A taste of the Orient?

Hi there visitors,

Well, I'm still waiting for the signal to travel up the A1 for our new baby's arrival (officially due in 8 days time) so I've managed a rare bit of playtime just for the sake of it.  I found a square of gessoed canvas in my bit box, discarded from some other project and started out just playing with Slick Stix crayons.  I had no project in mind just wanted to mess about and this is what is eventually became.

I began by blending the dark blue and purple Slick Stix onto the canvas with a wet wipe, dried it with a heat tool then sprinkled Infusions in Royal Blood and Violet Storm and spritzed very lightly with water.  When I had the amount of colour I was happy with I dried with the heat tool and then painted the whole thing with a coat of Fresco Finish Pearl Glaze to give a lovely sheen and also stop any further reaction of the Infusions.

 

Next I chose some random stamps from the Lynne Perrella Oriental themed sets to use on the background. I didn't want them to show up clearly so used second generation Archival ink images.  There's a bit of Japanese text from a portion of a bigger image, a koi plus a PaperArtsy mini flourish stamp.  I then stencilled the trailing ivy using one of the translucent Fresco Finish blues which I think was South Pacific, as I wanted the Infusions and light stamping to show through.

 

My next step which I fogot to take a pic of was to stencil some clear texture paste to which I applied a little Aquamarine Treasure Gold when it was dry.  I also added touches of TG round the edges of the canvas.

 

Next was to stamp the main image onto Tim Holtz tissue and then paint it with various translucent Fresco Finish colours, South Pacific, Claret and Pumpkin Soup.  My only complaint with the TH tissue is that I found it very difficult to tear around the image and painting around it with plenty of water seemed to make very little difference.  It's blooming strong stuff but I got there in the end and adhered it to the canvas with Heavy Gloss Gel Medium. 

I then raided my bit box which I hardly ever think to look in, and found some bits and pieces to embellish the hanging.  I painted the leaves with Pearl Glaze so they looked something like the die cut piece of lace I added to the bottom and the tiny butterflies also got the Pearl Glaze mixed with Claret/Pumpkin Soup.

I used bamboo sticks with beads on the end to form the hanger and found the perfect coloured ribbons in my biiiig bag of those annoying pieces I cut out of clothes.....knew they'd come in handy some time, lol!

Well, that's how my playtime over the past couple of days has ended up.  Hope you like it and I just have to finish the post by sharing a photo of one of the lovely busy bees that were enjoying the campanula whilst I was taking the photo of the hanging out in the garden.

Enjoy the rest of your week everyone and thanks for dropping by.

Hugs
Lesley  Xx