Mail Art duo - More Fun with Masking at PaperArtsy!

Hello and Welcome to Magpieheaven! I discovered to my great surprise that the PaperArtsy masking challenge is still up and running! If you haven't done so already, please do head over to the PaperArtsy blog and catch up with all the beautiful work there - and there's still 4 days left for you to be inspired and link up your own art! A few days ago I played with masking using a manilla tag and a punched stamp shape on some old plain white envelopes.

This carnival-themed envelope will soon be on its way to my oldest friend, Judith. Having started creating mail art using a mixture of painting with a brayer, stamping and stencilling, layering and adding my own art and collage, I couldn't stop: maybe it was a little hint of spring in the air! 

Still on the theme of carnivals, I tried putting down a few layers and then masking before adding yet more. This gave a slightly different effect to masking from the start and creating white areas.

On this envelope I used the wonderful long Sara Nauman handwriting stamp from ESN10. This stamp works really well when you stamp with paint, but always remember to clean your stamp thoroughly and immediately with this technique. I like to rub away layers with baby wipes and to create a dreamy, smudgy effect.

Just a hint of sunshine over the last few days inspired me to think ahead to long summer days and the romance between Bottom the Weaver and Titania, Queen of the Fairies in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Puck, the mischievous sprite uses the juice from a tiny flower called 'Love in Idleness' to place the self-important Bottom and the proud Titania under a love spell. On my envelope Bottom, bedecked with flowers, wears his ass's head and Titania's fairy crown has been replaced with a clown's hat - all will end happily, with the correct couples together again and harmony restored!

I returned to masking off areas of white space on this envelope, which includes a couple of little owls performing a card trick! Somehow - wise as she is - the little clown owl on the left has managed to transform her assistant into the Queen of Hearts!This challenge has spurred me on to try using some of the masking products out there, but for now it's been fun using these simple techniques and seeing what effects I can achieve with them. It's been a great opportunity to play with different combinations of Fresco paint colours too and to re-visit creating backgrounds using lids dipped into little pools of paint. I love the effect of this kind of mark-making around the mask.

I have a little 'stash' of hand-drawn images scanned into my computer, which I re-size digitally and then re-colour with water-colour pencils. The hearts are drawn onto book text, cut out and then coloured with water-colour pencils.
Thank You so much for stopping by Magpieheaven and looking at my mail art. I do hope you've joined in with the PaperArtsy challenge, or that you will have time to do so in the next few days and that your week will be happy and creative!