StoneArt Tree

 

After watching day 5 of Ashley Hay's Creative Christmas Challenge videos I decided to have a go at making a tree but I didn't have a cone shape for the base, so instead I wrapped cardboard around a bottle.

Once dry, I took the bottle out of the cardboard and was left with a cone shape.  I mixed up stoneart and powertex to make a clay, rolled it out very very thinly and then tore it and powertexed it on the cone.

I did it in layers starting from the bottom upwards.

And here it is totally covered in the clay.

Once dry, I started to apply colour.

Once I was happy with the colour I gave it all a coat of varnish and then about 2 hours later a coat of transparent powertex.

Just love the ruffles of the torn clay mix.

Tags & Atcs

Had a play with some backgrounds today and made these tags. I coloured the images with my zig pens which I haven't used for a while.

A couple more with Lynn Perrella Paperartsy stamps and a compass stencil I bought ages ago but hadn't used until now.

And finally a couple of Atc's. I cut the Teesha Moore boy with the hair image in half and used one for each atc.

Mini Gelli Prints

All set up to have a play with Birgit Koopsens gelli plate ideas with medium gel, gesso and sprays which you can see here.

And these are the results. Not sure I'll do it again but was good to have a play and know that gesso and gel medium don't ruin the gelli plates!!!

Triptych Powertex Workshop

The table ready and set up for us to go. As you can see there are three pieces of lovely ragged raw wood for each of us.

Alli giving us a run down on what we were doing and dishing out 'pink' gloves!!! Yikes!!!

First step, paint the panels with gesso and dry with a heat tool.

Lesley gessoing her panels, don't forget the edges!

Next we added some stenciling using the Powertex Easy Structure product, which is basically like a texture paste, modeling paste or grunge paste.

The girls adding their stenciling to the panels whilst wearing their pink gloves!!

We dried the Easy Structure with a heat tool.

This is about 3 steps later. Next we mixed a 50 / 50 of 3d flex and ivory powertex to make an icing like consistency to literally drop and slop across our three panels. We used a pallet knife to create texture and stringy bits, some of us added the sand balls in. Next we sprayed the powertex and 3d flex mix with bister and left it to dry on it's own for now!

Next we decided what embellishments we wanted to use and roughly placed them where we wanted them to be.

Using powertex we stuck them down on the panels, dried them with a heat tool and gave them a coat of gesso and then dried that with a heat tool too.

This one is Lesley's, she is just deciding where to place her embellishments.

And then all the additions got a final coat of ivory powertex, this is to ensure that everything dries hard, ie the corrugated cardboard. Everything on all three panels was then zapped with a heat tool and I'm not sure if you can see or not, but the bister over the powertex and 3d flex mix has started to crack.

Then the fun started. You would not believe how many layers of different colours of bistre and spray paint this has had on it, but basically I just kept going until I was happy with what I had. And if any of you eagle eyed people out there can spot some pink, well you'd be right, I used a bright pink with a mica in it!!

I left mine there for the day as I wanted to go back to it to do some dry brushing when I got home after it had 100% totally dried.

Chris admiring what she'd done and the rest of the girls in the background drying their panels.

This is Chris's once she'd dried it.

Helen is still drying hers as her 3d flex / Powertex mix was quite thick so took a while to dry.

Lin's, again she also had a thick layer of the mix, sorry the photo is a bit blurred but I was taking it over her shoulder whilst she was still drying it.

We finished up at the workshop and all decided to do the dry brushing when we got home after the panels had had time to properly dry.

So this morning, I added violet shimmer and yellow shimmer Decoart media sparys, dazzling metallics in berry and teal, metallic lustres in black shimmer, majestic purple, elegant emerald, brilliant turquoise and champagne ice until I was happy with what I had.

As the sun was out, I took them outside in the garden and took some photos.

Close up of the stenciled skull hi-lighted in black shimmer and the mix of powertex, 3d flex and sand balls.

Close up of the grungeboard numbers and wooden cogs.

Another close up of the stenciling and paste mix.

Close up of the stringiness we managed to achieve with paste mix and power cotton.

Love how the mix on this one crackled once heated.

Close up of the burlap and metal embellishments.

And one more close up, stenciling, wooden cog and paste mix in bottom corner.

Then I came back inside and took another photo. Obviously they look duller and you can't see the metallic as well.

Another close up of the middle of the middle panel.

Another close up of the key and cog sat on the burlap.

And finally a close up of the bottom of the right panel. Right in the bottom corner you can see the corrugated cardboard and sand balls.

I love how they've finished up really grungy even though I've used a lot of metallics to hi-light the textures.

We took this workshop with Alli Turner of Allison Turner Designs, please contact her through her website to arrange classes.

Journal Page for PA Challenge

Over on the PA blog they have a theme of gels and mediums. Lin Brown did a fab video incorporating Lindys Stampgang sprays and golden gloss medium. I didn't have either of these, so had to improvise. I used DA clear crackle paste through a diamond stencil onto the crunchy wax paper.

And did exactly the same on a journal page which already had some black paint on it.

As I've said, not got any of the sprays, or so I though, I found this Lindys smoky sapphire one in my stash and chose a Dylusions with mica in it.

This has had two coats of each colour, allowing drying in-between coats.

And exactly the same process on the journal page.

Then I tickled the raised areas with pewter treasure gold.

And the same for the crunchy waxed paper.

So I then went on to create this page, using some of the crunchy waxed paper at the bottom of the collage.

It's not actually as dark as it looks, but it is outside!