Self Care by Gill Humphrey

I don't know about you but I think self care is something that is easily forgotten especially if you are busy working, a mum or a carer but its such an important thing to do and so decided to create a home decor piece to remind me that if we do not look after ourselves we are likely not to be able to look after others.

For the base of my piece I started with an A4 canvas and added some subtle colour using Pink and Orange Liquid Watercolours - go gently as they are pigment rich but a good spray of water will dilute them and allow you to move them about the canvas with a brush or simply by tilting the canvas to get runs of colour. I then added some background stencilling with the Manuscript and Roses stencil and Modelling Paste knowing that the wet paste would reactivate the dried watercolours and so the paste would become slightly pigmented with out the need for me to colour it for my self.

Whilst I knew that my words were going to come form the Rose Parfume collection I wanted to add some home inspired images and chose to use elements cut from the Welcome Home Collectables papers layering them in place using Express Glue.

I created a collection of resin elements by casting resin pieces from several mould: mirrors, plates, frames and roses and cups moulds. These were then given a coat of Primer Paste before adding colour. The word plates were painted with Old Ivory paint before antiquing with Vintage Antiquing Paste (Umbra Patina Antique Paste will work) and then the words highlighted by rubbing over a Black Soot Distress Archival Ink Pad. The roses were painted with Ancient Pink Allegro paint and then dropping in some of the Pink and Orange Liquid Watercolours whilst the  paint was wet. Once dried these too were distressed with the Antiquing Paste. The mirror, cups and tea/coffee pots were painted with Blue Aviation Allegro mixed with a little of the Old Ivory to soften it and details picked out with Old Ivory paint before distressing in the same way as the plaques. Finally the plaques and blue pieces had a little gold metallic wax added. 

Having created all of my elements the pieces were layered in place using left over bits of MDF to stabilise the mirrror. I added a lady form the Frames and Ladies Ephemera set to the mirror, a mix of 3D balls and finally splatters of white and Blue Aviation paint.