Circles and Purple - Dragons Dream TIO

Welcome to Magpieheaven and another challenge over at Dragons Dream TIO. Last time we were so very impressed with all your fabulous interpretations of yellow and texture and the winners will soon be announced. This fortnight it's the turn of the lovely Catherine to choose our recipe and she challenges us to create a tag using purple, circles and - of course - at least one real stamp. If you pop over to the Dragons Dream blog you will see all the inspiration the Dragons have dreamed up. I've been sketching faces and altering them digitally so I really wanted to use some of my drawing on this tag.

I sketched a face using Portfolio Pastels on a page from a vintage book of old sayings and quotes. The image was scanned into my computer and I then re-sized it and shaped into a circle to fit in with the theme. I had a vague idea of what I wanted before I began the tag, but as is usually the case, it wasn't quite as I planned it. I'll show you a few step by steps.

The first step was to take a Jumbo tag and a Lin Brown circle stencil and apply some Grunge Paste with a palette knife. Before this was quite dry, I pressed a postmark stamp and some tiny beads into some of the circles. Once the tag was dry I gave it a coat of Pansy Fresco.

Now for the fun part! I'm not one to use a lot of purple, but I do have quite a few shades in my paint collection! I blended Spanish Mulberry Fresco; London Night; Blueberry; Eggplant and Bougainvillea on this tag. For the lighter accents I used Sherbet. You can probably see that I did some stencilling in Sherbet too and stamped Sara Nauman's 'Words' in Sherbet. I used a lid dipped in Sherbet Fresco to create some more circles.

Here is the next step - with my art work attached; some brayering with Sherbet and some Treasure Gold highlights, which really brought out the texture of the tiny beads and the stamping into Grunge Paste. To add a little more texture to the circles and to make what was enclosed inside them stand out, I dipped my lid into Versamark and sprinkled Gold UTEE and Shabby Green Frantage around the sticky circle before heating.

Some little hand-rolled paper beads coated with Gold UTEE and Frantage and Clear UTEE added the finishing touch.

I added more circles of melted Frantage until I was happy with the effect and finally added a sentiment from the Artistic Outpost 'Think and Wonder' plate: "If you never did, you should". Copper wire seemed to go with the purple of the tag and the melted gold.

I wonder what my 'purple girl' is thinking? The text across her portrait speaks of not 'grasping for the stars', but finding joy in daily duties. There is also a quote about the stormy seas of love. These words along with the quote I chose, suggest to me that she is conflicted - should she settle for security and domesticity, or should she take risks and live a more adventurous life? I would love to know what she decided! I do hope you will challenge yourself to dream with the Dragons this fortnight and link up a purple tag with a circle theme. If you never did before - you should! Have a great week full of creativity and fun.