Watercolour for A Vintage Journey

Hello Friends!

It is time for a new challenge at A Vintage Journey and our talented Amanda is hosting a Watercolour Wonder Challenge.  Here is what Amanda has to say:

'There is so much versatility in Watercolour, making it possible to create art that can be gentle, washy and light, or bold, full of colour with definite lines, and it comes in a variety of guises; pens, tubes, sticks, inks, markers.  So for the challenge we would like your project to include some form of watercolouring or watercolour techniques and be in keeping with our favoured styles; vintage, shabby, mixed media, art journalling, industrial, timeworn or steampunk'

Amanda's challenge gave me a much needed push to get out my watercolour inks, my new watery wash stamps, Oxide inks and used lots of painty washes to create a colourful scene inside an inexpensive recessed frame.

The frame looks much darker in real life but it was difficult to photograph with the glass front!

The frame was painted with DecoArt Cobalt Teal Hue before adding a coat of DecoArt Crackle Paint.

Once the crackle was dry, a very watery wash of DecoArt Phthalo Blue, mixed with Titanium White was applied to the frame.  Once dry, the frame was lightly sanded to give a more 'distressed' look.  I later applied a little Quin Gold paint to add to the aged look.

The background was stamped using my Darkroom Door Watery Washes stamp set.  Distress Oxide and Distress Ink were applied to my craft sheet and watered down slightly.  The ink was picked up and applied to watercolour paper.

Some chippies (a gift from my lovely friend Sandy) were painted in hues of green and blue.  The seahorse and starfish were hand drawn onto watercolour paper.  I applied drawing gum where the 'spines' of the seahorse would be and then Ecoline inks were diluted with water and then applied the seahorse.

A view of the finished picture before I added it to the frame.  I gave the seahorse a coat of  Clear Rock Candy Distress Paint, it reacted with the inks as you can see, but I was happy with the result. Real sand and a few glass pebbles were added along with some clay elements.

While I had my inks out, I used the drawing gum to draw some freehand flowers and used the Tanzanite colour to watercolour them....

I was quite pleased with the way they turned out and I added a quote from our hugely talented DT member Alison's wonderful new stamp set, stamped with Wilted Violet Distress Oxide.

We hope you will join in Amanda's challenge at A Vintage Journey where our Sponsor for the month is Craft Obsessions who are offering a £20 voucher to spend in their wonderful on-line store!

Do please go over to visit A Vintage Journey, if you can, to see the amazing projects created by the Design Team.  Thanks so much for your visit, I always appreciate your comments!

I was really pleased to see that Country View Crafts blog challenge is 'Blues and Greens' for August so I would like to enter their challenge with my sealife frame.

I would also like to join in That's Crafty challenge which is Anything But Cards, with my sealife frame.

Keep on Crafting!

Hugs,  Anne xxx

Video Inspiration - God Only Knows

Hello Friends

I don't often try my hand at shabby chic but I was inspired by the Video Inspiration

this month, chosen by Linda Ledbetter at Creative Carte Blanche.  The video was made by the BBC a couple of years ago, you can see the video HERE.  If you have never seen the video I do encourage you to look, it is very uplifting!

The wonderful video features the song - God Only Knows by the Beach Boys  and there are quite a few of my favourite artists singing in the video.

I was inspired by two elements of the video - firstly the angel wings on Lorde's shoulders and secondly, by the bird cage (and wings) in the part featuring Alison Balsom, the Classical trumpeter.

Since I changed my mind several times I only have a couple of process steps.

I distressed and layered up some gorgeous Maja Design papers from the Vintage Summer Basics collection and used DecoArt Media Crackle Paste through a Tim Holtz Gothic stencil.  The birdcage was painted with IndigoBlu English Cottage Acrylic Paint in Pantry White.

The wings were cut from the Tim Holtz Heart Wings die set, I cut two and layered them and then painted them with the Pantry White paint.  Once dry I applied a layer of Ranger Glue 'n' Seal and dusted the wings with Distress Clear Rock Candy Dry Glitter.

The bird was painted with IndigoBlu Grandma's Teacup paint.  The birdcage and the 'Use your Wings' are by Scrapiniec and I painted them with the Pantry White paint.  I tucked some gauze under the birdcage and added some vintage ribbon dyed with Broken China Distress Ink.

I am entering this into Creative Carte Blanche's September Adventure - God Only Knows.

Thanks, as always, for looking, hope to see you again soon!

Anne xx