February Ramblings from Fi Potter

Hi Fi here, can you believe it's February already? I've been busy doing lots of arty stuff with Powertex of course but also mixed media art journaling.

I was asked by my friend Debbie Bulford if I would like to decorate some of her rather fab jewellery stands. Well I didn't need asking twice. They are such a neat design both for displaying your jewellery at home and even more because they pack flat making them super easy to carry to craft fairs.

I did two sets, the first I used neutral earthy tones of Powertex Bronze, Grey and Ivory. I used sand and Stone Art to add texture and then highlighted the edges with Bronze Gold and Silver Colortrix and Powerwax. Once the wax was dry I buffed them up to give a satin finish.

The second set I used Powertex Ivory and Bister's in Blue, Yellow and Red. I used the hairdryer to achieve some subtle cracking and left to dry. I then washed them back quite hard. I still have a little more work to do on this set to highlight the edges and also in the base of both sets.  More photos will be added to my Facebook and Instagram pages soon. Can't wait to display my own Powertex Jewellery on these.

I'm in my second year of doing Tamara Laporte of Willowing Arts Life Book.  I love the way Tam puts these online workshops together. Week one we created a Garden Fairy and this gorgeous girl is of my own hand,  I love her so much and can't quite believe that I did it.  Now watch this space because I am incorporating her in a new Powertex project which I shall blog in the coming weeks...join me as I create her fairy story "Once upon a time..."

That's all for now

Have a fab week and keep crafting ...

Fi xxx

Some of you will remember that for our Hochanda show in August we had some incredible rice papers available, well it has taken a while but we are now the proud UK stockists of the full range of By Creative rice papers! We have been very excited here at HQ and I've been itching to get creating with some of the papers but........ there are so many to choose from!

I started by painting my canvas with Ivory Powertex and then used this enchanting Victorian photograph which I laid over the new Powertex handwriting silk paper, I love how the writing came through the image. I applied the papers and sealed each layer with Easycoat mat, there is a tutorial showing you how I apply rice paper on YouTube.

 

I then painted around my image with Black Powertex, I applied some scraps of music paper at this stage but you will see by the end that I ended up covering them up.

Once everything was dry I added StoneArt, 3D Sand and Powertex mixture and Easy 3D Flex in a fairly random way. I also added some fabric and MDF inclusions for detail. Once I was happy with this layer I sprayed with red and yellow bister

Once the bister was dry I began to wipe it away from the areas I wanted to lighten.

I used 3D sand mixed with pigments and Powertex to add some stencilled words. I then used PowerWax mixed with pigments to add soft colour to the texture. There is a quick tutorial showing the basics of using the Powerwax on Youtube

I also added a subtle hint of extra colour to the image using my PowerWax and pigments

I then left the piece overnight, as much as I liked the softer pretty shades when I was touching up the edges of the canvas with my black Powertex just I knew that I needed to darken the bottom of my piece so I got out my black bister and hey presto!

I will need to do a little more blending but I feel much happier with the overall look however we all know that our work is never truly complete and the beauty of Powertex is that we can totally transform our work by adding different pigments, wax or maybe even using some of our new acrylic inks... inks..... now there's a thought... I will keep you posted! Tracey XX