Monday, October 1, 2012

Variations on a Sketch--Part 1

Have you ever looked at a sketch and thought, "What would I do with THAT?"

I have.

Many sketches have so many implied layers that I take it as a challenge to minimize the layers, simplify the whole thing, while still sticking to the basic idea behind the sketch.

Sometimes, however, the sketch is pretty clean and simple, and inspires me to riff on it in a variety of ways. And that's the effect the following sketch from Papercrafts had on me. Stephanie Halinski is a genius!




I made five variations of this card, every single one a single layer. Two of them are dominated by straight lines, so today we'll take a straight and narrow interpretation.

First, a baby card in sweet pastels and a tiny sentiment. The ribbon stamps are from Papertrey's Faux Ribbon set, and the sentiment is from Sign Language. I had to trim the card because the stamps weren't quite long enough to span a standard 4.25"-wide card at an angle.




Second, I was inspired by Heather Telford's OLW challenge to do some sponging. After masking the diagonal area, I sponged VersaMagic inks (mango and pumpkin, I think) and stamped the leaves (Fall Elegance). Then, after pulling up the masks, I drew the dark brown lines and stamped the sentiment (First Fruits). It was a tad plain, so I added the bling to jazz it up.




When you have a great sketch to work with, you can do all sorts of fun things, get all sorts of different looks, with just a change of color scheme and technique. Tomorrow, we'll take a look a little different approach to the same sketch.

BTW, I have enabled comment moderation. I allowed the Anonymous comments again and within a minute was spammed. Grrr. So you can now comment anonymously.

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey
ink: VersaMagic
paper: PTI white
accessories: gridded acrylic block, rhinestones, dark brown marker, post-its for masks, sponge 

7 comments:

  1. Brilliant! I think the lines add a dramatic touch to these one layer cards.

    ReplyDelete
  2. What an unusual layout. I especially love your grateful card -- a perfect example of using the right amount of stuff without adding to it until it's "wrong." The brown lines really set off the gorgeous sponging, and the bling was the right touch to add some sparkle. The one-word sentiment is perfect. Gorgeous card, Susan.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love the idea of sketches but in reality they drive me mad! I'd rather look at a card someone has made from a sketch and 'make' that. Usually that way I end up with something good and unique because somewhere along the line I've had to put my own interpretation on it. I think it's because I don't want to cut up my papers and then find I don't like the card and all that paper's wasted. Much prefer a simple sketch like you've shown here.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Love your cards. Sketches get to the point of too much on a card. I ususally simplify too.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Love the angle of these lines - both cards look beautiful, marvelous inking on the second one :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Two great uses of the sketch. I'm CASE'g both. I'm grateful for your talent and simplicity, just in case you were wondering. ;-)

    ReplyDelete

Thank you so much for taking time to comment!