Silhouette Framed

 Every Adventure is Worthwhile 

I enjoyed making my last CVC August frame project and thought I'd try another one to go to 'Men In Sheds' for their fundraising fayre. If you've not heard of Men's sheds before, it's an association where men can meet for connection, conversation and creation and also to make, repair and repurpose mostly wooden items, supporting projects in their local communities. It also helps to improve wellbeing, reduce loneliness and combat social isolation. Since retiring this has given hubby a great place to hang out and develop his love of woodworking.

I used another piece of the woodblocks hubby had cut me, prepped it and layered with the Frenchic chalk paint. The last bar one layer I added the most minute amount of the scottish salmon paint and mixed it in the the fresco paint. When it was dry I rubbed over some vaseline, randomly, and painted the last white layer. I left it to dry but not mature. I warmed it slightly with my heat gun and then rubbed over the surface with some kitchen paper so it revealed some pink areas underneath, then I lightly sanded to smooth the revealed areas and the sandpaper also exposed some more of the underneath layer.

I used a Tim stamp to produce a fabulous pattern, stamped the words to add and punched a black bird to add as my silhouette. 

To finish I used some paper from Tim's correspondence pad for the background in the frame, found a stamped star in my bits box and die-cut a border using tim's provincial embosslit using white card then rubbed a black soot distress ink pad lightly over it, spritzed with water, dried then brayered white chalk paint over the protrusions.

I kept this one quite clean and simple and finished off with some tissue/washi tapes giving me extra words.

Supplies

TH stamp - Classics #3, Nature's Wonder CMS343

Frenchic Chalk Wall Paint

PaperArtsy - Fresco Finish Paint - Scottish Salmon

TH Punch (very old) Bird

TH Paper pad - Correspondence

Skype Collaboration - Wooden houses

It's been so wonderful to have skype sessions with my two lovely friends Nikki (Addicted to Art) and Alison (Words and Pictures) during lockdown and really it's been the only time I have sat and created anything. I've spent so much time in the garden and, since we have been allowed out more, Ken and I have spent at least two days a week visiting National Trust places and beautiful gardens, so between that and walking on our local Ranges to try and keep fit (a bit!!) there really hasn't been much time left. 

When wondering what we could do for this session I showed the girls some little houses Ken had cut me from wood and we agreed we'd each have a set of three and couldn't wait to see the outcomes.

As I worked on the painty layers and decided to add some small windows and doors I began to get the feel that these belonged in a farm yard, what do you think?

Photo taken outdoors in the garden.

Process steps

*Seal with gesso using a palette knife to spread it over.

*Scrape cobalt blue and grey acrylic paints randomly over the walls and dry.

*Sand the sides.

*Scrape on some resist paste and give a coat of white chalky paint and gently heat to wipe away leaving some of the previous colours showing through.

*Use a blending tool and foam to add some yellow oxide and tita buff , both mixed with a little glazing medium - this ages the paint a bit.

* Rub with some dry kitchen towel, a wet wipe and buff the walls before scraping some white chalky paint randomly down all the sides.

*Paint the roofs black.

*Sand the edges again and rub in some brown distress ink.

*Outline where you want the windows and doors with a pencil then cut away the paint layers with a sharp knife. Darken them by using sharpie pens.

*I knocked in two rusty nails for chimneys.

Photo taken indoors in a light tent. They could almost be in a snowy setting.

Side view straight on.

Photo showing side windows

Nikki's version. I love the gorgeous tissue layers, the beautiful bright colours and the  sequencing of the phrase over the three layers.

Alison's version. These are very much in her beautiful shabby, cottage garden style and the added stamping, painted flowers and rusty elements really bring them to life.

Please click the links to be transported over to see more details of these fabulous wooden house sets.

xxx

New Year New Decade 2020 - 10 years old

Yes it's January 1st 2020 and a little later this month I will be celebrating 10 years of blogging.

Where have all those creative years gone? I've learned so much and I found a new passion in my life but as circumstances changed over the past 2 year some of that disappeared but I'm back at my desk just playing with some gesso, paints and inks and created this little wooden block just for fun.

I'm looking forward to a new creative and inspiring 2020.

Process steps

Paint a light coat of gesso - almost a dry brush technique and leave some of the wood exposed.

Apply a wash of raw umber and wipe back allowing the colour to seep into the wood.

Stipple sponge some more white gesso.

Rub in ground espresso along the edges and corners - wipe back with a wet cloth.

Again sponge some more white gesso just in the central areas.

Dip and dry the sides in prussian blue and burnt umber washes.

Sand all over and re-ink the edges.

Take a stencil and apply white chalk paint to create the pattern.

Paint over a coat of decoupage to seal the block and watch the sealer pick up some of the distress ink to age the look even more.

Supplies

DecoArt - Americana Premium white gesso, 

DecoArt Media paints - raw umber, prussian blue, burnt umber

Ground Espresso distress ink 

DecoArt everlasting chalky finish paint

Rusty Faceted Heart

I love combining the shabby neutral look with rusty items and created this card with that in mind. I am also sharing it over on the Country View Crafts project blog today.

