Nathalie Kalbach’s Elephant Blog Hop!

I love elephants.  They are the largest land animal.  They feel deeply.  They are compassionate,  loving, and form strong family bonds.  Even with their lumbering gait, there is something very graceful about them.

It's no surprise that I jumped on the chance to try out Nathalie Kalbach’s gorgeous Elephant Stencil from Stencil Girl Products.

I decided to make an art journal page using this stencil.












Recently, Louise Nelson used embossing and watercolor to create a beautiful layout using Nathalie's stand-up bass stencil.

http://louise-justloolabelle.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/nathalie-kalbach-stencil-blog-hop.html

I loved this technique, and decided to give it a try!





I started with an empty full page spread in my Global Arts watercolor journal.  (Imagine - an empty full page spread!)  This is my favorite journal to work in when I want to start with an empty white page.  I love the thick, watercolor paper. 









 I decided to turn the stencil around so that the elephant was walking from left to right.  Because I love the look of them walking in a line, I decided to start one elephant partly off of the left side of the spread, and have another elephant walking off the side of the right hand page. 

I taped Nat's lovely elephant down and stamped the openings with Versamark.   Normally, I don't bother taping down my stencils, but with this technique I wanted to be careful that the stencil didn't move around. 















I covered the pages with UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel), and melted the UTEE with my heat gun.

I scribbled around the outlines of the elephant and inside some of the openings with gelatos, Neocolor II watercolor crayons, and Derwent Inktense blocks. 

I used lots of water to saturate the pages and blend the colors.  When the colors were dry, I used a baby wipe to clean the color off of the embossed areas.  I love how this looks!  Thank you Louise Nelson!

I felt like my elephants needed a little grounding on their page.  At this point I had no idea what the page would be about -- I was just having fun playing.

I masked off part of one of the stencils from August Stencil Club.  Something about these shapes reminded me of elephant footprints!

I used a cosmetic sponge to stencil the "footprints."  But now, they looked like a path.  Suddenly I knew what this page was about!  I've been thinking so much about where I'm going with my art, and how to blend the mixed media work, licensing and stencil designing that I do.   I've been trying to be mindful about how I spread my artistic energy. 

This quote by Henry David Thoreau is one I've been saving for a while -- looking for just the right image with which to pair it.  I should pursue the paths that I can walk with love and reverence.  I hand lettered it on my page (I forgot the love part, but oh well...), and used one of the hands from my Hand Stencil for Stencil Girl to point the elephants on their path.   (The Hands Stencil will be test driven on 9/26 - so stay tuned!)

I added some journaling (which I blurred for this blog post), and I was done!

Thanks Nat for inviting me to be part of your hop!  Be sure to stop by and check out all the other wonderful creations created by some very talented people!  And every blog in the hop you comment on gives you another chance to win Nat’s Elephant Stencil.  That gives you 7 chances to win!  She’s randomly choosing a winner on September 18, at midnight EST.

 Carolyn Dube

Nathalie Kalbach

Maria McGuire

Jessica Sporn (that's me!)

Martha Valk

Linking also to Simon Says Stamp Challenge (Embossed), Paint Party Friday, and Art Journal Every Day. 

And... the winners of my ATC giveaway are:  Micki, Butterflycrafter, and Christine Kiehl!  Send your snail mail addresses to me at jessicabethsporn (at) gmail (dot) com and I will get your trades out to you!

Your comments make me so happy and let me know you were here. I read and treasure every comment and will happily answer any questions as soon as I can.