Mecha Love - February 2023 Mixed Media Kit
Hey, y’all! I hope you’re having a fabulous February and have had a chance to play with your kits! This week I have a project for you I made using the February Mixed Media Kit! I grabbed up my kit, added some extra mould pieces, mechanicals, and paints from my stash, and created my Mecha Love mixed media piece!
Make sure to check out my video to see what I did!
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To start building up some texture, I added some of the sand texture paste using the stencil from the kit onto the canvas board. I didn’t cover the entire surface with stenciling, I just added the stenciling to a few random areas. In the video, you will see that I added black gesso after the sand texture paste had dried, but that was because I hadn’t planned on adding the cheesecloth so soon! If I had thought I would be adding the cheesecloth to fill in the areas without the stenciling I would have waited to add my gesso. Anyhow…I had been rust-staining fabric around the same time I received my February kits, so my cheesecloth got sucked into the process – even if that rust staining doesn’t show much on this canvas – and while I was playing with different ways to build my canvas, I just happened to lay the cheesecloth down in a way that sparked inspiration! I ran with this new inspiration and used some matte gel to adhere some of the cheesecloth to my canvas.
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Since my cheesecloth led me on a slightly different path than what I had planned originally, I decided I wasn’t going to add gesso again until I had the majority of my mould pieces in place. I grabbed up a variety of gear mould pieces from my stash – made from a wide range of materials since I tend to pre-create pieces when I have extra resin or clay from a different project or I just need to use up old material – and started layering them up using some 3D Matte Gel. I had some broken bits and pieces in the mix, so I just used them as filler to create some lift under areas they wouldn’t be seen, you could just as easily use scraps of cardboard or chipboard as filler! After I had all my gears in place I added the resin frame from the kit and topped it with the large heart from Finnabair’s “Love Machine” Mould (from my stash). I let the 3D Gel dry overnight, then I came back with my matte gel and some more cheesecloth, adding more to the background and laying it across a few areas of the mould cluster. After the matte gel had dried, I added black gesso to everything.
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Now it was finally time to start getting my colors built up! I started with some “Linen” Impasto and a lot of water! All I knew was I wanted to create some type of gradient or ombre effect, so I kept the layer of Impasto heavier on the top half(ish) of the canvas and more watered down on the bottom half(ish).
After the Impasto had dried, I mixed some Tres Jolie “Red” Acrylic Paint and DWM “Fuchsia” Glossy Spray and added this mix to the canvas.
When my paint and glossy spray mix had dried, I came back with more cheesecloth and added it to areas of my resin pieces and canvas. You can see some of the rust-stained cheesecloth on the finished piece still because this final layer of cheesecloth didn’t get completely covered by mediums!
After the matte gel had semi-dried (being fully dry wasn’t necessary!), I returned with some of the Copper and Graphite texture paste from this month’s kit and used them more like paint than paste. I added the copper to a few areas (very few!) of the cheesecloth I had just placed and the gears on the heart, and I added the graphite to the gears. I didn’t want a lot of build-up, I just wanted a bit of color.
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After those pastes had dried, I came in with the Platinum Crackle Paste from the kit and added it to the bottom half(ish) of my canvas, then I set everything off to air dry for about 24 hours. When I came back, I had lovely crackles and it was finally time to get the Brown, Red, and Yellow Rust Effect Paste on the (mould) gears, the resin frame from the kit, and slightly spread out onto the canvas.
When I had my rust how I wanted it, I added some “Red Wine” Metallique Paint to my heart and on the top half(ish) of the canvas background. For the background, I really kept the metallique paint watered down, I didn’t want to completely cover what was already there, I just wanted to add a bit of variation.
Once the “Red Wine” was dry, I added some “Vintage Silk” and “Indian Pink” Finnabair waxes to highlight a few areas on the heart. Finally, I grabbed up the (partial) package of Mechanicals from my stash, kept them “as is,” and adhered them to the gears “on” the heart mould using 3D Matte Gel.
Thank you for joining me here today on the blog! I hope this project gave you some inspiration and ideas of what you can do with the items in this month’s Mixed Media Kit! I tried to use the texture pastes in a variety of ways to help you see them in action if you haven’t experienced the joy of crackles and rust effect pastes yet!
Stay Crafty, Friends
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In addition to this month’s Mixed Media Kit, I used (from previous Tres Jolie Kits):
Finnabair Moulds: “Love Machine,” “Large Gears,” “Machine Parts,” “Steampunk Hearts,” Finnabair “Steampunk Gears” Mechanicals, Finnabair Heavy Black Gesso, Finnabair “Linen” Impasto, Finnabair “Red Wine” Metallique Paint, Finnabair “Indian Pink” Metallique Wax, Finnabair “Vintage Silk” Opal Magic Wax, DWM “Fuchsia” Gloss Spray, Tres Jolie Red Acrylic Paint, DecoArt Black Gesso, Liquitex Matte Gel