Geisha

Good afternoon to you all.

Here is a card for two challenges:
Spotlight challenge - Masking
Sketch and Stash Challenge #65

The design of the card is to match the sketch in Challenge #65. The stash was the Mizuhiki cord which I used to make the embellishment and also the Impressability used for part of the masking exercise.

The squares and triangles were made by putting the blue card through a Cuttlebug with the Impressability. It was carefully removed from the machine and with the Impressability still in place and this was used as the mask to add the green to the raise parts of the pattern. This was cut up and mounted onto silver mirror card and put to one side.

The main Geisha image is a stamp from Clarity stamps. A lot of masking and brayering went into producing this picture on glossy A6 white card. The right hand geisha was stamped with black Stazon ink. Two more images were stamped out on copy paper. The geishas on the copy paper were cut out very, very carefully as both the geishas and the intact surround were required for this exercise. I also cut out the moon by drawing round a 2p piece on a Post-it note.

OK, the masking challenge asked for a description of how the masking was done, so here we go:

The first geisha was completely covered with a cut out and the second one stamped in place.

When dry, the first geisha had the mask removed and was surrounded by the cut out sheet. I also masked her head so that this did not get coloured. The colour was added to her dress using a brayer and a Waterfall Big 'n' Juicy ink pad basing the brayer at the blue end of the pad. Still with the mask in place the fern (another Clarity Stamp) was added in green ink from the other end of the Big 'n' Juicy pad. When dry, the geisha mask was place over the first geisha again and a surround and head was used to mask the 2nd lady. This time her costume was brayered with ink from the green end of the pad and the ferns were stamped in blue.

When all this ink was dry, both geishas were fully covered and the moon mask was added in position.

Another piece of copy paper was torn to give the shape for the hills. Starting from the bottom of the picture, the hills were brayered in place high enough to ensure that the geishas had something to stand on. Then it was moved up and lighter coloured hills were added, again with a brayer. A third layer, lighter still were brayered in place so that the hills were receding into the distance. The hills were all done in Adirondack Bottle ink.
The sky was brayered into place using blue Adirondack ink.

All the masks were removed and the birds and flowers (more Clarity stamps) added to complete the picture.

All I can say at the end of that is "Thank you, Barbara Gray, for the inspiration"