Eroded Clearly for Art...

Erosion is a slight theme around these parts this week. Both my brain and crafty zone are being worn down on all sides! The decorator is in da house...my house! So I have had to be be up really early every morning, live out of a suitcase and also empty my entire craft room. I'm suffering serious withdrawal symptoms and feel quite lost. Anyway, before my universe shifted, I was having a dabble with Wendy Vecchi's modelling film, Clearly for Art (CFA). Wendy has been showing us a great crackle effect with Alcohol inks and so I felt inspired to experiment and try out my own idea. So this is my take on the eroded look....

I cut nine Tattered Leaves from CFA to form my petals and brushed each one with Claudine Hellmuth Matt Medium. I painted it on in a rough, uneven way to create texture and dried it with my heat gun. It was alright to do it all wrong by getting a bit too close with the heat gun because you get lots of great bubbling... Then I picked and scraped away at the surface to create an even rougher, more ragged effect.

I then applied Alcohol inks, building up the layers of colour. I used a mix of Pool, Silver and Gold metallic inks to create the tones - pouncing the CFA with my applicator tool and a little Alcohol Blending solution. To achieve a more rusted, eroded look I lightly swiped the surface of each leaf with Rust and terracotta inks. Not with a brush...but my finger!

I only wanted to catch the top texture with colour and found this was the best way... (no hot dates that night anyway). A brush released too much colour and you don't want it going down into all the cracks otherwise you lose the contrast of colour and texture. I then heated my leaves and was able to add lots of shape and movement. CFA is specially created to allow you to do this time and time again which is great because you can shape every single leaf in a different way... exactly as you please...even just the tip.

I stuck them to a circle of card stock with Glossy Accents and added an inkified watch cog and Philosophy Tim tag to the centre.I had to leave it under a bottle overnight to fullydry. The next day, for a little extra something, I also went for an Idea-ology Swivel Clasp, key and foliage grunged with more ink and Distress Powder. I would have liked to have made a lot more, tried out other colours or gone for a whole project piece, but the "empty thy room" bell tolled too loudly. Hopefully you can get the gist of it and maybe have a go yourself. Even the reverse side of the leaves looks fab!

I shall be enjoying myself at a vintage fair all day with my hubby - flogging our oldly, worldly stuff to other hoarders...! Then doing a couch potato all evening as I'm totally cream-crackered! So I'll bid you all a fine and merry weekend! Thanks for peeking in. See you again soon... Sarah.