Shabby mixed media leaves frame DecoArt

This is the project made for my September contribution to the DecoArt media blog. Being as it went live at the end of September I decided to go autumnal with distressed leaves in a frame. I had made two practice pieces before starting to see if I wanted the stamped leaves to be brown or golden autumnal colours. I chose the shabby effect but of course if you give this a go you could try any colours and any stamps you like. I think it would look good with seaweed as an underwater scene.

1 Take the frame and give one side a coat of these coloured paints - raw umber, burnt sienna, burnt umber and raw sienna. Mix the colours on the substrate as you are painting. Blend the colours with each other as you go along to create a tonal blended look.
At the same time paint the back of the panel piece on just one side and blend the paints in the same way. (This will become the back of your finished frame)

2. Stamp some falling leaf shapes using clear embossing ink on the frame piece and heat with clear embossing powder.

(Photo shows the powder on the leaves before being heated)

3. When it's cooled off  paint over the frame with titan buff and titanium white also blending them together as you go. When the paint is nearly dry rub it away from the embossed leaves letting the autumnal brown shapes show through.

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I was going to do steps 4 and 5 at this point but decided to leave them till later and when later came I decided not to do them at all!!! I think I prefer the more neutral colours and the simpler effects o the frame.

4. Dip the paints in watery burnt umber and where the leaves are wet add some raw umber with a paint brush.

5. When it's dry repeat step three using just a small amount of pyrrole red mixed with raw umber.

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6. Take the back panel and on the raw side (which becomes the inside when the top frame is layered on) draw a pencil line inside the frame to show the size of the panel that will be exposed.

7. Over a slightly larger area paint on a layer of white gesso and whilst it is still wet randomly paint and blend in some white crackle paste. Leave it to dry naturally. (I hadn't tried mixing these two before so had no idea what would happen). What we got is some random crackle over the board which looks pretty cool blended into the gesso. I must make a mental not though to not overwork it as that has prevented some of the crackle paste from working.
 

8. Whilst the background is drying die-cut three leaves and stamp them using a slightly watered down mix of titanium white and titan buff using a largish leaf stamp. (See materials list)

9. Soak the leaves with water and scrunch them up and leave them to dry or heat dry them. Blend ground espresso distress ink round the edges.

10. Back to the background. Paint raw umber antiquing cream over the crackle areas, leave for a few minutes to dry and wipe away with a wet babywipe.

11. Take a tree mask and paint one side with raw umber and burnt sienna .....

12. .....  then flip it over onto the background, cover with a dry piece of kitchen roll and press it onto the background. You will need to do this several times to get an impression. After the last stamp of the stencil spritz it with water so that you get some distressed areas.

13. Dry the tree shape, draw round the tree stencil with a permanent brown pen and shade in some of the branches, finish with a small brush and paint in some raw umber.

14. If you place the frame over you will see how much you need to colour in.

15. Now I decided to fill the centre background with some of the faux encaustic layers I love - see my media board where it all started back in May HERE. I began with some asemic writing using a black sharpie pen, added some colour with chalk pastels going over the tree with white pastel to tone it down a bit and then sealed it with matte medium.

16. Once dry I dipped it into some watery titanium white media acrylic and dried it repeating a couple of times until I was happy with the effects. Then repeated with titan buff. Seal with matte medium.

17. Now to add some texture with modeling paste mixed with white gesso. When dry dribble some raw umber paint over the three areas, dry and some more white chalk.

18. Now adhere the frame and background together using decou-page and leave it under something heavy for a while for the glue to bond. When it has done so fill the centre with clear modeling paste and leave overnight to dry.

These are the two practice pieces I spoke about at the beginning of the post. I think the brighter piece would work just as well especially if you are someone who loves autumnal colours.

Thanks for taking a look at my project.

xxx

Stamp on it for AVJ

Happy New Year, I hope 2019 will be a happy, healthy and creative year for us all.

