Sunday 6 November 2016

Working My Fairytale Magic

Nothing beats going back to your childhood and spending some time throwing paint around with your sister and recently I did just that, with my older sister Tina. Tina is a professional photographer ( and a pretty amazing one at that - check out her work on her website here), and every so often she likes to throw a creative challenge my way, making props for her studio shoots. 

She traveled to me a couple of weeks ago, armed with over sized book shaped constructions, put together by her husband, and our mission was to turn them into giant story books for children. We took over my conservatory and set to work!


Tina was working on a pirate story book, and the theme for mine was to be fairy tales. 


Step one was to add some texture to the 'book' , which I did by covering it with tissue paper.


While that dried I cut a castle and lettering from SVG files on my Cameo, and arranged the basic image out  to check I was happy.


The entire book was then covered with white gesso.


 I created some trees hanging over the castle with texture paste and a mask, then I used my fingers to apply acrylic paint , in blues, purples and pinks, and shimmering cream for highlights. When that was dry I sprayed areas with cosmic shimmer spray to really make it magical and shimmery. I painted my castle, cut and stamped pillars and a sweeping driveway, and once I had stuck it to the book I used hot glue to edge around it, creating definition to the turrets, and covered the glue with gilding wax, which  I think it made it look a little like an ice palace don't you?


I defined the tree branches with a grey marker, and added Nuvo Drops as berries. I love this drops, so easy to use and the colours are beautiful!


Every castle needs a hero and a princess of course, and I had the perfect stamps in my stash, made by Visible Image. The brick work stamp I used was also from them ( I have a bit of an obsession and rather a large collection!). In this story my princess is about to be snatched by a dragon, but her heroic beau will not doubt come to the rescue!





I have to admit, I am thrilled with how the finished project turned out and I can't wait to see Tina how works her own magic in her studio with it. There's no rest for me though now my work is done - I went to visit her last week ( where she put me to work making santa hats!!) and she sent me home with another book to work on for her. Can't wait to get started!


Challenges:







2 comments:

  1. Wowzer... Superb make :) Thank you so much for joining us at Pearly Sparkles. Traci DT xx

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