2016 #14 Shadow Box Frame {by Ruth Mescall}

 2016 Topic 14: Colour mixing

Hi everyone Ruth here.

Tonight I'd like to share with you this evening with a post about mixing and using complementary colours.

I love experimenting but frequently play safe with my colour schemes and use colours near each other on the colour wheel. I find monochromatic and analogous palettes really pleasing to my eye but wanted to get a bit more savvy in using opposite or complementary colours in my work as I've had mixed success probably more by luck than design!

I admire Dina Wakley's use of white space with pops of colour and thought I'd try and combine this modern fresh look with beautiful vintage Ink and the Dog mini images. These are a perfect size for ATC's, but in this instance I've used a playing card size which is slightly narrower to create my 'When I grow up' shadow box frame.

Step One: The images and background stamps I've used are Ink and the Dog  Mini 03, Mini 04, Mini 11, Mini 12, Mini 23 and Mini 29 and I thought a blue and orange colour scheme would work best with these. 4 strips of Smoothy stamping card have been base coated with Snowflake fresco acrylic paint, then I used the gorgeous Glass Blue which is a translucent and mixed a little China in to give some opacity. The technique I've used is the card scraper technique or faux printed look (see Kim Dellow's you tube video here). I scraped less on each piece as I went along.

Step Two: I decided to make a monochromatic background for one of them (far left) and then use blue and a blue green to complement the orange. For the monochromatic one, I've also used white -snowflake to create tints and black - Little Black Dress to create shades which I used to stencil some circles on. I've already knocked back the one on the far left with snowflake to create a more subtle base for the stamped images and create more white space to rest the eye. 

Step Three: Where I've usually gone wrong in the past is in trying to use equal amounts of all the colours, so this time I've made the second one predominantly blue, the third green and the fourth orange, all with small amounts of the other colours still in there. 

For the blue green shade I used Caribbean Sea mixed with a little Captain Peacock. The blues and greens overlapping were fine but the orange, a mix of Yellow Submarine and Tango didn't, mainly because it's a translucent, so they look like they have been mixed together. So to get around this I brayered white over some areas before I added the orange. I had also been scrapping any remaining paint on to brown gummed tape to use around the outside of the box, this was inspired by a recent Jo Firth Young post here.

Step Four: Next to see where each image looked best before stamping in Cobalt Blue archival Ink. Once trimmed I used Treasure Gold in Florentine around the side of the card.

Step Five: The frame was  a sturdy box I'd salvaged and coated in snowflake. I added some stamping to the border before adhering.

Step Six:  I masked off and stamped a border strip on the inside in blue archival to match the outside border. To create depth and visual interest I used foam pads and small tubes of card to support the cards at different levels.

Think this is my favourite image, I even managed to get a touch of orange on the starfish.

I really enjoyed exploring this topic, creating something vintage with a fresh twist, something I want to keep developing. I've generally felt I had a good eye for colour but found it interesting referring to the colour wheel and seeing what I think of as orange or blue/ blue green isn't always the true colour but slightly further around on the wheel and why it could alter your final result. Blues seemed to suit the sea theme but you could try the opposite, orange and yellow orange to complement a blue, or use other complementary colours such as red and green, violet and yellow. Enjoy exploring the colours you have and see what beautiful hues you can create. 

Ruth x

Blog

Twitter
Instagram

Ruth this is such a great explanation of complementary colours, and a really great tip with the snowflake layer before the orange. Love that tape idea too! Thanks so much for sharing, particularly on a colour combo that can be a tad tricky to execute! ~Gillian

We would love to see how you interpret this Colour Mixing topic by linking what you make to our 2016 Challenge #14: Colour Mixing, on this page HERE.

All of our bloggers love to see your twist on their ideas,  particularly if you were inspired directly by their post. 

All links go in the draw to win a £50 voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Colour Mixing link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Aug 7th 2016. The winner will be announced 2  hours later at 19:00.