April Art Draw - steampunk pocket watch

Here at last, a bit later than planned. This month's offering is this Wendy Vecchi Art Parts pocket watch. As usual the photography probably doesn't do it justice.

Had great fun grunging this up with paints and powders. The large cogs are chipboard pieces from eco green while the smaller pieces embedded in crackle glaze are old watch parts. Had great fun texturing the cogs (no I don't have a texturising tool just a hammer - noisy but fun). Used Clearly for Art to make the flowers following a Wendy Vecchi tutorial (I should emphasise hers don't look like this - I must have lost my way somewhere - but they are still kinda neat). It has a little chain so it can be hung or you could just leave it in the box.

So the April Art Draw will remain open until 9.00 pm on Saturday 28th April. All you  need to do is leave a comment on this post and I will include you in the draw (well I don't actually draw it so much as feed the numbers in to Mr Random Generator!).

International players are most welcome and I'd love it if you have the time (and ability) to link from your own blogs. In fact, although I hate sounding like I'm making people jump through hoops, if you do I will put you in  the 'draw' twice, so more chances to win.

Thanks for stopping by and I'll try to return the favour - I am getting better, honest!!

Happy Easter everyone!

Cindyxx

February Art Draw - it's Luvverly!!

If I do say so myself. Not often I'm tempted to keep my giveaways and fob you off with something else but am quite pleased with the way this turned out ...... but I'll stick to the original plan, especially as I already gave you a sneak preview before I went away.

My original inspiration came from two projects in February's Craft Stamper Magazine - 'Their Hearts Connected' by Louise Crosbie (AKA Zuzu) and 'A Splash of Paint' by Trish Latimer. The minute I saw them I knew I wanted to make something similar and get very painty and inky!! I had already decided to do something romantic with hearts using my canvases - it is February after all - and originally tried a red, and then a red and purple colourway (you may remember the red canvases from waaaaaay back).


Somehow it ended up too harsh looking so I softened it with gesso, some pink and added a touch of turquoise and I like it much better.

I really like using canvases 'backwards' for the possibilities they give as a kind of shadow box and I had two hanging about waiting for a project. The only trouble was they are quite small - about 7 x 10 cms - so finding teeny tiny things to go inside was a bit of a challenge. For the main message on the front which I wanted to be clear I stamped on to tissue first and then adhered with gel medium - I always find this works really well.

I did wonder at one point if I
had over mixed my metaphors so to speak as I seemed to have some funky paint effects going on and then went all vintage with a cherub and some tiny paper roses - but I decided  the colours held it all together.






And at last a use for one of those little corked bottles!! Bought them a year ago and they have been languishing in my stash ever since. Filled it with tiny silver stars as I couldn't find any tiny hearts in my stash.





Anyhow, enough of my waffling. If you would like to enter the Art Draw then leave a comment on this post before 9.00 pm on Saturday 25th February.

International players are very welcome. It always seems a bit cheeky to say this as I am not very good at any of this technical linking stuff but I would be very happy for you to link from your own blogs  - the more the merrier.

Finally, as I have been catching up in Blogland I have noticed there are a lot of challenges out there to do with Valentine's, hearts, romance..... there's definitely something in the air. So I'm linking this project to Snazzy's Design Team Blog Challenge # 1, Love/Romance. There are prizes!!! I've also linked in to the Link Party at Cindy Adkins' blog if you would like to join in as well. It also fits the theme for a new9ish) challenge blog  that I have come across - 'art with no boundaries'