Wednesday 18 April 2018

My Dreamkeepers

Good morning everyone.
I trust this finds you well. Today I thought I'd take the opportunity to share with you my new favourite project....
May I introduce to you Ophelia, Evangalina and Phelomana; the keepers of dreams and guardians of hopes (and fears too)

I had the idea for these ladies a little while ago having been inspired by other altered brushes but I wanted to move one step beyond to create something that was both beautiful and also useful too.


Hence all my ladies have themselves a lovingly hand crafted journal tucked neatly behind themselves.


Now, don't get me wrong, I love art for art's sake, however Increasingly I find myself wanting to create art that can be used as well as appreciated by the person who has it. It's almost as if I want people to interact and build upon what I have created.


To create my brushes I have used a variety of bits and pieces from my collection, some air clay moulded elements attached with DecoArt Media Texture pastes. When everything was dry Everything was gessoed white before adding colour with DecoArt Media Fluid acrylic paint.

When everything was dry I used DecoArt Metallic Lustres to add the shimmer and shine and bring out the textures, after all, a girl's gotta have some bling right?


To finish off I gave them all a coat of DecoArt Media Crackle Glaze for further texture.


After everything was dry I measured and cut covers for the journals. I covered them with binding fabric before adding some simple gilded detail to the covers using my Winged Pattern mask.


I cut, trimmed and sewed the signatures to create the text block for inside using 200gsm card. Before adding the text block I laid  an organza ribbon inside the cover to create a tie and adhered the text block to the cover. Once the little books came out of the press I adhered them to the back using a hot glue gun.  Now my ladies can stand up by themselves which I think is cool.


I display them inside a glass cloche (to keep them free of dust because I'm a lazy cleaner lol) but they look cool standing on a shelf too.
I hope you like them. Now that I have made these three (well four actually because my wife snagged the other one,which is always a good sign in my view.) I have a whole host of little voices in my head clamouring to see the light of day so I think you can expect to see plenty more coming along when I have time to get them out of my head.........
Take care and hope you have the chance for creativity today.
Neil

4 comments:

Karen said...

WOW Neil!!!!! These are amazing! Love the addition of the little books.

Birgit said...

Amazing workmanship! Truly artistic and loving how you used these brushes. Each is so unique...lovely!!

Unknown said...

Beautifully done. What fun!

Kathi said...

Wow. Seriously cool!