Snow and Ice or Heat And Dust

Did you know that Christmas can feel different for everyone? When we think Christmas we think cold and snow but our amazing Gayle is about to show us two wonderful completely different interpretation of Christmas.

Hello lovely Mixed Media Place friends. 

No matter what side of the world you live on, if you celebrate Christmas, it’s meaning is shared by us all, and is  the same everywhere. Howerver, Christmas in Australia “feels” very different to Christmas in Europe. I have made two Christmas tags, one reflective of the hot, dry, dusty conditions which is part of an Australian Christmas, while the other one is white, icy and shiny, reflective of a cold European winter.

 Rusty wire, dry grass, the red of Waratahs and the green feathers from Lorikeets are part of an Australian summer.

Cool, crisp air, shiny, wet and icy ground. Old, old cities, with beautiful ancient churches and Christmas traditions that, even here in the heat of Australia, are cherished and followed. ( Like cooking a turkey with all the trimmings when the temperature outside is 40 degrees or more )

Finnabair’s Snowflake Paste is perfect for creating a frosty, snowy look. Micro Beads in Silver and Splash have also been used to create an icy, wet atmosphere.

Where ever you are, and however you celebrate Christmas, may your days be filled with family and love. Merry Christmas everyone.    

Gayle 

Materials Used :

Violin

When we think alter we think Riikka. Our talented team member is about to show you some extraordinary work of art!

I love to alter items! Even though I still consider myself a scrapbooker more than anything I enjoy making dimensional projects maybe even more than the pages. Because the dimension creates a new challenge to me and pushes me to think a bit differently. It’s outside of the 12x12” box I usually do when scrapbooking.

This particular piece has once again the starting point in music and in Turisas more over. One of the instruments in this folk or Viking metal bad is a violin. Olli Vänskä is the master of the instrument in the bad. So when I was thinking about a new piece inspired by the band a funny thought popped into my mind. To use a back piece of the violin as the base instead of a canvas. I happened to ask from my husband that where I would find such a piece and the next day a whole violin was waiting for me at home. Yes, he’s a total keeper!

Then came the hard part to decide if I should take the instrument into pieces or not. I quite quickly decided against it fearing that I would ruin the whole thing if I would start sawing the backing away. Then I needed to decide which side to use. Even though my first idea was to go with the back piece I really liked the shape and curves of the F holes on the front.

The current poster of the band is done in an iconography way and the violinist is depicted as a winged angel in the poster. I transformed the halo and the wing to my piece using mixed media. At first I thought to paint the face of Olli in the disc, kind of the way the ancient painters used to depict winds or angels – just the head and the wings, but after failing to make the painting to please my eye four times I realized that the balance would then be off and painted the whole disc into a huge golden halo.

My first thought was to give this piece away to the band now while they tour in Finland but I liked it a little bit too much myself to part with it just yet. Maybe next time when they play in Helsinki I will be able to give that to the source of the inspiration but until then it’ll have a place in our living room.

Materials from Mixed Media Place:

Autumnal Earth

Rich texture, recreating nature and beauty of Autumn. 
Sensational art from Fran will leave you speechless.

Hello lovely readers,

I hope you are all well. Although it is now Winter I was inspired by the rich rust coloured falling leaves of Autumn. I wanted warm rich colours and thick, heavy, tactile textures evocative of autumnal earth.  One of the things I like about that particular time of year is the way leaves peacefully fall down onto the ground below, almost feather like.

I covered the canvas with Heavy Gesso which was extra thick as I'd left the lid off for a few days (bad crafting trait!) so it was extra lumpy which makes for great ultra texture. 

Once the gesso was dry I painted over it with Copper Crackle Paste then added glass glitter in areas to replicate grit in the earth. I then blended paints and mica powders around the canvas adding warmth with Prima pink chalk paint. 

 To soften the composition I added mica flakes and scrunched up teared up book pages which I adhered to the canvas with 3D Gel so the paper kept it's dimension.

For the leaf, I die cut a piece of sheet copper then I hammered it for create indents then I've covered it with alchohol ink and black Ecoline ink to highlight and create veins on the leaf. Coiled copper wire was also used to create 3D leaf veins.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a warm, creative December!

Fran

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