On Safari

Hi there, and thanks for dropping by.  I have a couple of male birthdays this month and I used this NBUS Deep Red elephant stamp which I have been admiring and decided to take the plunge and buy recently.  It is beautifully detailed and ready cling mounted, and as the name implies is made from very deep red rubber.

I decided to give the elephant a scenic background so I did my usual trick of starting the thing off on the Gelli Plate by mapping out the colours roughly with ink straight from the pad i.e. blue sky - Adirondack Stonewashed and Shaded Lilac near the horizon and keeping the ink quite smooth, then for the ground random bits of Distress Inks in Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade and Bundled Sage, and at the bottom in the middle for the sort of track I laid just the Spiced Marmalade and some Adirondack Espresso, and rubbed it a little with my finger to spread it around.  I then spritzed with a little water and using a piece of white card pulled the print.  To finish the scene I used a paint brush and some more of the ink used like paint and made some long grass at the front and added more bits of ink where I thought it needed it.  I painted two trees in the distance and some hills on the horizon, and I also added a little darker colour to the sky using some well watered down Faded Jeans Distress Ink at the top.

When I had decided the scene was set I used a snippet of white card and stamped the elephant using Memento London Fog ink and then using my Spectrum Noir Pencils I added some grey in various shades and then some orangy brown because elephants like to coat themselves in a layer of mud to protect their skin.  Unfortunately it doesn't really show very well in the picture.  In this instance I think the elephant would have been better painted with the inks rather than the pencils but I don't have enough of the right colour inks to do it.  I then cut it out and attached it to the background and fixed a sentiment.

I do enjoy setting the scene and hopefully you think it works ok.

Thank you for stopping to take a look.

Pat  x

I am entering the following challenge:

Penny Black and More Challenge - Anything Goes.
Sweet Stampin' Challenge - Birthdays.
Addicted to Stamps and More - Make Your Mark. 
Allsorts Challenge Blog - No Design Papers Allowed.