Sunday 8 February 2015

Where did Jan go??

I look away for one moment and it's February! How did that happen?

Unfortunately I had a particular bad bout of depression and had to take 2 weeks out from pretty much everything. Even the things I enjoy were beyond me and I sat looking forlornly at my crochet blanket and beautiful cross stitch like a man with no teeth might look at a juicy steak.

The lovely Catherine over at the Inky Fingered Cat blog has been inspiring me recently (check out her gorgeous ATCs!) and I saw that she was taking part in the Art and Sole Calendar Challenge 2015. This challenge, started by the talented Darcy, is to take a 2015 calendar and alter a page each month using the rules provided by Darcy. I'm late to the challenge and so I missed the deadline for January but I can still show you here.

January's rules were... to keep a part of the original picture and use it as part of your design; to use a crackling technique; and to incorporate book text. I didn't have any crackle glaze so I had to think outside the box on that part. The page originally looked like this (yum!)...




I first applied a layer of Gesso and then started adding some ink in Cajun Craze and Bravo Burgundy shades. I added some skeletal trees using white pigment ink and applied it thickly enough that it created a sort of crackle effect when it dried...



I decorated Benedict's suit with a teacup stamp as a homage to his role as the tea drinking detective, Sherlock Holmes. I also added text from an old school textbook about spices and tried to blend this in with the background....

I then basically mucked the whole thing up by smudging one of the trees that hadn't dried. It made a complete mess of one corner and so I had to do some damage limitation by adding more book text and ink. Sadly I couldn't get this to blend in so it looks a bit 'just stuck there' *sigh* Still, I know not to go overboard with a slow drying ink ever again!



In the end, the final page looked like this...


I can't say I'm totally happy with it but I did enjoy the process of creating it.

1.. Keep a part of the original picture and incorporate that into your design
2, Technique - Crackling, any brand of crackle glaze, or the pva crackle method.... or any other way you can think of to add crackling. 
3. Add some book text 
- See more at: http://art-and-sole.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/calendar-challenge-2015-january.html#sthash.HHswvuHm.dpuf
1.. Keep a part of the original picture and incorporate that into your design
2, Technique - Crackling, any brand of crackle glaze, or the pva crackle method.... or any other way you can think of to add crackling. 
3. Add some book text 
- See more at: http://art-and-sole.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/calendar-challenge-2015-january.html#sthash.HHswvuHm.dpuf
1.. Keep a part of the original picture and incorporate that into your design
2, Technique - Crackling, any brand of crackle glaze, or the pva crackle method.... or any other way you can think of to add crackling. 
3. Add some book text 
- See more at: http://art-and-sole.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/calendar-challenge-2015-january.html#sthash.HHswvuHm.dpuf
1.. Keep a part of the original picture and incorporate that into your design
2, Technique - Crackling, any brand of crackle glaze, or the pva crackle method.... or any other way you can think of to add crackling. 
3. Add some book text 
- See more at: http://art-and-sole.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/calendar-challenge-2015-january.html#sthash.HHswvuHm.dpuf
1.. Keep a part of the original picture and incorporate that into your design
2, Technique - Crackling, any brand of crackle glaze, or the pva crackle method.... or any other way you can think of to add crackling. 
3. Add some book text 
- See more at: http://art-and-sole.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/calendar-challenge-2015-january.html#sthash.HHswvuHm.dpuf
1.. Keep a part of the original picture and incorporate that into your design
2, Technique - Crackling, any brand of crackle glaze, or the pva crackle method.... or any other way you can think of to add crackling. 
3. Add some book text 
- See more at: http://art-and-sole.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/calendar-challenge-2015-january.html#sthash.HHswvuHm.dpuf

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