Textures and Stencils!

Hello there and welcome to Magpieheaven! Blogland seems to be alive with beautiful texture! I've been visiting some wonderful blogs and admiring some fantastic works of art that you can't help but want to reach out and touch. At Frilly and Funkie there's a great challenge to create using stencils and texture. I needed to make a special card for someone whose identity I won't reveal as she might read this blog, but I know she loves texture and stencils. Her birthday isn't so very far away, so I decided to create something for this challenge and especially for her. I should like to enter this textured and stenciled card for the Frilly and Funkie Challenge.

I started with this scrap of yellow gold material patterned with delicate roses. How did I get from that to this?

 I ironed my fabric and then cut out a tag from it and a piece of card using my Tim Holtz tag die-cut. I stamped my fabric tag with the Lynne Perrella stamp I simply can't stop using at the moment! On her blog, Lynne talks about finding the inspiration for these vintage images in the outdoor postcard market in Paris! What a wonderful place that must be filled with a lifetime's material for art and stories! I inked with Versafine Onyx black and then, with a piece of grease-proof over the top, I pressed my tag again to heat set it and then fixed it to the card tag with PaperArtsy Satin Glaze. I'm really sorry, but this was one of those occasions when I got so carried away everything but the project was forgotten and when I looked at the time - well, I needed to cook supper, my project was in the last stages and I hadn't taken a single photo! I hope that detail pics and my memory of what I did step by step will suffice!

I wanted to use strong and contrasting colours on my tag and to create both an impression of texture in the painting, and to capitalise on the texture of my fabric. I mixed PaperArtsy Fresco paints in Bora Bora, Inky Pool, South Pacific, Hey Pesto, Nougat, London Bus and Autumn Fire and some of the lovely Limited Edition Lin Brown Chartreuse with blobs of Liquitex Fabric Medium. This stuff was brilliant, as it made applying the paint to the fabric so much easier without thinning it and taking away its vibrancy. I shaded and built up the faces especially, with different applications of colour, a little as I might do with oil painting and I allowed some of the yellow fabric to show through to give the impression of lamp-light. I used a fine paintbrush to highlight the hearts and to go over detail. When I was satisfied with the painty effects on my fabric tag, I applied a coat of Satin Glaze, allowed this to dry and then applied another. I think I applied four coats in all. I was delighted with the effect. My fabric had become like canvas and those Fresco colours really glimmered.

Here, I hope, you can see the effect of the fabric showing through the translucence of the paints. I hope it gives the impression of faces glowing in the lamplight as they write their journals, love-letters or memoirs! You will see too that I added a sprinkling of Shabby Blue Frantage to create a different kind of texture. I hope you can see how the Liquitex makes blending paints on the fabric so much easier.

 Now for the background, which I worked on while my tag dried. To create texture here, I used the technique I've seen demonstrated by the wonderful Darcy Wilkinson of Art and Sole, applying layers of paint, stenciling and stamping and then wiping away and sanding to reveal the layers beneath. I also brayered with Nougat and used found objects to create circles. The script you can see here is a PaperArtsy mini 26 stamped first in white and then over the top in blue and the stencil is a Prima one of flourishes, which I love at the moment. When I was satisfied with my background I finished off by stenciling over it with Wendy Vecchi gold Embossing Paste flourishes. I made the button from Shrink Plastic, using the buttoned boot from Lynne Perrella's new stamps. I created a Mother of Pearl effect by clear embossing my button  which is a PaperArtsy die-cut flower, with UTEE, and then rubbing a little Aquamarine Treasure Gold over the edges when it was cooled down. I punched two holes in the centre with a Crop-o-dile to make it a proper button and then threaded through a scrap of embroidery silk and tied in a bow.

I added further texture to ribbons and flowers by painting this Peterloo flower with Bora Bora and giving it a Treasure Gold centre. The seam binding is dyed with some Tim Holtz Distress Inks in Peacock Feathers and Broken China. I used narrow strips of blue ribbon as trim, dyeing them with Distress Inks and then melting Shabby Blue Frantage over them to add texture.

The sentiment, which is from Lin Brown's lovely flower sentiment collection was stamped onto some of the fabric and then stacked onto little squares of card edged with UTEE, slightly melted so that it kept its granular texture. I painted a resin flower arrangement with Mermaid and then highlighted it with Treasure Gold in Aquamarine and Green Amber. I thought my tag might appear a little 'lost' against the blue background of the card, so I painted a rectangle of card with Little Black Dress and stenciled flourishes on it in Antarctic.
Thank you so much for looking at my play with textures. I've so enjoyed creating these effects and exploring yet another way of using this highly adaptable Lynne Perrella collection. Wherever you are and whatever you're doing have a happy and creative time.