Something Fishy's Going On

I found these little fishes in a charity shop.  They were a horrible orange and and yellow colour, but I liked their shapes.

I painted them using an Ranger adirondack paint dabber in a colour called 'Stream', though I don't know why it has that name as it isn't remotely stream coloured. :-/

I then painted the lower half of each fish with Salty Ocean distress paint dauber.  I forgot to take a picture of that stage though, so just take my word for that. It's so easy to get totally absorbed in the work and it's easy to forget to record the different stages!

I've had some little Cosmic Shimmer iridescent watercolour paint pots for ages, but hadn't found a project to use them on. They were perfect for painting fishscales and the tails anf fins.  Here's the finished fish.

I'll have to change the position of the hanging hook on the lower fish.  I decided to paint him facing in the other direction to his twin.

I was really pleased with the look of the scales.  

Tim's Tag and My New Art Journal (or at least the cover of it)

 Here's My take on Tim's August Tag.  Strange that it was using a rusty technique on the corners, considering the photo album I've just completed.  I used a Crafty Individuals stamp that was given to me by my crafty friend Zuzu. I'm not really in to stamping, so don't have that many and this was the only one I had of a head. Or two heads in this case.  

I used distress stains in peacock feather, vintage photo, bundled sage and weathered wood, though the sage colour has pretty well disappeared. I used a tiny attacher to attach some of the elements as I haven't got a sewing machine handy (attic? back of cupboard under a pile of junk?), and not enough patience to do that by hand. I made a big fluffy bow using the 3 times around the fingers technique.  I think if I was doing this one again I would use embossing powder on the stamp as it doesn't stand out enough and that area of the tag needs a bit of texture.

My other project that I finished recently was an art journal cover. I was supposed to be going over to Zuzu's house on Thursday and she had decided that we would be creating a journal page, and I've not done that before.  As it turned out the date was cancelled, but I did the cover of my new journal instead.  I bought a ringbound book of multimedia paper to use as a journal, but the cover needed strengthening.  I covered the front in patches of embossed foil, using all my favourite embossing folders, and a couple of Movers and Shapers die cuts that were hanging about in a drawer.  I added some stiff card to the reverse side.  I painted over the foil with white gesso and let this dry then dribbled alcohol inks in several colours over it.  Once dry I sanded back the relief areas to reveal the foil.  I hope it stands up to some wear and tear.

I hope I can create interesting pages inside.  It's a big book (A4) with lots of pages and a bit intimidating.  Eek.

A Bit Rusty. Must be all that rain.

 So, the holiday on Loch Awe was a wash out, so much so that we came home a day early.  But the place we were in was lovely, the view over to Ben Cruachan was quite stunning, and we did get one day of sun before rain ruined it all.  I got one decent picture from the loch side showing the view from our lodge.

Back to my crafting room.  Don't care if it rains when I'm there.

I was given a large John Lewis photo album by someone, with the request that I make it look 'like something from Mad Max, because I know you can do that sort of thing'.  Gulp. Can I?  I do vaguely remember seeing the film about 20 years ago, but I don't remember the details.  Apparently the Mad Max look involves a lot of rust, found objects, buckles and chains, so I  have been working on that for the last few days.  I wasn't sure about how to go about making something look rusty so I experimented with different paint finishes.  The first was okay, but wasn't quite right as the colour was wrong and it ended up too smooth and shiny because I mod podged it at the end. Matt finish mod podge isn't matt enough!

So I took a different tack and this worked well. 

For this one I painted a piece of white foam board with Ranger black gesso and then painted over that with a coat of Americana acrylic paint in Bitter Chocolate. I then used Ranger's clear embossing dabber around the edges of the piece (I love this dabber, so much easier than using an ink pad) and then covered that with Tim Holtz Vintage Photo distress embossing powder.  That  gives just the right kind of 'grittiness'. I treated the die cut cogs in the same way.  The colour overall was a bit flat so I gave a light random sploding of very, very watered down orange paint, just what I had on the shelf which in this case was Decoart Traditions Quinacridone Burnt Orange, and Crafters acrylic Pure Pumpkin. 

Finally, to add a little contrast to the patina, I shook up a bottle of Tattered Angels glimmer mist in Midnight Blue and then dipped a paintbrush in the bubbles and dabbed very sparingly on a few areas.  This gave a slightly metallic blue sheen which brought the whole thing alive.  However, it's a good idea to check that the top is screwed up tight before shaking the bottle.  I didn't, and I've still got blue hands 2 days later!

The banner is one of those lasercut wooden ones that came from Hobbycraft (I think) and I simply coloured it with Smooch blue pearlised accent paint. The female body is one I made from fimo clay.

After the experimenting came the real thing, so here are the pics of various stages of the make, using the same techniques as above.  I sealed up the inside pages in a poly bag and masking tape so I wouldn't get them messed up.  I used white foam board again for the title piece, to give a bit of depth.  The spine is swiped over in Vintage Photo distress stain.

There are a whole host of different found objects, many from my drawerfull of loose junk so I'm not sure what they all are, but everything was altered to give it the rusty look, apart from one or two of the Prima Junkyard Findings, and the Tim Holtz buckles, cogs, philosophy tag and foliage piece.  I liked the way the copper shone against the rust, so I mixed up some Ruby and Renaissance Treasure Gold waxes to make a coppery colour and used a tiny bit of it to highlight the lettering (Tim's Alpha Parts, with a coat of paint to take the shine off).   I made the bands to go through the buckles out of suede cut from a charity shop handbag. I had tried to make some from grungeboard but they cracked, and then from black gaffer tape, but that was too shiny and stiff.  The suede has the advantage of being supple and strong and so much easier to get through the buckle.

On to new things tomorrow.  Haven't done Tim's tag for August yet, so will have a look at that,