A Deco-Crackle-Art Paintboard Tutorial

Servus and welcome back, my dear crafting friends, readers and followers!

Time for a new DecoArt tutorial, don't you think?

DecoArt are just releasing their new fabulous media line (which was developed by none less than the fabulous Andy Skinner himself!), which will provide you with a load of new crackle media goodness, fantastic antiquing creams, a new modelling paste or the stunningly vibrant spray paints - to name only just a few.


Experimenting with these I came up with this paintboard:

Materials list:

- from the new DecoArt media line:
  - white Modelling Paste
  - Matte Medium
  - white Crackle Paint
  - white Gesso
  - Raw Umber and Patina Green
    Antiquing Cream
  - Cobalt Turquoise Hue,  
    Cobalt Teal  Hue, 
    Quinacridone Gold,
    Pyrrole Orange  fluid acrylics
  - turquoise Shimmer Mister
  - white and orange Misters

- other DecoArt products:
  - matte Decou-Page
  - Raw Umber Traditions acrylic paint

- other materials: 
  - an 8x8 inch piece of paintboard
  - MDF flourish (exclusive design from That Craft Place Ltd.)
  - palette knife, fine tip brush, wider brush, baby wipes, water
  - metal findings (thanks to dear Uncle Helmut, my stash has once more grown this summer ;), old watch parts    xx(available at Retro Kraft Shop)
  - scraps from an old dictionary or book
  - texture plate or stamp
  - idea-ology alpha parts or chipboard letters
  - optional: script/pattern stamps and black archival stamping ink

Step 1 

 Tear scraps from old dictionary pages and glue them to your paintboard using matte Decou-Page. 

Step 2

Apply white Modeling Paste to various spots using a small palette knife. 

Stamp some texture into these spots. I used a texture plate which I lightly sprayed with water first.

Step 3 

Use Matte Medium to glue the flourish to your paintboard and give it a top coat with the Matte Medium too. 

Step 4

Once dry paint the flourish with the white Crackle Paint (I used a very thin soft brush as it helps spreading the Crackle Paint more easily) and let dry naturally. 

Step 5 

Use a small palette knife and also spread some of the white Crackle Paint on your paintboard by scraping it on. This will create beautiful random shapes of crackled areas. 

Step 6

Paint the remaining areas with white Gesso. Blend in the glued on dictionary scraps by painting over the edges with diluted Gesso. 

Step 7

In the meantime the Crackle Paint should have done its magic on the flourish. Rub in some Raw Umber Antiquing Cream to make the cracks more visible. Let it sit for a minute or two. Wipe off the excess with a baby wipe while the Antiquing Cream is still wet.

Step 8

Glue some old watch parts or gears to your flourish using matte Decou-Page. Paint them with white Gesso to add some "tooth" for the colours we are going to add later. 

Step 9

While the Gesso dries, paint the spots of dried Modeling Paste with Traditions "Raw Umber". Blur the edges around these spots by spreading some of the colour with a water loaded brush. 

Your project should look something like this so far:

You can see the dried Crackle Paint and how the white Gesso helped with blending in the dictionary scraps with the background. 

Step 10

Paint a "shade" around the flourish using a fine tip brush. This will create a better contrast and thus highlight the flourish. 

Step 11

Take the new media "Cobalt Turquoise Hue" and paint some areas with it. 

You will love the new media fluid acrylics as they really are highly concentrated pigment, which makes a little of it (or even using it as a wash) create a wonderfully intense effect! 

Step 12

Paint the watch parts with "Quinacridone Gold" and let dry. 

 Also spread some of it on the still white spots of your paintboard:

Step 13

Pour some white Crackle Paste into a small container and add some "Cobalt Teal Hue"  to tint it to a light teal colour tone. Randomly scrape the tinted Crackle Paste onto your paintboard, overlapping it with some of the already covered spots.

 Let dry naturally! 

 

before x       xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxafter 

Step 14

Stencil some texture/text/numbers onto the paintboard using Traditions Raw Umber acrylic paint. 

  

Use the same paint to dab it around the edges of your paintboard to create an irregularly shaped "frame" that will hold your design together:

Step 15

Make a wash with the  Patina Green Antiquing Cream and apply it to the previously painted Modeling Paste and the painted watch parts:

Glue on some old and worn metal findings or embellishments using matte Decou-Page. It really is my first choice when having to fix bulkier and heavier items to my canvases! Let dry.

Step 16

After all has dried spray on some splatters of various DecoArt media Misters. I used the turquoise Shimmer Mister and the white and orange Misters for my paintboard.

The white from the white Mister is awesomely opaque:

as is the orange:

Step 17

Add a sentiment using alpha parts or chipboard letters and dab on some Pyrrole Orange media fluid acrylic.

Step 18

(optional)

Stamp on some script or other patterns for more texture.

You're done! 

***

Some close ups as usual:

Thank you so much for reading this far and stopping by! I hope you leave my spot inspired and ready to create your art out! ;)

Hugs and happy crafting!

Claudia 

xxx

Two brilliant challenges I enter this paintboard piece to:

The Mirror Crack'd - Anything goes

Anything But A Card - Steampunktember

A Very Vintage Necklace

Servus, dear crafting friends!
Today I want to share with you an altered art jewelry piece I made:

 

Maybe you already know Retro Kraft Shop, Meresanth's fabulous online store for vintage and steampunk items? I really love the range she offers - especially the watch parts and metal embellishments - but also the range of media she offers is perfect for creating steampunk and/or vintage projects that look heavenly aged and as if they had a story to tell.

I used some of her lovely stuff (watch gears, a watch dial, a vintage button, a metal watch case and some lace ribbon alongside the metal chain) to create a vintage necklace.

I especially love the "damaged" watch dial and the lovely openable watch case which I turned from shiny silver into aged bronze (with a hint of patina) by using Inka Gold guilding pastes which you can also buy at Agnieszka aka Meresanth's Retro Kraft Shop! You will find a short tutorial including a detailed materials list over at the Retro Kraft Shop blog .

The inside of the watch case holds some tiny watch gears and a lovely background paper from the Prima "Cartographer" pad, which is one of my favourites at the moment.

The frozen charlotte was a find at ebay. (I am working on making casts from frozen charlottes using white UTEE at the moment so I won't run out of my real antique ones...maybe I will show you the cast frozen charlottes with a later project...but for now I am still experimenting with my melt pot and the "perfect" cast ;).

The single items were wrapped with black wire and built into loops so I could fix them to the chain with jump rings later. I still have to practice a lot with creating these wire loops and wrappings as you can see... (looking at the photograph while writing this post I find that I forgot to bend in the ends of the wire thoroughly with the vintage button pendant...uh oh...  ;) . The wire was given some dabs with Inka Gold "Brown" guilding paste to soften the dark black colour.

I hope you like my necklace and I really recommend you visit Retro Kraft Shop to see their awesome range of vintage treasures!

Hugs and happy crafting,

Claudia x