Find Your Path – Create What You Need – Mixed Media Art

Happy Saturday everyone!

Saturday is my favourite day of the week because it is totally free and I can do whatever I want, and whatever I want is usually something crafty!  (It’s also an excuse to celebrate Caturday with the kitties of course!) So anyway, it’s Saturday afternoon, it’s pouring down outside and I am still in my PJs, but look what I made!  I am also writing this on the fly, so depending on when you read it, I might still be writing it! (But only if it’s Saturday!)

Origin of the Idea and Process Day 1

Ok so this piece was totally inspired by the colours in one of the challenges I entered because I love this shade of green and the idea of pink with it.  So I had the colours down but I had no idea what I was going to make lol. However, when you are trapped in a room chock full of craft supplies, there is no end of inspiration at hand – including things destined for the bin!  I’ve been holding on to this plastic cheese container as I had an idea for the bottom part but today I felt like the lid had a lot of potential – I really like those raised bits that stick out like rays and made it look a bit art deco to me, so I decided to gesso up the lid and start there.

After a bit of light sanding, and two coats of gesso, I painted it purple using Amethyst Metallique paint.

That was good but I wanted more, so I painted it with Crackle Paint, which then meant that I had to leave it to dry overnight and wasn’t able to finish last night like I planned. But I did get a lot of work done on the other parts, so keep reading!

Here’s what the crackle looked like after one coat, but I decided on a second coat as I wanted more crackle.

Tissue paper was also in the supplies list so I decided to use this piece I had leftover from this Valentine’s card project because of the enormous butterfly, and stick it down on some kraft card to give it some stability.

So I have a plastic lid and a butterfly, not much to go on haha, but I found this great paper that has a gold honeycomb pattern on it and so with that and the butterfly, I started to think more of a nature/insect theme.  Can’t leave it as is though, so I added some stencilling using some modelling paste and this Passiflora stencil from Finnabair.

Once the modelling paste was dry (helped along by my hairdryer!) I started painting it with greens and pinks.

I also decided to use one of these awesome journaling blocks by GSL Cuts.  I had been saving it for something else but I decided it would be perfect on this piece.

Love this Golden Moss colour, it’s so amazing and looks great on the chipboard piece.

After all of that was dry, it was time to add some splashes and splatters using black liquid acrylic, white gouache and unicorn hair sparks.  Here come the drippy close-ups!  The pink at the top…

The green at the bottom…

And here’s another view from the top showing the gold edges…

I remembered that I had this dragonfly Bigz die by Tim Holtz and that it would look good with my butterfly and the overall theme and colours, so I die cut it and embossed it.

Originally I planned to just use the green metallic cardstock but then I had a better idea and I painted the whole thing with alcohol inks – look at those wings!

So that’s all I could do last night, and I had to wait until this morning before I could move ahead.

Process Day 2

Last night, I fell asleep thinking about stamping weeds all over the background with black ink lol.  This morning I woke up still thinking about the same stamps but I knew it had to be something else I stamped with other than black. So I stamped the weeds with the same Metallique paint I painted the chipboard piece with and it looked so cool!

Here’s a close up of the stamping in the top right corner.

I got so carried away with all the stamping I even managed to stamp my glass mat lol but doesn’t it look cute with little weeds stamped on it?  I will probably scrap it off but maybe I’ll keep it there a bit longer.

Just look at this glorious olive-y green colour!  Isn’t it wonderful?  I guess it depends on what colours you are drawn to, as to whether you will agree with me – I know for sure my mother will hate it haha as she does not share my love of these type of colours.

Here’s another close up, this time of the chippie which now has gold icing paste on it to highlight all that fine detail!

And here is the dragonfly…

And a close up showing the crackle on his wings…

So there is good news and bad news – the good news is:  the second layer of crackle paint worked, and the bad news is:  the second layer of crackle paint worked lol.  It worked so well that it lifted the paint off and now the grey of the lid was peeking through lol. That would actually have been ok, except that grey was not in my colour choices for this piece.

Never mind, it can all be fixed…

… by adding more paint and actually I really love how this turned out.  It matches the gold icing paste around the edges too so I think it brings it all together and it makes it look even more decayed.

So here’s where we are so far, all the components are there and ready to be assembled. (There’s no photo, but I also painted the butterfly and fussy cut it last night.)  I still felt that something was missing though – oh that’s right, some words!  Words are so important aren’t they?  And they were actually the last thing I added to this piece because I didn’t know which words to use until it was complete, and then it all made sense – FIND YOUR PATH, CREATE WHAT YOU NEED – it’s very important, don’t you think, to create what you need and not what other people may need.

I used these stickers by Finnabair and mounted them on some card, then edged them with some Ground Espresso archival ink and attached them to the piece with some black foam tape.

And my dragonfly-butterfly hybrid creature needed some antennae so I made some for him out of some gold wire and glued them in place.

And now we really were done and finished!  Wow that took no time at all right? I wonder what a dragonfly-butterfly hybrid would be called?  Both end with “fly” so that’s not helpful.  DragonButter? ButterDragon?

C’est la fin!

Initally I thought I would paint this full 12 x 12 paper and then cut it down and save the leftover bits for another project, but then I ended up using it at 12 x 12!

I found some old frames in a drawer and this one is 12 x 10 and it does look pretty good – both portrait and landscape but I would really hate to have to cut bits off so I might look around for a 12 x 12 frame.

I really didn’t think I would like it in landscape format but it does look nice this way too – except that it chops off the words below the chipboard piece!

I like it better this way around, maybe I don’t need a bigger frame after all?

CHALLENGES

I am entering this card in the following challenges:

Country View Challenges – Splatters, Splashes and Drips – Contains splatters, splashes and drips all over the background 🙂
Bleeding Art – February Challenge
The Artistic Stamper February Creative Challenge: Words – words are so important aren’t they?  Especially on this piece as it was the last thing I added to it
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge – Crack It Up – Crackle paint all over the plastic lid that was painted purple then crackled and edged with gold and on the dragonfly though that is more subtle but can be seen in the close up
Craft Stamper Magazine – Take It Make It February AG – Stamping all over the background using Rubber Dance Weed rubber stamps and metallic paint
Mix it Up Challenge Blog – AG + stencilling – I’m using the optional stencilling twist – stencilling on background with modelling paste
Thompson Craft Supplies – Tic Tac Toe Challenge Jan/Feb – I used the top line – (found elements: plastic lid. Uplifting focus – the colours, the title, the wings. Three or more different papers – scrapbook paper, metallic cardstock, tissue paper)

Finnabair Art Recipe January

Products to choose from:
Art Extravagance: Icing Paste – used
Art Alchemy: Metallique Paints – used
Art Ingredients: Melange – Art Pebbles
Tissue Paper – used
The colours: green-olive, romance pink, vintage gold – used all three colours

PROJECT RECIPE:

Craft Consortium  – Tell the Bees 12 inch paper (metallic honeycomb)
Finnabair – Passiflora Stencil, black gesso, clear gesso, modelling paste, white gold icing paste, liquid acrylics (ink black, magenta, avocado green),  metalliques (romance pink, golden moss, dragonfly, amethyst) unicorn hair sparks, Art Daily Sentiment Stickers
Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts – Botanical Journaling Blocks D23A
Rubber Dance – Weeds stamp set
Tim Holtz Distress – Collage Medium, Crackle Paint, Ground Espresso archival ink
Winsor and Newton – white gouache
Nuvo Deluxe adhesive
From stash: gold jewellery wire and pliers, hot glue gun and glue, white card scraps, double sided foam tape, plastic lid, previously die cut filigree frame (gold cardstock)