Friday saw the start of a new challenge over at A Vintage Journey and I'm mega late in getting my contribution into the line up but here I am better late than never. The lovely Deb is the host this month has outlined the focus for the challenge.

"For this challenge we would like to see some stamps on your creations, a minimum of one stamp but the more the merrier! Stamp your backgrounds, fussy cut or die cut some stamped images, add some stamped sentiments; whatever you'd like as long as it is in one of our preferred vintage, shabby, mixed media, art journaling, industrial or steampunk styles."

I have made a cover for a new journal I am starting focusing on natural elements and inspired by my wonderful team mate and friend Alison Bomber. The amazing winter journal pages she was doing before Christmas were gorgeous to see and you can find a couple of them here and here and more in between.

  
Process steps

1. Scrape a layer of gesso over the surface of your substrate and let it dry.

2. Apply crackle paste through a stencil.

3. Carefully lay (but not glue) collage and ephemera papers in one area which will become your focal point and lower layer. As you stack and overlap your pieces glue them together but leave the edges not glued so you can tuck bits under them later if you want to.
4. Continue to build your layers testing and trying out where pieces would fit best.
5. Stamp and cut some insects and other elements, colour and distress them.

6. Go back to the background when it is dry, take your chosen paint colours and start to add them and spritzes of water to get some of it to move around.

 

7. I used quinacridone gold and paynes grey plus a black and burnt sienna water soluble wax crayon to add tones around the edges.

8. Check your collage design looks good over the background, alter any pieces that need colour and distressing. I chose this gorgeous dragonfly for my focal image and cut and layered three of them to make it extra sturdy ......

.... and a chipboard frame to stand him on. I layered on some random patches of texture sand paste before daubing on paynes grey, quinacridone gold, raw umber and cobalt turquoise hue.

9. Go back to your lower collage layer of ephemera pieces and give it a coat of mate decoupage sealer. When dry use the quinacridone gold and paynes grey to age and 'rust' the edges.

10.  Adhere this layer to your background and start to add the other pieces.
Because this is the front cover piece I sealed everything with decoupage first to help it last longer.

11.  Finish of with some remnant rubs to add more interest and help balance the overall composition if needed.

I hope you can find a moment to see some fabulous inspiration from the Creative Guides and maybe show us what stamps you are using throughout January.

xxx

Supplies

DecoArt media fluid acrylics - quinacridone gold, paynes grey, raw umber, sap green and cobalt turquoise hue.

DecoArt mediums - media white gesso, media  white crackle paste, decou-page sealer,

Tim Holtz ephemera pieces, Entomology stamp set, Entomology framelits, layered dragonfly die and embossing folder, quote chips and remnant rubs

Journal, flower stencil, various stamped leftovers, water spritzer, black and burnt sienna water soluble wax crayons.

12 Cards for Christmas #12 - MERRY CHRISTMAS

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas day, may it be full of festive cheer, family fun and fabulous memory making.

Well I've made it - all 12 cards. It's been a marathon trying to get them all done since the beginning of December but woo hoo I have achieved it.

This is the last one using Tim's gorgeous Wise Men die.

I began by cutting watercolour paper to the size of the card and spending a little time adding layers of blue and yellow/orange/brown oxides and distress inks to get some initial colour onto the background. (I made 8 of these).

I rubbed distress glaze over the sandy layers and tore some paper to create a mask covering them. I stencilled the stars using a mixture of white modeling paste and white gesso then let them dry.

Next I dribbled, spritzed and dried cerulean blue through the night sky Any dribbles over the sandy area were quickly wiped away with no colour left behind. I repeated with prussian blue hue.

Then brayered with silver paint.

I gave the sanded areas a dirty wash of quinacridone gold which surprisingly got sucked into the paper very quickly so I gave it a coat of matte medium and when dry I painted over a dirty glaze of  quin gold, matte medium and paynes grey trying to put back some of the landscaping!

