Why I LOVE Stoneart............

Hello there

I hope you've been enjoying the recent spell of warm weather and haven't been too affected by those nasty thunderstorms.....living in the Midlands we've had the joy of both ends of the weather spectrum!!

This month I wanted to share with you my absolute love for Stone Art so I took the monthly theme from Powertex UK and created a masquerade statue using Stone Art in its various forms mixed with Black Powertex.

Stone Art is a unique fiber-composition which has been especially designed for use with Powertex Universal Mediums. 

The reason I love working with this product is the total flexibility you have with it.  You can use it with any of the Powertex Universal Medium colours although I choose not to use the transparent unless I'm adding pigment in to colour it at the same time.

To start off you can layer it on top of a coat of Powertex, press in to form a bond then gently wipe away the excess into a pot for reuse later.  By repeating this process you can build up the stone effect on canvas, polystyrene, wood etc and you waste nothing as all of the excess can be reused.  Polishing the layers with your hand will cause a more natural effect and will cause the darker areas to have a slight sheen.

Next you can mix your Powertex Universal Medium with the Stone Art in a pot to create a slurry of various consistencies.  In its loosest state you can paint this onto any surface to give a rustic texture.  As it gets thicker, you can use a palate knife to spread over your base.  The thicker the mixture the more control you have over it.

Finally you can go all the way and make up Stone Art clay by adding more powder to the slurry stage and then kneading (like bread) to make sure all the white has been absorbed into the coloured liquid.  Again you can choose how firm you mix this before working with it.  When covering statues etc I keep mine on the tacky side so that I can blend in any joins.   However when working on a canvas, I tend to make it firmer so that I can imprint into it with stamps and stencils, these imprints will come out with a rustic feel due to the nature of the clay.  In this firm state you can also use it in silicon moulds to create beautiful embellishments.


I finished my statue by adding the venetian mask from the Powertex range, I coated with black Powertex and then dry brushed with Rich Gold pigment.  As a finishing touch I tucked feathers into the collar.....after all this is all about masquerade!

Until next time Happy Creative Adventures and don't forget to post your makes on the Powertex facebook page

Axx

A Powertex Masquerade Ball by Abigail Lagden

A Powertex Masquerade Ball

by Abigail Lagden

Well, as someone who loves an mdf embellishment or two, thismonth's project pack had me drooling over the number of lovely pieces included. Just look at all these flourishes, florals, feathers and fans:

Add in Easy 3D Flex and this is almost my ideal kit!

As this kit contains so much to play with I was easily able to make two projects and had a few bits left over at the end. This blog will describe how I made the Mask on a Canvas project.

Project 1 - Mask on Canvas

Products used in the final version of this project:

• Elements from the masquerade mask kit
• 40cm x 30cm canvas
• Easy 3D Flex
• Ivory Powertex
• 3D Sand & Balls (small)
• Brown bister
• Venice rice paper
• Easy Coat Mat
• Secret Art Loft acrylic inks - violet, egg yolk and aqua
• White powercolor pigment & Easy varnish

I wanted my mask to sit on a canvas and decided the beautiful cracked effect of the Easy 3D Flex would make a lovely textured background. So I painted the canvas with a coat of black Powertex first to make the cracks look darker - although this isn't necessary.

I then mixed Ivory Powertex with Easy 3D Flex to form a fairly thick paste and spread it around the areas of the canvas that would show around the mask. I varied the thickness of the paste to give different texture and depth of cracks across the canvas. 

Brown bister was then sprayed over the canvas and it was left overnight to dry and start cracking.

I used Easy Coat Matt to stick some of the Venice rice paper onto the full face mask. This was positioned to show through underneath the half face mask. Some lace was then coated with ivory Powertex and ruffled up along the side of the base mask.

For the half face mask, I cut a piece of swirly wallpaper to fit over the whole surface. Ivory Powertex was used to attach the paper onto the mask and to coat the top surface of the paper.

I changed my mind a few times throughout this project. Initially I painted the feathers with different colours of Powertex and used bister and a hairdryer to create a crackled look. I also painted the flourishes and florals with red & blue Powertex. Here are the feathers.

However, when I came to put it all together I felt it looked a bit disjointed so I painted all of these bits over with ivory Powertex and I also sprinkled 3D sand and 3D small balls onto the florals and flourishes while they were wet. I love that the texture of the bister crackles is still visible on the feathers.

All of the florals and flourishes were then added to the half face mask using ivory Powertex.

I covered the rice paper on the base mask using cling film to protect it, and then positioned the half mask over the top. To get nice vibrant colours to blend with the rice paper, I used the violet, egg yolk and aqua acrylic inks from The Secret Art Loft and sprayed them onto the layered masks.

A lesson learnt! - I put the project out in the sun between sprays to dry - sadly a bad idea as the cling film ended up welding itself onto the Easy Coat Matt and did not peel off nice and easily as expected to real the lovely paper. Hence, if you look closely you will see some wrinkles of cling film still left in places.

Once I was happy with the colours, I removed what cling film I could from the base layer and attached the half face mask on top using transparent Powertex (any colour Powertex can be used to stick the bits together if applied with care). 

The dried bister was gently wiped back off the cracked canvas with a sponge to lighten the colour before the masks were attached using transparent powertex.

Then just a touch of dry brushing using white powercolor pigment mixed with easy varnish to give it some highlights, and it was finished.

As mentioned I also made this second project using the MDF from the kit, black Powertex, and Easy 3D Flex. Coloured using red ochre powercolor pigment and the beautiful pearl pigments from The Secret Art Loft.

And I had these bits left over!!

To see more of my creations and workshops, pop over to my Curiously Contrary facebook page.

Until next time,

Abs xx