Jo Myhill Project #3 Decayed Painted Wall ....

Hello all, Jo here with my finale project. I’m really enjoying creating different types of textures and how versatile Grunge Paste is, so I thought I’d continue on the theme using another 10x8” deep canvas.

Cover the canvas with a fairly thin layer of Grunge Paste over most of the canvas, leave a rough edge approximately 1” all the way round. This time smooth it apart from at the edges and then use the palette knife or an old credit card to score lines in the Grunge Paste and then smooth them out as you don’t want them too deep. Think what it’s like when you score wallpaper with a scraper to let the steam seep under so can remove the wallpaper from the wall.

Mix Brown Shed, London Bus, Cinnamon and Blood Orange to make a rusty red colour. Paint this all over the canvas, don’t forget the sides. You might need two coats as you want quite an opaque solid coverage. Dry.

Mix Blood Orange and a tiny bit Of Little Black Dress add a tiny amount  of water just enough to thin the paint down a little bit. Dab this on with a brush at the edges of the canvas (in that 1” gap) and dab off with kitchen roll. You are drying to get a dirty texture to the edge that isn’t a solid colour.

Mix Sage and Hey Pesto and gently stipple this colour on the edge of the Grunge Paste where it meets that 1” gap. Let it dry for about 30 seconds and then dab off with scrunched up kitchen roll, you can also use a circular motion a bit like polishing to remove the paint. If you get paint in the middle of the red use a baby wipe to remove. The look we are trying to create is a layered paint distress look, here and there on the canvas you see bits of the under layers of the painted wall.  Any spare green paint you can add to the sides of the canvas.

Over the central panel of red add a layer of Crackle Glaze. Let this dry.

Mix Cinnamon, Brown Shed, Blood Orange and paint this over an entire sheet of Smoothy White Stamping Card, use quite a wide brush and really sort of slap the paint on quite quickly and move it around. Some areas will be more intense than others and it’s ok to see some brush marks. Dry this.

Now mix some Limelight with water and using the wide brush again paint this over the card.  Use quite long strokes up and down and across the card. I also add some tiny blobs of the paint directly to the card and because it’s wet from the previous layer you can move it around quickly and get varying shades of colour. It's is a wash so make sure you don’t leave obvious brush marks. Next add a really watered down layer of Inky Pool as a wash all over the card. You can leave pools of the paint in place just to add the tonal colour variations.  Leave this to dry.

By now the Crackle Glaze should be dry. Use Tinned Peas to go over the top. In some areas you need to give a light coverage and in other areas a bit heavier. On the whole you want fine cracks. Once this is dry you are going to sand using sandpaper. The big blobby bits of paint will come off revealing the red underneath and the lines we scratched into the Grunge Paste start to appear adding to the texture.

I mixed Sage and Tinned Peas to make a shade lighter than this top layer of Tinned Peas and stencilled through a damask design stencil. I’ve started using a bit fat stencil brush to stencil as it gives a much softer effect. Really pounce (up and down motion as if you were hammering) the brush in the paint on the craft mat to get it deep into the bristles, dab the excess off on kitchen roll and then start pouncing over the stencil. As I wanted to continue the faded distresses look I didn’t cover the whole canvas and made sure I went beyond the Grunge Paste.

In the corners of the canvas I added further stencilling using a tiny squares stencil.  This time I used Blood Orange and Inky Pool. First the Blood Orange and then a tiny amount of Inky Pool overt the top of this in just a couple of areas. By using the same colours I used on the Smoothy White Stamping Card the whole piece should tie in together as a whole and your eyes and brain are able to make connections between the different elements. Take a range of different sized Manilla Tags and brush on Sage, don’t go all over the tag as you want to see a little bit of the Manilla Tag. Next add a tiny amount of Inky Pool to act as a contrast and again reflect the colour scheme of the whole piece. For a more opaque top layer add Tinned Peas.

Now on these Manilla Tags stamp a range of Lynne Perrella images in French Ultra Marine Archival Ink. I used: LPC003, LPC011 and LPC004. On the bigger stamps I laid the tag on top of the stamp on the part of the image I wanted. Edge the tags in Walnut Stain Distress Ink and then staple together. I coloured my staples with Ginger Alcohol Ink to give a brown rusty look to them. Now back to the Smoothy White Stamping Card. Cut it into strips so that you can cut out a number of bird dies. Choose a part of the card you really like for the top layer. I cut out 9 shapes and glued them all together to create a very solid bird shape. I used bulldog clips to hold it all together.

LPC003

 LPC004

LPC011

Once the bird is dry, paint the edges with Brown Shed and Cinnamon mix. Also paint the back. When this is dry sand the edge of the bird to add contrast to the browny red colour.

Emboss the flourish from ID03 in burgundy embossing powder. Although colour wise it tones, the contrast of the gloss against the matt adds another layer of texture.

ID03

I also added some of the embossing powder to the edges of the canvas. I just swipe my VersaMark pad against the edge and dab the canvas in the powder on my sheet of folded paper and gently move it around so that it isn’t too thick or opaque – think shabby grungy distress!

Rip a strip of Crunchy Waxed Kraft Paper and crunch into a ball to crack it. Also concertina fold this as well. Staple some string to the waxed paper.  

Assemblage! First glue toe tag element to the canvas. Then glue a length of crochet lace on top of this. Next, add the Crunchy Kraft Waxed Paper to the lace and finally the bird. I used a hot glue gun for all of my sticking it’s really useful for the bird as I wanted it to sit proud of the background.

I really love the contrast of the red and green and finished piece reflects the look of a decayed peeling wall I wanted to create. All the different textures work so well together and the lines in the Grunge Paste are subtle but really effective.

Well I hope you like and are inspired to have a go at some or all of these techniques, perhaps combining them with the previous ones to create your own piece of decayed texture! 

Finally I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone involved in the PA family for all the support and kind words shown during my semester as Guest Designer. Have a Merry Christmas everyone. x

Leandra Says: Wow Jo, Iove the amazing effects within this piece, and the final composition is so perfectly YOU! LOL {why wouldn't it be?} You have mastered grunge paste above and beyond this week!

Can't thank you enough for your wonderful semester of contributions! I'm sure we will see more of you in the future, thank you so much!

Gillian Says: Adore the composition and colour to this canvas Jo, thank you for sharing your inspiration and techniques with us all. Have a lovely christmas. xx

A note from Leandra: As it is Christmas Eve here now in the UK, we would like to take this chance to wish you all a very wonderful and super special Christmas. May your every dream come true, and I hope Santa brings you good things! Cos we know you have been extra good this year, so you are very worthy! :)

Usually we would have a round of 3UP at this point at the end of a semester, but we have another cunning plan up the numerous PaperArtsy sleeves that shall be revealed once the Christmas madness abates. In the meantime enjoy yourselves, and a huge thank you to all our guest designers of 2013, you have been fantastic!

If you can play along with Jo this week, please link your entry here http://blog.paperartsy.co.uk/2013/12/challenged-by-jo-myhill-and-winners.html to join in this week's challenge which ends on Sunday, noon.