Calendar Challenge #9 September 2016

"In the light of the silvery moon"

Here's my attempt at the Claritystamp calendar challenge for September 2016. I find it really difficult to copy someone else's artwork, so for me, the calendar challenges are far more challenging than the monthly themed challenge!

However, I loved the composition of Barbara Gray's artwork, had the Toadstool and Hares stampset, and I improvised a bit, using Clarity coated cardstock and Promarkers for the colouring. Still, I was quite pleased with the final result, although it didn't get finished until today as both my white gelpens had dried up, so I had to nip to the craft shop and buy a new free-flowing one!

Thanks for visiting,
Susan

A little bird told me...

My offer for this month's Claritystamp Challenge is a little MDF birdhouse, decorated for the theme "in the garden". I honestly can't recall where I got the shape from, but it's really happy to be liberated from the rest of the stash in my cupboard!

I started by giving the MDF shape a base coat of Snowflake Fresco Finish  Acrylic Paint by PaperArtsy, then when that was dry, I went over the shape again in Beach Hut Fresco Finish Paint and dried it thoroughly using a heatgun.

Using the Flower Stencil (NDSC #24) from Claritystamp, with some areas masked off with tape, I applied Blood Orange Fresco Finish Paint to the flowers using a piece of cut and dry foam, a little Cadmium Yellow Daler Rowney System 3 acrylic paint to the flower centres, and a mixture of Sage Fresco finish paint and Emerald Daler Rowney System 3 acrylic paint to the leaves, then left it all to dry. The design looked a little soft around the edges, so I went around the flowers and leaves with a black fine-liner pen, and added some details to the flower petals. I also added some yellow dots with Pebeo Gloss Touch in Bright Yellow to give a bit more dimension to the flower heads.

I decided to add some stamped detail to the roof of the birdhouse, and randomly stamped with Claritystamp small ocean swirl stamp from the Galleon set using Ranger Stormy Skies Distress Ink, and again drew freehand around the stamping to add a bit more definition to the design.

Finally, I found a bit of inky, blotchy scrap card, and drew one of the birds from Claritystamp Bird Frame stencil (NDSC #1) using a fine liner pen, extending the branch it was standing on, so that it would wrap around the edges of the bird house. I felt it needed to stand out a bit more against the bright background, so I added a few black boxes, zentagle style, and made my little bird into a zebra finch! Admittedly, you don't see many of those in my garden in Inverness, but I call it artistic license!!!

Hope you enjoy my little birdhouse, and I'm going to hang it from the shelf in my craftroom to keep me company when I'm crafting on my own.

Thanks for visiting, Susan x