Who you were made to be

Hello all!  I hope September is treating you well so far.  If you missed my Shades of White over at PaperArtsy a few hours ago, I hope you'll be able to check them out.  

But now it's time to start a new challenge theme over at A Vintage Journey and it's a good one!

Our lovely host, Ann, is looking for Cogs, Gears and Textures from us all - all the details are over at A Vintage Journey along with the usual amazing inspiration from my fellow Creative Guides.

Before you hurry off to check it all out, here's what I created for the challenge.  I think you'll agree there are plenty of cogs, gears and lots of scrumptious texture, both on the gears and behind them.















I took the chance to play with several techniques I've learned from Andy Skinner over the years, both in online courses and in-person workshops.













Since I'm working with a travelling stash (admittedly a large one - we travelled by car not by plane!) I had to adapt a couple of them a bit, but I'm pretty pleased with my rusty gears and eroded metal.













I wasn't sure how long I'd be away, but thankfully my packing-brain was intelligent enough to include some Tando chipboard cogs and gears - one of Andy's Industrial Elements kits along with an extra Bolts/Washers sheet.

These are so sturdy - ready for all the media you can throw at them - and you can layer them up in all sorts of different ways to create an interesting dimensional layout.













The background is an 18 x 24 canvas board (that's about 7 x not-quite-10 inches) which was already here in the Czech Republic.  (I've added to the CZ stash whenever I see canvases/boards/3D alterable objects in the shops here over the years.)















I lined it with some paper before using a palette knife to add Prima Plaster Paste, Andy's Strata Paste by Cosmic Shimmer, and Ranger Opaque Crackle Paste fairly randomly across the whole surface.













I left that all to dry while I started playing with Grit Paste, Resist Paste and Weathered Wood Crackle Glaze as well as lots of paint on the cogs.













The grit paste gives you a fabulous rusty texture to work with.  On some cogs I started with an undercoat of Paynes Grey and put the gritty paste over the top.














With some I started with grit paste and spattered with Paynes Grey, leaving some bare chipboard in between.














The main paints involved are Quinacridone Gold (both the DecoArt and the Cosmic Shimmer formulations), Raw Umber and Paynes Grey (Cosmic Shimmer) and Finnabair's Burnt Sienna.












I did some highlighting of the texture by scraping on some Speckled Egg Distress Paint with a palette knife, and there's a bit of Antiqued Bronze Distress Crayon in places catching the light too.












The reason for the Speckled Egg was that it was the main colour I wanted to have going on over the textured background, so let's head back to take a look at that now.

I used the Distress Paint along with some Weathered Wood DP too to create my first layer of soft colour over the crackles and layers of texture paste.













The Strata Paste has these amazing flat shale pieces, like a geological rock formation, and they look so cool when you give them a bit of shading and highlighting.
















Obviously, I was never going to stop at just Speckled Egg in the background.  The rusty tones made their way into the cracks and crevices too.

I embraced imperfection, so where some crackle flakes came loose I took advantage and made that a worn away area with rust breaking through.















I added rusty drips and trickles around the bolts in the corners of the panel, trying to create a realistic look of decay and weathering across the whole piece.












And I also used a Tim Holtz  background stamp to add more creeping decay in places along the top and bottom edges.  It's from the Pine & Birch background set, but it has a great look of cracked paint, I think.







I couldn't resist adding some additional shading around the main elements, bedding them in.  I used mostly the Paynes Grey and Raw Umber...

... but there are also places where the shadows take on the beautiful purple tones of Daniel Smith's Moonglow watercolour stick.

And of course, centre stage, are the two fabulous Paper Dolls - I love their grit and determination.

Their direct, uncompromising expressions tell such a strong story about their character and strength.













The Quote Chip pretty much chose itself.  The Birch stamp in Sepia Archival creates some more creeping rust, along with a swipe of Quin Gold to warm the cold white.













I used pieces of the chipboard off-cuts to support the other end of the Quote Chip. and they also came in handy for giving the Paper Dolls support in their dimensional positions.  I love that they cast real shadows!














I haven't given any focus yet to one of my favourite elements - this decayed metal structure with its rusted paint surface and rusty bolts.













I'm really happy with the finished look of this - there's Resist Paste, Weathered Wood Crackle, Distress Paint and Dina Wakley acrylics all in the mix, as well as the grit paste and rusted paints already mentioned to create the rusted screws holding it all together.















And I used a similar decaying paint technique on the two circular panels supporting the large gears at the top.













Okay, I think that's more than enough from me!

There's still lots of lovely inspiration to enjoy over at A Vintage Journey and we hope you'll come and join us somewhere down the road on A Vintage Journey this month with your own Cogs, Gears and Textures.

Thanks so much for stopping by today.

