Winter Magic

Our lovely Deb has chosen this very apt theme for our December challenge over at AVJ.

For us in the northern hemisphere December brings the start of winter and for many that means freezing cold weather and Christmas. But winter is so much more than that and so we ask, how would you interpret the magic of winter? Snow, icicles, colours of blue, silver and white, the festivities of Christmas, misty winter landscapes; show us what your magical focus is for the season and in a vintage; shabby; mixed-media; art journaling; industrial, timeworn or steampunk style.

I have used one of the frame boards I designed for Tando Creative and used for my Ministry of Mixology project a couple of weeks ago. I had already made the cute house back in the summer when we were making beach huts for a Country View Crafts workshop and the initial idea was to utilise it as a shepherds hut out in the wilderness on a cold and frosty night which reminded me of Christmas carols and songs (Good King Wenceslas, past three o'clock and a cold and frosty morning, here we go round the mulberry bush and more), but as the project progressed you can see it changed and became Santa's Store shed.

I collected together chipboards and painted the trees and deer all white with gesso. The star I painted gold and the gate raw umber to start with.

For the background I used a technique I have used before which you can find here ....  and scraped titan buff, light grey, sap green and transparent yellow iron oxide, then brayered quinacridone magenta and titanium white and cadmium red with titanium white, splattered prussian blue, sap green, raw umber before brayering white gesso randomly which created a white misty/snowy landscape feel to it.

I stamped some trees using sap green and paynes grey to improve the effect of the landscape and provide more depth and perspective.

The fence was painted with raw umber and then white gesso and snowtex added to it.

The trees were give watery washes of different greens using sap green, paynes grey, yellow iron oxide and viridian with snowtex added to the edges and patted over with a palette knife.

I found a photo on Google of a deer and painted him using raw umber, transparent yellow iron oxide, burnt umber and titan buff and added some snowtex to him too.

The cones were given some snowtex texture .....

.... and I found a 'beach hut' from the summer workshop left over and decided to use it as a hut in the forest.

I used grey board to create the roof with layers of santex, media acrylic paints and gesso and I used a mini saw to cut off the stand at the bottom.

Now time to assemble and I had shared this tip the workshop groups at Ministry of Mixology as how to get an even spread with the four frame panels. Clip them on dry and when you are happy with the placement take each piece off individually, use decou-page to glue it and repeat with all four sides. Leave the clips on until the glue has adhered and dried.

So here are a few photos of the finished frame.
The deer waiting at the fence .......

.... star shining in the sky (this shape made me think about the shepherds out on the hilltops) .....

.... and Santa's Store hidden in the forest amongst all the trees.

I love winter when it's dry, cold and frosty  and coupled with Christmas, it's my favourite time of the year.

Have a great weekend and if you missed my mosaic Christmas easel card yesterday scroll down or you can find it here.

Thanks for stopping by and thank you to everyone who has been leaving me comments for the past couple of weeks. I haven't got to blogland much lately, Ministry of Mixology and Centre Parcs last weekend with the family have kept me busy but I promise to be better this coming week.

Have a great weekend.

hugs Brenda xxx