The basic instructions were add lots of texture, paint black, colour using mica paints and sprays, highlight with Treasure Gold etc.
So, being straight after Christmas what else would I start with but a used cake board. My house is testament to the fact that I keep all sorts of "rubbish" because it will "come in for something" and cake boards with scored foil covering make a great recycled substrate.
My first layer of texture was torn book pages - the pieces overlapped to cover the entire board and stuck down and sealed over with ModPodge.
Because the board was circular I was inspired to make the piece look like the Earth. I then used an entire pot of Distress Crackle Paint that had been knocking around since I don't know when to create the continents by applying a very, very thick layer with a palette knife.
Layer three of texture was created by adding embellishments of various types. The foliage is die cut fun foam, there are paper flowers, shells, bits of fibre and hessian and items moulded from paper clay. The letters were old stash glittered in red and green but it didn't matter that I didn't have matching colours to make up the words for this.
I mixed black acrylic paint and clear gesso to create a black primer and painted everything with two coats. Black gesso would been easier but I didn't have any and wanted to get on. The blue sea and green land were painted with Lumiere paints mixed with a bit of water to get it to run around into the cracks.
All the embellishments are painted with Twinkling H2Os. I used lots of old stuff making this that hadn't been out of the cupboard for ages. Lastly I applied Treasure Gold with my fingers (what else?) to highlight some of the texture details.
Here you can see some of the detail. The circles were made by coiling up the wire stems cut off the paper flowers.
The twirly bits like little springs were made from left over wire stems too.
Now I have to figure out how I'm going to post this to my swap partner.
