Teacher Feature - Sue Bridston

Hello girls!

We've decided to do a feature each month on our teachers here at Memories of Time.  This month, we are featuring Sue Bridston... meet Sue!  Don't miss her upcoming Heavenly Holiday Workshop on the 17th of November!  *wink*

 

I started Rubber Art Stamping about 20 years ago, and fell in love with the idea of being able to create beautiful cards without the labor intensive process of having to do the drawing myself. At first it was all about making multiples of the same card; but I soon realized there was a whole world of surfaces that I could put the stamped images onto if I could just figure out how to do it. Hence my journey into "altered art surfaces" began, and little did I know that there were people out there who appreciated what I was experimenting on/with and wanted to know how to do what I was doing in my artwork.

That's how I became a "teacher", and my passion is being able to show others what I have learned and tried. There is nothing more satisfactory than having someone be so excited that they were able to create a thing of beauty when they thought that they weren't creative enough! All it takes is for you to want, to be open to the how, and to know that you just have to "do it" and see if it works when learning to be creative. There are no mistakes, just opportunities to learn what works and what doesn't.

I love color, textures and the magic that happens when you add rubber stamp images to that mixture. My favorite texture products are from Golden, they have made artist quality paints and gels for a very long time. Some of my have-to-haves are Gesso; for so much more than just a primer! Matte Medium for an exceptional adhesive, top coat and my all time fave for resists. Molding Paste for stamping into while wet or scraping thru a stencil. Regular Gel in a Matte finish for "clear" textures and an awesome adhesive for heavier objects. A new product that I have been impressed with is Light Molding Paste, it's like stucco in appearance, but all similarities end there.

Coloring products- don't even get me started!! I have Golden acrylics, Pearl Ex dry pigments and every watercolor palette they make. Dare I say that I probably have 75 (who really counts?) Twinkling H2O's, every color of Tim Holtz's Color Washes, the entire set of Lyra Watercolor Crayons, Alcohol inks, all the colors of Walnut inks ever made, and the newest, yummy coloring tools, the Gelatos just to name a few. There are so many ink pads that can be used for 'watercolor' looks if used on my all time must have item; a Teflon Craft sheet (yeah, I have more that one!).

You are only limited by your imagination, and your willingness to see what happens when you use products in a way not intended for what they were developed. I have been sorely disappointed at times, but more often than not I have been wonderfully surprised and in either case, it was a worthy learning experience.

I hope you will consider taking a class with me, and I welcome the opportunity to share with you all that I have learned in my journey into the world of "altered art surfaces".

Live Creatively,
Sue Bridston