Liz Borer Project #3 Three Panel Design

Liz is back with her final project of the week. Liz showed me the core idea she explores in this post back in April at Ally Pally. The flowers on the panel are very textured, she's used Grunge past to paint them! It's very clever! If not this particular concept, there are some other ideas within I'm sure you'll be keen to try for this week's challenge. (Leandra)

 Hi everyone, a few new ideas in tonight's projects, so I hope you'll be inspired to have a go yourself! This set of MDF panels is supposed to hang up but I thought that adding hinges would make a nice triple panel to stand somewhere.

Here is the colour palette I created for this project, refer back to Sunday Night's post for a lesson on colour mixing, and this palette will make more sense.

I started by painting everything with a paler shade of Irish Cream made by mixing it with Nougat. I wanted to use a background technique using cling film because it gives a nice random marbled effect. This requires the use of something called 'Magic Mix' from Jo Sonja. This is a blend of 2 things; a retarder which slows down the drying time of the paints, and a glaze which seals the end result. If you have something similar use that. 

Mix the paint – Irish Cream with the magic mix (about 2 parts mix to 1 part paint) and paint quickly over the surface of the panel – it doesn’t have to be neat.

Crumple a piece of cling film slightly bigger than the panel , open it out and press down onto the wet paint. At this point it is possible to move the cling film and therefore the paint around until you like the pattern. Press the cling film down and then pull it off. This needs to be dried well before continuing. You can see how the effect turns out once dry in the following pictures.

Mix Irish Cream and Grunge Paste together and use this through a stencil at the corners of the side panels and the top and bottom of the central panel.

Next I did some stamping – Firstly with Versafine Vintage Sepia I stamped the flourish from HP1107 at the sides of the central panel and the tops of the side panels . 

Then I used the long Lynne Perrella stamps from LPC006 and LPC004 ...

...on the side panels using Ranger Archival ink Sepia. If you like this colour palette, you might like to check out the other new Archival Inks that are now available from Wendy Vecchi's Archival Ink series, they would all fit this palette beautifully. See them here.

I used other Lynne Perrella stamps from LPC001 and LPC009 on the corners of the side panels using the same ink .

The flowers are from Vintage ID06 and are stamped using StazOn Timber Brown. Archival Ink: Potting Soil would also work well.

 

I then decided to use some grunge paste in a very different way. 

Firstly I found some copyright free flower designs that I felt went with the overall design. I traced them onto tracing paper and then transferred the designs using graphite paper to the side panels.

The next few pictures show step by step how to actually paint with Grunge Paste and create texture.

I find that I need to add just a little water to the paste if painting with it. In this case I added some Nougat paint, enough to loosen and tint the paste slightly. 

When getting the paste onto a paint brush have the brush damp not wet. This helps the paste to come off the brush. TIP: wash the brush regularly to stop it getting clogged up. Pull the damp brush through the paint-paste so it is only loaded on one side of the brush. (bit blurry sorry)

Lay the brush onto the design so that the paste is on the edge of the design, so you create a ‘lump’ or 'ridge'.  Roll the brush towards the paste pushing it off the brush and pull the bristles along the line of the design so that the ridge of paste is on and following the design line.

Now flatten the bristles of the brush so that they are rather like a spade and tuck the ends into the ridge of paste. Gently pull the brush out of the paste pulling some along and pull the brush to the inside edge of the petal. 

By doing this some of the paste will come with the brush creating fine ridges. If you look at the pictures you will see that I have pulled the brush in a curve to mimic what would be the natural curve of the petals.

To paint the stalks and leaves put the paste on the brush as before and pull along the lines while rolling the paste off the brush to make ridges.

The centre of the flowers are painted in the same way as the petals. I like to have ridges on the edges of the petals  and around the outside of the ‘ball’ – this requires a little blending in the middle. The blobs in the centre of the flowers are blobs of paste.

Both flowers finished.

I mixed Blood Orange and Cinnamon Together to make a browny-red and using  a fluffy brush added some red around the edges – lightly, like distressing.

Using the same red I blended some colour onto the flowers  and then used a darker red – Blood Orange and French Roast  - to deepen some areas. (refer to the colour palette)

Mix Green Olives and Chocolate Pudding to make a green for the leaves and stems. The centres of the flowers are very dark – just add Squid Ink to the dark red.

I felt that although I wanted the edges of the flowers to stand out they were too pale.  So I made a wash out of Pumpkin Soup and painted it all over the flowers  and leaves to tone it down.

Now to make the centrepiece. I cut a piece of board into a nice shape (see shape on the next photo) . I cut a piece of brown Ten Seconds Studio metal larger than the card and embossed it with a lattice design. This was then stuck onto the board and wrapped around the back to create a neat edge.

Stamp the face from LPC010

onto tissue paper with Timber Brown StazOn ink. Paint the back of the tissue with reds and oranges. Paint some card with Nougat and attach the tissue to the card with Multi Medium (Matte). Add another coat of medium to seal this.

Cut the card so that it fits onto the metal base and attach it with adhesive pads. Stick some cord around the edges of the face. Rub a bit of Treasure Gold onto the embossed metal. 

I then  rubbed Treasure gold onto various metal flowers (Finnabair Mechanicals), keys and Prima Junkyard studs.  I also rubbed some Classic Treasure Gold over the grunge paste stencilled areas at this point. I attached one flower onto the face panel to hide the ends of the cord and then attached the whole piece to the middle of the centre panel.

I added hinges to the back of the three panels. As these panels were intended to hang up they had holes in all the corners. Some of these disappeared under grunge paste and the rest were covered with studs or other embellishments .

I felt the back looked rather drab so  I embossed some card with the same lattice folder and stuck it to the back of the panels. I then painted the whole back with the darkest red (Blood Orange and French Roast) and rubbed Treasure Gold randomly over this.

This palette shows the various colours I mixed. 

                                                               
And here you have it, the completed Project !

That’s it for this month from me , I hoped you enjoyed the projects and I’ll be back next month. Liz.

Leandra says: Blimey Liz, this is an amazing piece of work. Ingenious use of Grunge Paste, and what a brilliant feel you have to bring the flowers to life. I am fascinated how you manage to stick to a defined colour palette, and often you keep the tones of your embellishments to just one Treasure Gold shade, such willpower! You have a wonderful talent of composition and and a keen eye for placement.

Gillian Says: Wow Liz, this is brilliant. Love all the metal embellishments, and that paint texture with cling wrap at the start was fab! Can't wait to see what you do next month!

If you were inspired by Liz this week, then don't forget you can play along in the weekly challenge, and go in the draw to win prizes (usually rubber stamps of your choice). Details can be found here.