Challenge NR1! Octopus and Friendship!

Hey Anny!

Sooo our first challenge! You came up with the idea to pick a quote and some colours to make something. Now that day I was getting ready for work and I didn’t feel like reading quotes, so I asked you to look one up! You came with: Friends come and go, like the waves of the ocean, but the true ones stay like an octopus on your face. And right after that: "Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one."  by C.S. Lewis. Oh and another one you came up with was: "Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend." Of course you had to add another version with a slightly different ending: “ But then says "don't walk near me at all. Get the hell away from me you creep" or  something like that.” 

So I decided to go with the first one, cause that made me laugh as soon as I read it! “Friends come and go, like the waves of the ocean, but the true ones stay like an octopus on your face.” (Which is basically you, you still owe me a phone.) Reading that quote I decided for the colours: Red, blue, green, black and purple!

So as soon as we decided it, I thought of a face with an octopus on it. The octopus stamp is the one from Kaiserkraft you sent! For the background I have decided on my fav things to use: Ecoline liquid watercolours. I grabbed a few things so I could just pick from them! Ended up using some of the things I picked, but also went back to grab things later.

I have used the next materials:
Jane Davenport Face stamps
Kaiserkraft Octopus stamp
Craft Sensations stamps (the fish ones)
VersaMark ink (embossing ink)
VersaColor 25 Cardinal ink
StazOn Jet Black ink
Ranger Embossing Powder Clear
WOW! Embossing powder: Primary Burgundy Red Regular
Ecoline liquid watercolours: nr: 318, 545, 506, ,601, 602, 801
Ecoline Brushpens: nr 374, 258, 334, 441, 700, 718, 738,
Rich Stencil nr 113
Tim Holtz Distress Ink Mermaid Lagoon
Blending Tool
Double sided foam tape
Faber-Castell Pitt artist pen (black 199)
Faber Castell Multimark 1525 permanent pen
Hybrid Pentel White pen

The first things I grabbed to possibly use...

Now the photos are not the best, since I started working on it around 9 pm on Sunday in a small room with bad light. And taking the photos took time of me finish it at one go! Usually I just take photos in between randomly to send to you or post on Instagram, nothing will be posed too much. I tried to pose them, but could not be bothered too much since the light was terrible!

Anyhow! I started with the face! I stamped the Jane Davenport face contour with the VersaMark ink and used clear ranger embossing powder. I added the cute little octopus on the right side of her face as a hat! I stamped that with the VersaColor Cardinal ink and embossed it with WOW! Burgundy embossing powder. 

I added just one closed eye, nose and mouth with StazOn ink. The other eye is covered by the cute octopus! (This turned out cute, but I can imagine a slightly different and weirder version of it. I wish I could print out the image I had in my mind!)

 

Stamped and embossed face! 

After the stamping I decided to colour in the face. I used the Ecoline brushpens (374 pink beige and 258 Apricot) for this! Oh! Before I forget, the paper I used is the watercolour paper from Action. It has a gorgeous structure, but getting it wet messes up the paper and the structure gets lost. Plus too much water makes it peel… Anyway, the brushpens did not like the paper much, plus I added water to make it mix a bit… Was not working well… I managed something and decided to do the octopus in reds (334 Scarlett and 441 Mahagony) I was planning on blue hair, but decided black, since the background would have blue in it. Oh and I forgot my pencils upstairs and though it would be a good idea to do the hair with erasable pen. (Guess what happens when you use a heating tool on it? It goes away, which means that heating tool will not come near my journal pages! All the writings will go away!) I made her hair black, blue was going to be the background! (Used 700 black, 718 warm grey and 738 cold grey). 

Coloured in version!

I cut around the the face and hair, put it away and started on my background. Now for that I started with the watercolours and used all of the colours we decided on, except the black. I tend to add too much black and the colours will disappear, I did not want that to happen. Anyhow, I started with the green and blue, later on I added the red and purple in the corners. Since I am obsessed with the gold watercolours I used it to add a little shine to the background. I also decided to add it to her face and hair... lastly I took the stencil with the waves/ wifi signs and used the Distress Ink Mermaid Lagoon colour to stencil through some parts of it with a blending tool.

545 Red Violet
318 Carmine

601 Light Green

506 Ultramarine Deep

602 Dark Green

801 Gold! Love using this for anything!

Let the stenceling begin! 

I decided the girl would be in the right corner, but I thought it looked so out of place that I added some of Mermaid Lagoon ink around it with the blending tool, then decided the spot around her could use some ink too. The blue colour around the girl was bit too much, so I put droplets on the ink to pick it up.  (Really love how the distress inks work!). I wish magic existed and the water would just stay like that on it.

Blending it to the background!

The spot she will be in!

double sided foam tape to stick her down!

She's in her spot, but it looked a bit too dark...

Drops of water... (I am sure there is a tool to get

this effect and leave it like this...) 

But I picked it up and the red/purple background

was there again!

I took a break after this, slept, woke up and went to work. Back from work I looked at the page and decided to add fish to it! Cause it already had an octopus and the waves/wifi made it look like the sea! So I remembered the fish stamps from Craft Sensations that I loooove! Used them with the StazOn ink and taaaadaaaa, added my black and my background images!

Ooops forgot to take a photo of the stamps...

Only used the fishes! 

Surrouded by fish, but with an octopus on 

your head... How lovely! 

I was planning on writing the quote and cutting out the words… But I ended up writing it down! With the Faber Castell Multimark 1525 permanent pen. I adore using this pen! It is actually my 3^rd or 4^th pen of the past year… I tend to use it a lot! The PITT artist pen I used to make the doodles around the border! 

Use the M for the Quote and P for the

 doodling around the border! 

Long story short, this is the end result. I completely understand why people make YouTube videos instead of taking photos and writing about it. You film it and people see it! (Although editing them will probably take a longer amount...) 

End Result....

Of course I later looked at it and decided to add some white to the writing… Used the Hybrid Pentel White pen to do that!

A little white line made it look slightly better? 

I hope you enjoyed it and did not get bored reading it! Anyhow! I have enjoyed this very much! I got annoyed at stopping and taking photos to make sure to see the change. Usually I sit down and work for a few hours till I finish a page... Usually I add things while I am busy, this time I had to think of things ahead... Which messed up my normal process...

Things I LOVE was that I used some things I haven't used in a while! The Distress inks, the embossing powder... (Although I used this on my page before this...). 

Thank you for doing this with me and finding the perfect Quote to work with! Till the next Challenge! 

XxX STO!