 
I distressed the edges with a distress tool and blended again this time with ground espresso and cut the wise men die using blue coredinations paper and sanded it before also blending the edges with the ground espresso.

I cut two of the stars in gold and just off-set them slightly and added a holiday talk sticker.

Sorry, some of the photos had to be taken without the light box as family were already here when I took them so they are rather dark and not such a good quality, but you get the feel and the look I'm sure.

To finish this is my conservatory Christmas tree this year.

Thank you all for your visits and comments, I really appreciate every one.

hugs Brenda xxx

12 Cards for Christmas #11

Yep, made it to #11 and it's Christmas Eve - have a lovely day with any last minute preparations, or perhaps you have completely finished and have begun some chill out time. Thank you everyone who has been popping in, I'll definitely be using these many of the series designs again - maybe not for Christmas cards but finding other dies, stamps and ephemera to play with.

I did warn you yesterday these were a bit of a cheat - that's because I found the pieces and cards in my box and alI had to do was assemble them. I must have had a production line with them a previous year - so apologies if you remember them from then.

You have to admit though that for last minute cards they work a treat.

Right just need to find something for tomorrow. Thanks for staying with me at this busy time of year and ......

xxx

12 Cards for Christmas #10

Well here's the tenth design for fairly quick and easy cards for Christmas.

The background is worn wallpaper altered with a wash of gesso and splatters of it too.

A tree line die-cut and a little house from the snowglobe dies and some bits left over on my table with ephemera ....

 .... and more Holiday Talk stickers to finish them off.

I can't believe I've made it to #10 .There's definitely 1 more design tomorrow. I'll own up now it is a bit of a cheat- but worked well for what I needed.

xxx

Christmas Angel - mixed media frame

I am posting this Christmas Angel project over on Andy's blog today. It's been quite a while in the conception and making but finished at last and I love it.

I have included a few bits from Andy's project packs and used my Tando frame plus lots of paints and mediums from the Fabulous DecoArt Media range.

Unfortunately my notes on the techniques and colours got lost so it's photos and memory only.

Starting with the frame I sealed the base with gesso then scraped what I think was prussian blue, cerulean blue and yellow ochre, dring it before painting on a coat of weathered wood crackle medium. When that was dry I painted over a coat of white chalky finish paint and watched the crackles appear. I had intended to dribble more paints or rub over some antiquing cream but with all the other textures I decided to leave it just as it was to ad some contrast in the background.

I love Andy's 'industrial wings' and decided to use one for the Angel's halo and head printing the face from the Graphics Fairy. I used media gold to paint and seal the halo. added a layer of clear crackle paste and when dry painted over some white antiquing cream and wiped it back to reveal the very, very fine crackles - perfect for the golden halo.

Next I worked on the four frame pieces sealing them with gesso, dabbling on a wash of prussian blue, stamping text from Andy's Textures stamps then using white modeling to create the gorgeous star design. When that was dry I brayered over with the gold paint.

 I used the arch from the 'sacred secrets' kit, sealed it with gesso and when dry scraped more gesso using a palette knife. I then dribbled and dried yellow ochre and quinacridone gold through it.

 Next came the wings which are sizzix die-cuts run through the foundry embossing folder then painted silver, rubbed in random places with raw umber media fluid acrylic and dribbled and daubed quinacridone gold through it to achieve the rusty look.

I collected together some Tando cogs, die cut the border and the burst medallion altering them with media paints and a gold metallic lustre.

 To finish the arched body I stamped some Andy texture using orange blossom archival ink and a stamp from his Industrial set.

Lastly the assembling ....

.... die-cutting the gold star and adding some words.

I was inspired by several artists who I had seen making angels over the past week weeks but using Andy's products makes it look completely different.

The preparations are almost finished in the Brown household and I am looking forward to a fabulous family Christmas. Enjoy your last few days before the big day.

HUGE hugs and ....

xxx