Distressed Scrapper

I had so much fun playing along with the Scrap That sketch challenge last month, that I decided to see what they have going on for this month. For July, they again have a sketch challenge, but they also have a “create a canvas” challenge and a round robin (sign ups are currently closed)…for the round robin, I’m team 4 – week 3 and I reveal my lift tomorrow so be sure to check back. 😀

For the canvas, the only criteria was to show dimension. I didn’t actually add a bunch of physical dimension…I did add chipboard fairies and lifted their wands and wings a bit from the canvas board, but I don’t think that shows very well in the photo. I tried to create more visual dimension with this piece instead.

To create the layers of color and texture in the background, I first blotted the canvas board with forest moss distress stain where I knew I was going to be adding grass and streaks of walnut stain and black soot where I wanted the trees to be. I let that dry completely then went over it with acrylic paint. The great thing about distress stains is that it reacts with water even after it’s been dried, so you can get a variation of color in each brush stroke that wouldn’t be there otherwise. It helps create a really cool texture that I love. 😀

Now unfortunately, I messed up the next step…I’d wanted to create a couple of translucent glowing orbs but my mixture was too opaque. I mixed a thinned out blend of iridescent medium, blue and white acrylic paint and that didn’t work out the way I’d anticipated. I guess I should have blended in more gel medium. In an attempt to thin it out, I made the circles on my painting too large and they’re still way too opaque. I hadn’t actually intended to cover up the trees in the background. 😦 Since that part didn’t turn out the way I’d wanted, I was then focusing on damage control and decided to add swirls of glitter radiating from where the fairies’ wands would be. To do that I used Stickles and spread it with a small soft brush. To create the other glittery specks on the page I dabbed iridescent medium randomly on the piece and then applied a drop of Stickles on top of it once it dried. Here’s my finished canvas:

Materials:

8″ x 10″ Canvas Board
Distress Stains
Distress paint
Folk Art Acrylic Paint
AC Moore Acrylic Paint
Iridescent medium
Stickles
StazOn opaque white ink
Petaloo chipboard fairies
Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Stamp

TFL! If you’d like to check out the fun challenges at Scrap That, CLICK HERE!