Hello! I hope you managed to catch That's Crafty! on Tuesday with the lovely Jo Channon and saw all the gorgeous new products and the fabulous new quirky designs by Magda Polakow. I had the privilege to work with these to make a couple of samples for the show and I have the first of these to share this week featuring the gorgeous fish stencil which I've used in a rather different way. You might need a cuppa too as the post is quite photo heavy!

Step by Step

I made the background on the panel first by initially brushing on white gesso because I knew I wanted to use some spraying and misting to create a watery effect. I then used some stencils with texture paste to add the bubbles, dappled effect, seaweed and texture sand paste for the shells - using the fossil stencil.


Once everything was dry, I added dabs of lime, teal and yellow multi surface paints and misted with water to make the paints run down the panel, adding aqua and basil matte sprays to the mix. It does give a lovely streaky watery look if you let the paints run.



I then used diluted multi surface and shimmer paints to paint the raised texture areas, using a dotting technique on the shells and streaking technique on the seaweed as I wanted it to look as true to life as I could manage. Adding metallic pearl paint to the bubbles and light dabbles gave them a subtle shine.



My next task was to create my fish which I did by spreading light texture paste on mixed media paper and letting this layer dry. I then used the fish stencil on top with texture paste to make the fish shapes. I chose images facing in both directions for variety, turning the stencil over in some cases.



I cut the fish out when they were dry and painted them with multi surface paints diluted slightly with water - the paints are quite thick so if you paint with them you can add water to make the colour go further as you don't usually need it to be that thick.

Once the paint was dry I brushed 3D gloss gel over the top to give the fish a nice shine. I also brushed it on the shells and seaweed as it really makes the colours pop.

I then decided to add some bling to the background which I did by gluing on some green and aqua sequins. When they were dry I brushed glitter glue over the top, adding a touch to the shells too. I glued on my fish, placing them on the sections first to decide on the final arrangement.






That's Crafty! Mediums Texture Paste
That's Crafty! Mediums Light Texture Paste
That's Crafty! Mediums Sand Texture Paste
That's Crafty! Flat Matte Sprays - Aqua, Basil
That's Crafty! Multi Surface Paints - Black, Bright Blue, Bright Magenta, Bright Blue, Chestnut Brown, Evergreen, Green, Lime, Mustard, Orange, Teal, Yellow
That's Crafty! Multi Surface Paint - Metallic Pearl
That's Crafty! White Gesso
Ranger Stickles Glitter Glue - Jade
Extras - Aqua and green sequins