Welcome! I’m Carolyn Dube – This colorful journey is all about the freedom of play!
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The Fine Print
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At long last I have photos of my recent workshops at Creative Communion and Art Is You. I am feeling pretty spoiled because of the people I have been able to spend these days playing with! So many amazing women…and a few men too!
If you’re in the Cincinnati area you can join me in person on Nov. 12th for 2 in-person workshops which are the last of the year. Our host is Joan Benoit of Simply Said Stamps for Stamping with PanPastels and The Gesso’d Art Journal. You can find all the details and registration here.
Extreme Gel Printing, hosted by Glenda Miles in the world’s largest class space! And this is just one of the rooms so we had plenty of space to spread out and play play play! What a blast we had-such a enthusiastic and playful group of printers!
Letting Yourself Play at Art is You was loaded with techniques and specific ways to deal with creative paralysis. These fun courageous souls willing left their comfort zones. Such an exciting day as obstacles were turned into opportunities!
There were so many exciting moments in Unlocking the Magic of Gel Plate as prints were pulled off the Gel Press plates! This group of ladies were a riot to spend the day with as dove in and created print after print!
Cause You’ve Got Purse-onality took some plain purses and turned them into wearable art! Thrift store purses had the rainbow added to them. I couldn’t have dreamt of a nicer group of ladies to do this with- thank you for spending your Sunday playing!
Building an art journal page with PanPastels is instant gratification. No pesky waiting for the color dry. But how do I seal PanPastels so they don’t smear and can pass a white glove test? One way is with a gel printing plate!
In the video, you’ll see how I built this steampunk page by combining pieces and parts of several stencils from StencilGirl and then how to quickly seal them!
I had the rainbow of PanPastels out for me to play with but only orange and magenta called to me today. Never fear the rest of the rainbow…I’ll use you next time!
The steampunk vibe of the Gears and Machinations stencils called for words. Not just any words but words to fit the colorful factory found on the page.
Adding text to my art journal pages lets me customize each and every page. Having a stencil loaded with a variety of words to choose from means I can find just the right words for each page.
I used the 3×5 size of Gel Press Plate but you can use any size you have. This just happened to be the one closest to me at the moment. Why PPA matte by US ArtQuest? Because of how wonderfully matte it is and it is artist grade so it won’t yellow over time.
Are you new to gel printing? You can see another way these mono printing plates can be used in this playful blog post.
Here are the supplies I used. Some of these links are affiliate links which means I get a small percentage. It doesn’t cost you anything extra and you are helping me keep this blog and my videos ad free! Thank you- I don’t like ads any more than you do!
I was completely in my head when I tried to play. Any idea I had was shot down instantly. That first step of getting started felt paralyzing. My muse had left the building. Play was not going to be happening with this mindset. But this has happened many times to me and in the video, I am sharing how to get the muse to come back.
How fitting that I was paralyzed by all my expectations when I needed to make a video about no expectations for this week’s Let’s Play video. I am sure the muse enjoyed a good laugh over that one!
New to Let’s Play? It’s all about rediscovering the ability to play. Each month I share a specific strategy that helped me recapture the freedom and fun of play. This month’s theme is no expectations. You can see more of the Let’s Play series here. Be sure to get entered in the $50 Dick Blick giveaway by leaving a comment.
So how do I get out of my head and start playing? By grabbing whatever is around me and starting to use it…even if I have no idea where it is going. This was a very unimpressive start. Just gel pen scribbling on a piece of scrap wood from a home repair project.
Then I stamped some letters. I couldn’t even decide on which word to stamp, so I just did random letters until a word came to mind.
In the video, you’ll see how to get every last drop of color out of a tube of paint…and it involves scissors.
O.O.P.S. after O.O.P.S. happened using the black fineliner. Some would call them mistakes but really they are Outstanding Opportunities Presenting Suddenly.
For all the feelings of EEEK involved in starting and playing when feeling paralyzed, the word BE was the one the muse told me to stencil. After all, she came back so I listened to her.
Now you’ve seen my play, let’s see yours! Share what you’re creating with us all in the Facebook group and be inspired by what others are creating! And be sure to leave a comment here to get entered in the monthly $50 gift certificate giveaway!
Here are the supplies I used. Some of these links are affiliate links which means I get a small percentage. It doesn’t cost you anything extra and you are helping me keep this blog and my videos ad free! Thank you- I don’t like ads any more than you do!
Sharing your play: I, and a whole bunch of others, would love to see what you’re creating! We’re sharing it in the Facebook group called A Colorful Place to Play. Why Facebook? I’ve listened to your feedback about how and where you’d like to share your play instead of the link parties.
Monthly giveaways: Leave comment on any (and all for more chances) of the weekly Let’s Play blog posts to be entered and one winner each month will be chosen by random.org. Want more chances to win a $50 gift certificate to DickBlick.com? Pin any of the images from the page or share about it on Facebook- then come back and leave a comment telling me what you did and you can have more chances to win! Giveaway closes the Sunday, October 30th at 11 pm EST and the winner will announced on the blog the following Monday.
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