I'm sorry I haven't been around much lately - liaising with Czech builders, trying to start creating some sort of order in the slightly neglected and overgrown garden here, as well as making the most of a resurgent mojo at the craft table has meant I haven't been online as much as usual.

I will try to make the rounds this weekend to see what you've all been up to.  I hope you're keeping well, staying safe and enjoying some creativity too.  Have a great weekend and happy crafting all!

I felt a strange delight in causing my decay.
Robert Browning

... and the rest is rust and stardust.
Vladimir Nabokov

The Golden Hours

Hello all!  I'm so glad you like the new sets of word stamps launched earlier this week over at PaperArtsy.  I've got a couple of new creations this weekend using stamps from the Time Edition, and here's the first of them.

It's doubling as my inspiration piece for the new challenge over at A Vintage Journey, hosted by the lovely Sara Emily, who would like us to work Against the Grain... the idea being to work with wood and woodgrain effects to create your projects.

So my golden clocks are set against a background of weathered wood planks.  Read on to see how it all came about.














The main inspiration for this wooden panel came from these words from my brand new Time Edition stamp set.  If you missed the launch post over at PaperArtsy earlier this week, sharing three new sets of quote stamps, do take a look.











The quote is by J.M. Barrie, whose most famous creation, Peter Pan, knew a thing or two about whiling away the odd golden hour.

I love how it sets up a problem or warning, and then answers itself!










The background was made with some printed woodplank paper - from a Craft Consortium pack called Wood Textures - but the planks were too wide to work on the size tag which is somewhere under here.  You'd only have had two and half planks, as you can see when it's set against the duplicate sheet in the pack.













So I simply cut them into narrower planks lengthwise.  I also cut a couple of them crossways so that I could have shorter planks adding extra interest.  I inked the edges and scuffed them with my scissor blade.













I mounted them on some thicker cardboard to give them a more substantial presence, and then glued them onto a large tag which I'd painted with a rich dark brown.  (I filled in the tag corner spaces with some more of the cardboard to keep it all nice and sturdy.)












I then had quite a lot of fun stamping labels and advertisements onto my wooden planks.  Some of these are Andy Skinner stamps...
















... and others are by Tim Holtz (I just typed him as Time Holtz... not surprising given how often I've typed the word Time in the last few days, what with the new stamps and all!).












I've been stuck in a bit of a rusty rut lately (see Hopes of Spring or Rusted Hope) and I wanted some more!  This is the other die-cut in the set with the chicken wire used on those earlier tags, and it looks just as good rusted up as that does.











I knew that as I was smearing the rust pastes on, there would be quite a lot of waste, so I did it over another piece of small card... and you've already seen that in action, trimmed to frame the words!

It's a combination of Art Extravagance Brown Rust and Imagination Crafts Rusty Patina, which has a more reddish-orange tone to warm up the brown.













I then started to gather timepieces to arrange on the wooden panel.  There are quite a lot of different sorts buried in the stash, in all sorts of metallic tones.











So it was out with the Treasure Gold waxes - my favourite White Fire and some Florentine Gold to bring everything into the same golden colour tones.

I'm generally more of a silvery kind of person, but I can't deny that the gleam of all that gold in the sunlight is rather lovely.

There's a large Idea-ology clock face (originally pewter-coloured, but now rather splendid in gold), complete with clock hands.














There are some actual watch parts, bought as part of a job lot.  I'm delighted to say that the tiny cog on this one still rotates when you touch it, despite the added waxes.
















I've used them occasionally on projects over the years, but then I tend to forget about them for months (years) at a time.















The large engraved circle is the back cover of a pendant watch which I actually used to wear as my watch.  Sadly, you can't replace the battery once it's worn down, so I turned it to crafty purposes.

And watch out tomorrow for the rest of the watch!!













The tiny glass brad on the top is from way back when - I think it may be by Bo Bunny.












Of course you need lots of cogs and gears to keep a clock or watch running well.

(I don't know what that flake of green paint is doing there - must have got in the way as I was photographing and I didn't notice.  It's not there any more.  Harrumph, and I've just checked and found it's in all the photos - bah humbug!)












Best to keep them away from rust, mind you... Oops!















There's lots of golden splatter alongside a bit of my customary white.  It has a spectacular gleam to it.















It's one of Jackson's Art Supplies drawing inks, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what else it can do.















I'm especially looking forward to combining it with other mediums, maybe adding it as some gilding on acrylic backgrounds... more to come soon, I hope.


















So that's me going Against The Grain - using gold, of all things! - but over a lovely weathered wood plank background.

There's lots more lovely woody grainy inspiration from my fellow Creative Guides over at A Vintage Journey, and we're looking forward to seeing your wood-grained creations this month.

Wood is universally beautiful to a man. It is the most humanly intimate of all materials.
Frank Lloyd Wright












I'd like to share this at Country View Challenges where the theme for February is Splatters, Splashes and Drips (something tells me this might not be my only entry!)