A Walk in the Park by Rachel Harries

This weeks post was inspired by a walk in my local park, its a stones throw form where I live and it has a huge place in my heart, its only a little Victorian park and perhaps half a mile in circumference. Its somewhere I try to go most days and I often take my granddaughter who is eighteen months old and needs to pick everything up, the stick and feather in this piece are two of her finds.

I start off with a Chunkie, I really like these as a surface to create on.

I put the Chunkie together and give it quite an irregular coat of gesso as this will give a little texture to the background right from the start.

I then take my stencil and I use it first with some paint and a sponge rubbing through the stencil as I am not looking for definition but a dispersal of the colour. I then use the stencil again with sand texture paste on top of where I stencilled with paint and as you can see this creates a sort of shadowed effect.

I then take the elements I wish to use and arrange them in a way that is pleasing to me, I use a combination of That's Crafty! Adhesive and thick bodied gel to stick everything down in place. I could set this with a heat tool but I leave it over night to dry, so I take the opportunity to put some icing paste on an embossing folder as I will add this to the piece and it also needs to dry overnight. Once its dry I add it to my Chunkie.

I then give everything a coat of gesso.

I add layers of Pastel Blue Ayeeda Spray, Bronze Patina Ayeeda Spray, Turquoise Glitter Drops and Bronze Glitter Drops.

Then I take some gold thread and tie it in a bit of a web like pattern through my twig, I then add some Gold Glitter Drops in places.

for the finishing touch I add a little dangly crystal to the end of the branch.

I hope you enjoyed the project, I really enjoyed incorporating something from my walks with my granddaughter in to this project, it will be something to talk about in years to come. Stay safe and see you next week.

That's Crafty! Surfaces MDF Chunkies

That's Crafty! White Gesso

Finnabair Gothic Stencil

Finnabair Super Heavy Body Gel

That's Crafty! Adhesive

Finnabair Icing Paste

13arts Ayeeda Mists

13arts Splash Ink Glitter

That's Crafty! Greyboard Cogs

Daily Art Hardboard Numbers

13 Arts Adornments

Tim Holtz Metal Adornments

Tim Holtz Hardware Heads

That's Crafty! Sand Texture Paste