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