your layers of colors. So beautifully blended and textural. Love all of the Cryptids. I'd never heard of them... Yours are very cool. Love their colorful existence on your piece. :) The sentiment is also prefect! Thanks for the very nice comment you left on my blog about my vintage Halloween spool. So glad that you liked it! I love Halloween over here so I can stock up on my skeletons, skulls, bats, etc. to use throughout the year of stuff. haha <3 Candy

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  15. ...this is a superb creepy piece Mark, very textured, these images are a delight and I still have not gotten around to buying any myself yet, but the collection looks such fun...the dylusions are so vivid and perfect for this piece, loVe your imagination, great work...Melxx :)

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  16. cool project! Love how you did the background - looks really like under the sea!
    Thanks for joining us at Anything But A Card!

    Hugs, Alica ;)

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  17. Amazing colors and loooove the texture! :) Thanks for joining us at Anything but a Card! :) :)

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