Wonderland by Gill Humphrey

My make for today is a mixed media home decor piece which has been created on a 6" x 12" canvas - these can be difficult to source but you could use a piece of MDF for the base if that is easier to find. For this make I started by adding colour to the canvas to achieve the effect I was looking for  I simply brushed the paint on in areas and then blended the three paints together until I was happy with the effect. I chose to use 3 different colours of Allegro paints - Light Blue, Powder Blush, and a very pale blue which you can make by mixing white with a very tiny amount of the light blue.

I then added some stencilling using the Check Mate stencil and Pentart Modelling Paste and left it to dry whilst I prepared my embellishments.

I made my resin pieces using three different moulds - Check Mate, Windows and Doors and Wonderland Plates and Amazing Casting Resin. I like this resin as it sets reasonably quickly but has a good working time - however I would not recommend making one batch for all of the pieces. I mixed in quantities of 20ml of A and 20ml of B as this means that I don't risk it curing in my mixing pots.

Once the resin had set I painted the door and the wonderland word plate with Mahogony paint and left it to dry before adding dry brushing with the pink and pale blue paints. On top of this I added some gold wax  - Vintage Gold from Prima would work really well for this. The chess pieces I painted with a really dark blue - Prussian Blue instead of black as I wanted a softer look and the others with Old Ivory. Once these were dry I added more gold wax - if you add to much use can use a clear wax (solid furniture polish) to lift off the excess colour. 

I added some layers of torn paper strips from Alice In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass layering these up on strips of cardboard. As I layered the pieces in place I added pieces of Texture Decorative Chips coloured with more gold wax.

The window and word plate were added with layers of cardboard so that they sat flat on the base layer of papers. I then added the resin chess pieces before adding in fussy cut chess board pieces from the papers.

I added natural moss, faux flowers and stamens to ground all my elements before adding a little of the old ivory paint to the moss and other elements and also on to the background - to do this I used the paint on a piece of cut up dishwasher sponge. Finally I thinned down some of the Prussian Blue paint and added some splashes.