A catch up...

Morning everyone,

I haven't shared some pieces I've made lately, it's been mad busy and I've not had much time to do my 'own thing', but I made a couple of samples for the recent Dare to Create weekend organised by Sue at Art Workshops, and Andy Skinner & Tracy Weinzapfel Stratton.

I was booked on to the retreat as an attendee, and it was a fantastic weekend all round. A huge thankyou goes out to all involved in the organisation for a lovely weekend.  I'll share my makes at some stage from there too, but these are the pieces I made myself for Sue for her shop for the weekend.

My brief was to make something that incorporated Andy and Tracy's style, so 'Skinzapfel' was the order of the day.  The first piece I made was a canvas,

I painted the base coat in DecoArt Media pyrrole red and cadmium orange hue, and then went over with crackle paint, leaving the heart shape and flowers empty in the middle.  Once the crackle paint was dry, I used a cogs stencil inside the heart with DecoArt texture paste through.  I then added sand texture paste randomly around the edges and over the cogs to distress them further.  This centre panel was then painted in Andy's Rust technique.  The outer colours were prussian blue hue and cobalt teal hue, and a little turquoise hue.  I stamped randomly with carbon black and Tracy's stamps on the blue background.

The hand drawn flowers were painted in pyrrole red and hansa yellow medium.  I went round all the edges with a Faber Castell pitt pen and smudged the black lines, and also some more prussian blue around the heart to give shadow.  A computer sentiment was printed and coloured to match, scribbled round and adhered to the canvas.

Finally I edged the canvas in a little prussian blue hue to darken it and bring the focus in to the centre of the canvas.

My second make I wanted to keep, it's very simple but I kinda liked it :)

I took a second hand mirror from a car boot, and painted in black DecoArt Gesso.  I then added plumber's aluminium tape to pieces of black card, and used a spellbinders Mbossabilities folder called Industrial, to run the card with tape on through the Big shot.  I cut the pieces of card into different rectangles, and adhered to the mirror with matte medium. Carbon black was then dry brushed into all the crevices and across the mirror, and wiped back with a slightly dry baby wipe, repeated a few times.

 I then stamped Tracy's stamp Vines of Love onto normal 3 ply tissue, cut out and separated the ply.  I adhered this to the mirror with matte medium also, going over the top of the tissue very carefully to seal to the mirror.  I added a stalk to the flower in blue green light and green gold, and painted the flower in quinacridone magenta and hansa yellow medium.  I made sure you could still see the edges of the flower by running round with a micron pen.

The only other thing was to dry brush the edges of the black gesso'd mirror with some metallic silver paint to tie it in, and it was finished.

I love the simplicity of this, and Tracy's style with the industrial look.

Hope you've enjoyed the steps through these, I certainly enjoyed making them.

Best Wishes,

Nikki
xxx

Hope - an Art doll.

Evening peeps,

Today I'm sharing a creation I made for a challenge, and because I had this large cotton reel hanging around the house for the last five years..  I knew she would be an art doll, but it's taken until now for me to see how she would come to life.

The spark of inspiration came from the Andy Skinner/Tracy Weinzapfel collaborative Dare to Create challenge, called 'Skinzapfel', that they are doing in their respective facebook groups this month.  (Click on links on names to find groups).

The challenge was to create something a little bit Andy, a little bit Tracy.  So Hope was born.  Except of course there is a little bit of my brain in there too, hence the weirdness..

The body is a cotton reel, and the head a little silver plated photo frame from a cracker.  Both were treated to Andy Skinner's rust treatment, using Decoart Media paints and texture pastes.  The chain around her neck was done in the same way.  I used sand texture paste around the frame and the base of the cotton reel, which also had it's own texture to add to the rust feeling.  Her little 'arms' are Tando tree branches that come with the little birdies!  They too got the rust treatment.  This is the pic I shared a couple of days ago as a teaser, so you can see how she turned out now.

Her face is a print of one of my original paintings, and I just touched up her lipstick and gave her a coat of ultra matte varnish.  The flower's are from a masterboard I created in 'Tracy' colours, using Decoart mister's and media acrylics.  The little bird is a Tando Creative bird, and is sprayed in misters, and stamped in primary yellow with Andy's Toxic stamp set, the peeled paint/crackle effect.  The heart is also Tracy style, for the wing.

She has huge heart wings, which I glued dictionary paper to a metal frame, painted in pyrolle red, and coated in Decoart crackle glaze.  I didn't like the crackle effect at this point, it was too shiny.  I tried to antique it with the white antiquing cream, and again, didn't like my result.  So I repainted in pyrolle red, which led to a much more muted effect, and then antiqued with the black antiquing cream, which gave a nice grungy feel to her red heart wings.  (And those cracks are awesome!).  It's protected with a coat of ultra matte varnish.

The reason for calling her Hope, was that from all that rust, things can still grow.  So she has a little stem climbing up her body, painted in white gesso first, then Green gold.  It's doodled around in black micron pen.

The bird brings colour, as do the flowers in her hair.

I hope you like her, she posed a few problems for me but I'm happy with the outcome, and I thoroughly enjoyed the creative process, especially as it was so many ideas that have been bunched up in my head a while..

Right, I'm off to do some more rusting....  not personally of course...

Best Wishes,

Nikki
xx

Happy Easter

Morning all,

Just popping in to wish everyone a Happy Easter, or Happy weekend, whatever you are up to.  Hoping the weather isn't going to be too rubbish!

We've just celebrated Luna our staffie's 4th birthday, she had a cake, which of course she couldn't eat much of as it was a normal cake, hubby bought it so we could 'share it for her'...    Here she is closing her eyes and making a wish...

I want to get to take her out over the weekend, she loves her walks.  Apart from that it's a busy time at the moment.

I have some news too that I have joined Lindsay Mason's Design Team, mega excited to be using her fab digital stamps, and will show more of that later too.  I have a shiny new badge for the blog sidebar too :)

I'm working on a project to enter into a competition, it's the 'Skinzapfel' collaboration between Andy Skinner and Tracy Weinzapfel Stratton, using Decoart products.  I've been having fun with Andy's rusting techniques which you can find on you tube, they are brilliant.

I can't show you very much, as it's work in progress, and with other things going on it won't be ready for a couple of weeks probably, but this is a snippet of the rust.  It was a photo frame out of a cracker, in silver colour when it started.  This will be a slightly odd creation, as is sometimes normal with me....

I used Decoart paints, and texture sand paste for this, and Andy's new Toxic stamp set.  I'm pleased with the effect!  Can't wait to put it all together and show you, but it's secret for now.

I do have more news, but another time :)  

For now, have a good weekend,

Best Wishes,

Nikki

xx