From Skye to Sea by Abigail Lagden
I'm so excited to be part of the 2018 Powertex Design Team and for my first blog I wanted to share with you a place that is very special to me - the Isle of Skye.
It is a place of awe-inspiring beauty and diverse geology,
from the looming Cuillin mountain range, across the bleak peat bogs, to the
rugged cliffs and the many and varied beaches. The weather can be wild and changeable,
but that is just another part of the beauty and inspiration of the place.
 |
| Glenbrittle Beach (that's me lurking on the right with my lurcher, Benson) |
 |
| Me, collecting treasures!! (Excuse the attire - it's cold in December) |
The shells and grass roots were collected from Glenbrittle beach (above) and the coral pieces were collected from coral beach at Claigan (below).
 |
| Coral Beach, Claigan - the yellow beach is made up of little bits of coral as shown in the insert |
But enough of the beauties of Skye, let's talk about my little project. The base ingredients for my Skye to Sea Plaque design were:
- Powertex MDF journal cover (A5)
- Powertex Easy Structure
- Bronze Powertex Universal Medium
- Powertex White Paper Decoration
- Small Powertex MDF seahorse (from set of 3)
- Powertex 3D sand and small balls
- Shells, coral and grass roots collected from the beaches on Skye (all washed and thoroughly dried)
I often use the journal covers to produce hanging plaques,
and just cover four of the holes to leave two to hang it with. Although of
course this design would also have made a gorgeous cover for a journal.
I am obsessed with texture and don't like any plain, flat
surfaces in my creations, so first I used structure paste to create some
coral-like patterns on the MDF cover, before painting it all with bronze
Powertex.
Next I laid out a rough arrangement of the bits and pieces I wanted
to include - it is a good idea to do this at the start even if the layout
changes as you progress through your projects.
 |
| Rough layout of design (unsurprisingly in changed) |
Hollow shapes like shells can be tricky to attach securely
to a project, so I like to mix a bit of 3D sand into some of the Powertex to
produce a thicker paste which will hold them firmly in place. In this project I
spread some of this paste over the areas where I wanted to place the shells and
the coral. The shells were then filled with the paste before being positioned
and the coral was just sprinkled directly onto the paste. To fill the gaps
between the coral and the shells I sprinkled some small 3D balls over the area.
I added some pattern and texture to the seahorse using
structure paste before attaching to the plaque and painting everything with a
coat of bronze Powertex.
 |
| Left to dry before bringing to life with colour! |
Then finally I used pieces of white Paper Decoration coated
with Powertex to make some stringy seaweed around the sides.
Now time for some colour!
To produce a lovely blue-green multi-tonal sea colour I mixed
blue, green, turquoise and white powercolors with easy varnish, in different
quantities to get different shades and tones. This was applied using a dry
brushing technique, layering the different colours gradually to blend the tones.
Once I was happy with the result I couldn't resist adding some shimmer so I
used terragreen as well as the amazing new interference powders (blue, red and lilac)
to give the scene some iridescence.Then just a piece of t-shirt yarn tied through the holes for hanging and there you have my Skye to Sea Plaque.
 |
| From Skye to Sea by Abigail Lagden |
I hope you have enjoyed my first Design Team blog, I know I have.
You can see more of what I am up to on my Curiously Contrary website and Facebook Page.
Until next time, Abs x
