Welcome Sue Carrington #1 Golden Hours ....

When I was thinking about what to do as my first project I played with the idea of a graffiti wall with flowers growing in front it, sort of grunge meets beauty !  I didn’t quite make the graffiti wall as bold as first thought,  but I am pleased with how it turned out !

I’ve used a [I don’t know the name of this substrate!] and first of all I used a stencil and some of the fabulous Grunge Paste. I used a palette knife and to add the texture I’ve dragged the corner across the paste while the stencil was still in place. I also stencilled around the edges too.  I added further texture my patting the palette knife onto the Grunge Paste in random sections. 

I dried it off with my heat gun and then started to add the first layer of Fresco Paint in Stone.  As this colour is opaque it gives really good coverage. 

When it was dry the next layer was Irish Cream and then Brown Shed, making sure I dried it in between layers to avoid it becoming a muddy colour. Then I added some Taupe, which was a really quite fabulous as I wasn’t expecting the results I got ! The colours were knocked back and also took on a slight purple shade. 

I then started to add some stencilling using Squid Ink and used the "bumping" technique as used by Leandra, Click HERE), initially inspired by Lynne Perrella. This is where you move the stencil slightly after your first colour has been applied and apply a second colour. In this case I used Stone and as it’s an opaque colour it covered the Squid Ink perfectly.

I carried on using the Squid Ink with a numbers stencil randomly over the project.

 I then started to stamp using the text from the ESN05 set using Squid Ink. 

ESN05

I’ve also used the dots from the ESN08 set using Taupe. 

ESN08

Going back to my original idea of a graffiti wall I then added some more random stamping using the ESN05, 06 and 08 sets using Squid Ink.

ESN06

Then I started to make the leaves and first of all I covered some Grunge Paper with Stone, then stamped the leaves from the ELB02 set with Sage and Holly and cut them out.

 ELB02

 I also used the same technique for the stalks from the ELB03 set for the tulips. 

ELB03 

I stamped the tulips from the ELB03 set with Blood Orange onto Grunge Paper that I’d painted with Stone, stamping double the amount I wanted.  I then cut them out and glued one on top of the other. As they’re made from Grunge Paper I’ve been able to bend the petals of the top layer. I’ve used the same technique for the smaller tulips too.

  

For the other flowers I’ve used the ELB01 set and stamped them using Butternut and Smoked Paprika onto Black card (as demonstrated by Lin Brown) and cut them out. I used the same colours and technique for the butterfly from the ELB02 set too, stamping the centre piece twice so that I could cut it out and stamp over it with the text stamp from the ESN05 set before gluing it to the butterfly.

ELB01

Before I started to assemble everything I rubbed some Florentine Treasure Gold over the raised areas to highlight them. 

I always like to lay out my projects before I glue everything in place and I decided that it needed something more. I had some painted Grunge Paper left over so I stamped the words ’Golden Hours’ with Squid Ink on to it and rubbed some more Squid Ink around the edge. To finish I added a metal embellishment. 

Below is a close up of the edge which was stencilled with Grunge Paste and you can also see the petals of the flowers that have been bent upwards.

A final close up so you can see all of the texture, stamping and stencilling ! 

I had a real ball making this project, hope you’ve enjoyed it too ! I'm hugely inspired by Lin Browns eye for composition, colour and unique style. 

Leandra Says: Oh how superb Sue, the background is stunning, and the layers on top look like so much fun to make too. A fantastic way to kick off this semester! Thankyou!

Gillian Says: I love the "pops" of Squid Ink when used with the Neutral toned Fresco Paints. The dimension/layers/texture looks fab Sue, love the combined use of the Eclectica collection of stamps. Beautiful first project.

For this week's challenge use some/all of the following: PaperArtsy Stamps, Fresco Paints, Wood or Paper Mache Substrates for this week's Challenge. If you are inspired by Sue's creativity this week, create something new and upload your art from a linkable web page like flickR, Pinterest or your blog and you will go into 2 draws to win.