Saturday, April 9, 2016

"Fleeting Moments" Altered mixed media Fan


Hi everyone,
I've noticed some fans being altered lately, you too? They made me finally work on the wooden fan that I had lying around too.
My in laws got this fan for me during one of their world trips and I had different plans for it initially. 
Until I remembered the vintage photograph of my mom holding up an umbrella. Her dark hair was up in a tight bun, which she hated because her hair was thick and heavy. Her mother had even sewn two of those bun-spunges together, to make it even worse. My mom was a living doll and she hated it. I depicted that by caging one of my old Frozen Charlottes in a birdcage. 

Needless to say once she was mature enough she was thrilled to make her own decisions when it came to her hair and clothes. From a young age she already learned to make the best of (her) life.

My grandfather, whom I hardly knew since he passed away a year and a half after I was born, loved to take pictures. I'm proud to still own his camera and so happy he took so many pictures/slides of my beautiful mom. Precious memories, even more so since she passed away too young as well.


I wanted to stick with the colors from the picture and guess what? They match the March challenge over at the 'Words and Painterly' blog. Again. And yes, again using a picture of my mom. LOL.
(I already did an entry with a heart-shaped canvas starring my mom as an angel, check one of my previous blog entries.)


I started out by painting the fan with gesso. White was my first choice, but I realised black would make the picture pop even more. So I gradually blended the white into black.
By the way, I took these pictures with my new cellphone and I absolutely love them! I can do decent close-ups and the colors are almost perfect as is. The little editing I have to do is also done a whole lot faster than with my previous phone. I'm so happy! 


Once dry I sprayed everything with several Glimmermist colors: 'Cranberry Zing' (which turned out to be too purple for this color scheme), 'Crimson' and 'Pink Coral'.



I altered some of the embellishments I wanted to use. Covered the clock and Frozen Charlotte in crackle medium, then added some paint and ink.


You don't want to know how many mediums I put on the swirl. It didn't do what I wanted it to do. First I painted it with black gesso and then I added a crackle medium. I finally used one of my new Prima Opal Magic paints, pink gold. The idea was that it would crack and show some of the black gesso underneath. It didn't crack though. (On another project I noticed it didn't work either, but I blamed it on the wood surface being too coarse and soaking up all the medium.) I tried some black crackle Nail Polish and sanded everything. Not the result I wanted either. So I mixed another Prima Opal Magic paint, blue pink, with Tim Holtz clear rock candy crackle medium. That sort of worked but the color wasn't really what I hoped for. Later when I sprayed everything the color blended nicely.



The Scrapiniec ornament above the picture was done with several layers too. Black gesso, Prima Opal Magic paint pink gold, some Rusty Paper, etc.
The chipboard words "Fleeting Moments" are from 13Arts and I painted them with Prima Opal Magic paint pink gold, then added clear crackle medium and a bit of pink ink later on.


To enhance the 'Chinese' feel of the picture I made and altered some chopsticks sticking out from behind the picture. 


The little fan-like chipboard piece is from Scrapiniec as well and was simply covered in Glimmermist 'Crimson' and a bit of white gesso.
The branch underneath the picture was covered in Rusty Paper and later some crackle medium and pink ink.

The metal leaves, frames and birdcage were covered with white gesso and some Glimmermist 'Crimson' as well.


Added my glittery branches, flowers (sprayed them with Glimmermist Crimson and added white gesso) and bead/heart string for the finishing touch. Fussy cut the picture because it looked better.




Hope you like it! Comments and questions are always welcome!
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Or Instagram: mandylessisbore


Happy scrapping!

10 comments:

Melissa Larson said...

Beautiful creation!

Laneen's Creations said...

Love love love it! It is amazingly gorgeous

Mandy: Less is Bore! said...

Thank you Melissa!♡

Mandy: Less is Bore! said...

Thanx Laneen. Luv ya 😙

Mandy: Less is Bore! said...
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Mandy: Less is Bore! said...
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Sanderijn de Bruin said...

Amazing! Such a beautiful project!! Fav for me! Thank you for joining Words&Paintery this month!

Mandy: Less is Bore! said...

Aaaawww thank you so much Sanderijn! After using all those blues for my boy I guess this mood board inspired me even twice hahaha.

Mandy: Less is Bore! said...

Aaaawww thank you so much Sanderijn! After using all those blues for my boy I guess this mood board inspired me even twice hahaha.

Katja/MezzaNotte said...

So lovley and colorful! 👍👍