Creatures of the Deep, Andy Skinner DT

Hi all
Here's my project for Andy Skinners DT, featuring loaaaaads of his new products and lots of pics of how I used them. I hope you like it.

 I took 3 sizes of greyboard by Tando Creative and gave them a coat of DecoArt Gesso

 A second coat of gesso, and while still wet, I blended in 2 fluid acrylics; Phthalo Turquoise and Cobalt Teal Hue.

A generous layer of DecoArt Crackle Glaze (really fine cracks with this), and once dry, a layer of white antiquing cream, not sure why I put the turquoise paint in the pic!

Close up of the cracks with the antiquing cream, very subtle.

I wanted to use the AWSOME Lava Paste for the texture of the sea bed, but also to see if you could colour the Lave medium before using it, which you can! It looked really dark after I added Burnt Umber and Carbon black mixed together, see below.....

But it did lighten quite a bit once I'd heat activated it, which was perfect for this - but I'd have added paint on top if I needed it really dark again.

Using a fine brush, I painted seaweeds on all three. Then for the middle sized board, I added one of Andy's new rub on transfers from the Alchemy Plus set.

I painted over it with Titan Buff and Metallic Gold, keeping within the outside lines.

There are two sets of transfers in each set, so I was able to use the first as my guide for painting...

And once the paint was completely dry, I went over with the second transfer.
I stamped Andy's fish skeleton stamp 'Dem Bones' using gold paint, then Versamark ink with one of his new embossing powders; Super Nova, but the gold didn't really show up, so I painted on a bit of the Metallic Gold. I also stamped his Seahorse but left that piece out in the end as I liked the 3 little ones together. I used up the spare metallic paint by dabbing a tiny bit of gold over the top of all the Lava Paste.

Added a teensy bit of Phthalo Green Blue back over the top halves of each shape for a bit more sea like colour, hardly noticeable. Also neat Phthalo Turquoise around the edges of each piece.

To highlight the plants and fish, I used a fine liner with Titanium White paint. For the shading - to give the fish a bit of depth (see what I did there, sea, depth....) I used a black Stabilo All watercolour pencil, dragging out the black for a watery look.

Pyrol red dotted on all the eyes gives a bit of colour and character, and the cheesecloth (a bit of old bandage) ties in with the sea theme.

Another transfer, a word this time, also highlighted with white paint.

I put the pieces together using a strip of hessan and the bandage, which I stapled on - my stapler opens right out so I could use it even on these thick pieces. Then some repurposed string, tied top and bottom around pieces of driftwood and it was finished!

I loved playing with all these products, and I hope you like it. Any questions, leave me a comment.
Thanks for looking.
Suz
xxx
Oh and here's a pic of the products used, and a link to Country View Crafts where you can find most of them. 😊

Silk Painting Flamingo using Hobby Art stamps

Hi all
My post this month for the July Craft Stamper Challenge is a fun flamingo card, using Pebeo silk paints and stamps from Hobby Art.  There are fab prizes to be won this month by one lucky winner and a chance to be featured in this amazing magazine, why not have a go! Click HERE to have a look.

I'm running a silk painting class in just over a week and was curious to see if stamping onto one of the silk fabrics I'll be using would work.

First attempt at stamping directly onto the fabric failed! So the second time I inked up the stamp using the beautiful, Vibrant Fuchsia Archival Ink (one of Wendy Vecchi's) then laid the fabric on top and brayered over the back of the fabric.

It gave me enough of an image to then go around with  a fine black Micron pen, that made it easier for me to see the image and add the Gutta Outliner (which creates the barrier on the fabric to stop colours running into each other). 

Then it was just a matter of mixing the silk paints (Pebeo Settasilk) to get the colours I wanted, and gently painting them onto the fabric.

Then comes the hard bit....how to bring it all together....
I framed the picture by using an aperture card from Hobbycraft - these were disappointing as only had one aperture side and a blank side, normally a decent aperture card would have a third panel. So to make it work I had to stick the fabric inside the aperture card, then trim the whole thing down a bit so I could glue it onto another separate card blank. To finish off I added some faux stitching with a marker pen around the edges and circle, then added the stamped sentiments and a little bow.

Hope you like it.
Thanks for looking.
Suz
xxx