To me there's nothing nicer than creams, whites and browns together and to help achieve the look I layered together (from the bottom) card , patterned paper, faux shabby floorboards created with paints and inks and a deckled frame on the top.

The flowers are a mix of the new wildflowers stems with the new funky florals by Tim Holtz. The wildflower in the background was cut from media paper and acrylic watercoloured and distressed whilst the funky florals were cut from a piece of left over cardwhere I had experimented with layering acrylic paints to achieve the shabby look.

The faceted heart was also cut from a left over rust effect piece of card that has been lying in my bits box for ages - this box can be a mine of fabulous inspiration sometimes when an oddment and a die just fit together so perfectly.

The die cuts the multi-faceted shape with score lines which need to be folded and pushed into shape to get the design. You can see the wonderful height and dimension and as a card it is best given to the recipient by hand as it wouldn't survive the post in just an envelope.

I love the way the neutral palette becomes shabby with the textures and the scuffed floorboards, I must make some more pieces to be ready to use for more new creations.

Here you can see the top of the heart and how the rust enhances the contrast in the colour palette.

The same here with the lower part of the heart.

 I'm looking forward to experimenting more with this shape to see how else I can use it perhaps on media boards, canvas boards, small shadowboxes - who knows?

Thanks for stopping by and ......

xxx

Shabby Industrial - Media Board

It's my turn over on the Andy Skinner blog again today and I am sharing this mixed media board that I made for Stitches in February. It was one of those pieces that was created 'in the moment' and none of the steps got recorded anywhere but I guess I could take a stab at how it came together.

The background is most definitely an example of my weathered wood technique that I love so much and was used  on this faux wood sample I made at the beginning of March. You can check out the tutorial there. It looks as though I probably used DecoArt chalky finish paints and the wax resist certainly worked well on that area where the wood looks as though the paint has peeled back several layers and looks pretty realistic irl.

I'm pretty sure the cogs had been give some coats of paint and not finished off so I used either white paint or white gess daubed over them and dipped them into some watery washes before sealing them with a varnish.

The word band has been given several coats of different browns and rubbed away so that only some of the colour is left and when dry rubbed over again with white paint or white gesso to fill in the alphabet letters and fully rubbed away from the metal. It was mounted over a piece of chipboard given a coat of perhaps raw umber and then a coat of clear crackle glaze which would have been rubbed over and wiped back with white antiquing cream.

The hitch fastener holds a jump ring with little painted arrow.

Again just the star had some daubs of paints and rubbed down to look aged and I had found some very tiny stars which I couldn't resist adding.

Some faux nuts and bolts, a stamped number 8 and a rub on number with metal cog and clocks finished it off.

You will read in my post on Andy's blog about how I have been inspired and taught by him over a number of years and everything I have learned has influenced my style and passion for my art today. What is so lovely is that we are all individuals who bring our own style, experiences and ideas to our work and when he asked me to be on his team Andy said he loved my vintage style - so here we have a touch of vintage inspired by the industrial from Andy.

Thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxx

A house is a home - altered wood block

I thought I would go all shabby vintage with my altered make for the new challenge at A Vintage Journey. The lovely Alison has chosen Altered Art and would like you to get creative with recycled objects in a vintage; shabby, mixed media; art journalling; industrial, timeworn or steampunk style. Turn something unloved and unwanted into a work of art. Try some repurposing - make something new out of something old, or incorporate an unwanted object into your artwork. Think tin cans and jars, old bottles, toothbrushes - the more inventive the better.

So my block started as this house shape with these words on it but I worked on the reverse side.

The recipe -

Tear some paper and adhere to the block coating the top of the paper to seal it.

Brayer over white gesso.

Paint dark green onto some card or watercolour paper ............

.................... then monoprint it onto the wood block.

This is what happens - 

Next scrape some white gesso over with a flat edge I used a palette knife..

Apply some random patches of white crackle paint and leave to dry.

Blend white modeling paste mixed with white gesso through a stencil.

Drip and spritz sap green, raw umber, burnt umber, white and titan buff media acrylic paints through the textures. Sand the edges and blend in ground espresso distress ink.

Brayer over white tinting base over the raised areas, seal the surface with the DecoArt matte sealer/varnish .....

 and then gather your embellishments together.

I kept to flowers and natural elements with an altered metal butterfly to finish it off.

I used Tim's tattered florals and a sizzix daisy to make the large shabby flower using

The smaller flowers are a mixture of bought ones.

Tims greenery die cut with white card, some bundled sage and ground espresso distress inks

Some cheesecloth, frosted berries and a metal butterfly altered with gesso and treasure gold.

All finished off with a jute bow and some natural dried flowers

Hope you like my piece of altered art which makes a great piece of home decor I think.

I hope we'll see you over at the challenge blog and even if you can't join in for September, you should definitely pop over to see the amazing inspiration from the rest of the team.

Have fun and listen to your heArt.

hugs Brenda xxx