Artful Days : June 2018

Thursday 28 June 2018

Deep Blue Sea Canvas - By Teresa Morgan

Hello Evening all

Phew, what a warm week, what have you been doing to cool down?
Lots of fans and ice lollies here :)

This would be a perfect time to be a little mermaid swimming around in the lovely deep blue sea, and with Teresa's help we can really imagine that with this stunning canvas.

I just love the rusty porthole and the way all things from the sea are clustered in the corner, it looks like she is on her way to investigate the treasures of the deep.

Mix the coloured sand with some heavy gel medium using a palette knife and apply around the canvas randomly, concentrating in one corner. Add Pearl Art Balls and Acrylic Dew Drops for added texture and allow to dry.

Pull strands out of the hessian to create an open textured 'net' effect and glue down with more gel medium. Cut a porthole from grey board and make 'nuts and bolts' with MDF hexagons and adhesive pearls. Once again, allow to dry before continuing.

Paint over the canvas with white gesso, let dry then apply Lindy's Magicals. Spritz the Magicals with water and tilt the canvas to allow drips to form. Keep building up the colour until you are happy with the effect.

Paint the porthole with gesso and let dry before painting a rust effect using DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics.

Add various embellishments - charms, shells, glass bottle, cork etc to the bottom corner. Stick in place using Pinflair Glue Gel.

Glue the porthole into place and paint a seascape inside using DecoArt paints. Paint the resin mermaid and glue in place sing Glue Gel.

Add touches of rust coloured paint to small areas around the edge, just to balance the design, and the piece is finished.

Shopping list

White Resin Mermaid

Wide Hessian

Artful Days Acrylic Dewdrops Clear

Artful Days Pearl Art Balls White

Artful Days Decorative Art Sand: Ice Blue, Cream

Lindy's Magicals: Gutentag Teal

Glass Vial

Sea Themed Word Charms

Assorted Scallop Seashells

Mini Seashells Capsules

Bronze Starfish Charms

Acrylic Shells

Artful Days Decorative Cork

Teresa's own stash

Canvas Board

Greyboard (to make porthole)

MDF Hexagons

Adhesive Pearls

Heavy Gel Medium

White Gesso

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics

All Purpose Glue

Pinflair Glue Gel

Please leave a lovely comment to support our designers and thanks for looking.

For more projects for Teresa please check out her blog http://thefatcactus.co.uk and You Tube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChNbVhMz7jX66gevhKgz5Ig/feed

Jules xx

Tuesday 19 June 2018

Seahorse Journey By Teresa

Hello wonderful crafty people

Sorry its been a little while since our last blog, been busy working a projects and some new product releases coming soon...

In the meantime we have been in holiday mood and thinking of the beach, so Teresa has made a truly beautiful seahorse themed shadow box, I love everything about this piece, its simple but very detailed at the same time. I totally agree with Teresa that it is a treasure with the deep.

I just had to buy some of the baked textures from my friends Debs at https://www.debsartzone.co.uk/, can't wait to try them.

We have been busy loading some sea themed products, including the resin seahorses Teresa has used (just 1.00 for pack of 2), so please do have a look at our website www.artfuldays.co.uk

I cut two pieces of patterned paper to fit inside the mini wooden trays. (The trays originally had some little wooden embellishments in them, I knew they would be useful one day!)

I covered the sides of the wooden trays with a couple of layers of Chunky Rust Embossing powder - you could use texture paste and paint to create a similar effect). Once done, I glued the patterned paper inside the tray bases.

I coloured the resin seahorse using Lindy's Magicals. I love the slightly aged effect, and the way the colours tone with the papers.

I carefully popped out one of the Journey chipboards and coated with Crackle Accents. I set this aside to dry for an hour, then went over it with a wash of black watercolour paint to highlight the crackle effect.

I then backed it onto a narrow strip of patterned paper to help stabilise it as I wanted to mount the word across the front of the tray.

I applied a generous amount of glue into the lower section of the tray and poured the pearl beads in, pressing them into place. I then tipped away any excess and allowed the glue to

dry.