Guardian of Lost Souls

Between this world and the next they hover aimlessly, lost but not alone. Some carry the sadness of their departure, others harbor hate and foster wrath over their unjust end. In that fine membrane between worlds they hover under the guardian's watchful eye.
But who is he guarding? Us or them?

Those of you that follow my Instagram or Facebook already know this work, but I felt like sharing it here where I can get a bit crazy with detail shots ;)

This piece is definitely one of those 'a simple idea that escalated' cases.
It started with the skull, I wanted to see how dimensional I can get this paper die-cut, and I was really happy with the results. It's pretty amazing what some forming and ink can get out of flat paper!

I knew this skull deserved to be the center of something special, and from the beginning had the idea to have it's eyes glimmering wickedly  (muwahahaha), so I decided to use LED lights. If you're familiar with these light strings, you know that they are pretty long, so I started thinking how I can use the rest of the lights in the background and it came to me - ghosts!
I dug through my stash of Tim Holtz Paper Dolls and found all the 'disfigured' ones - they come cut out in detail, and every now and then the cutting isn't exact and something get cut off, you can see the girl and man in the photo bellow have part of their head missing. It's very rare to find a Paper Doll this off so it's lucky I have quite a stash ;)

 

 For the lighting to work the background has to be translucent, but not clear so the light is diffused. I used Tim Holtz's alcohol inks and pearls on acetate. The mica in the pearls makes them more opaque, so when the lights are off it kinda looks like shimmery dirt lol

 I twined the lights behind the "ghosts" and used hot glue to make sure they stay in place.

I wanted the frame to continue the vibe of the work, so I used some texture paste with stencils in different places to get interesting patterns and dimensions. Once dried I covered the paste with black acrylic paint and finally added some of Finnabair's metallic waxes for color and shine. 

I really like how it all came together in creepy-cool goodness. Finishing with lights-on-lights-off shots, hope you like this guy as much as I do :)

Snowed in: work process in (lots of) pictures

Hi everyone!
It's been ages again, I know... I will try to get this blogging thing together this year (go 2020!), I just never seem to find the time. Anyways, those of you that follow me on Instagram or Facebook have already seen the making of this little snowed in house, but I thought it would be nice to collect all the photos in one place, so here we are ^^

Here you can see the skeleton base of the house. I use Tim Holtz's village dies and mix and match them to create the design I want. The shape of this house was actually inspired by a house I saw on Doc Martin, that's where I got the idea to place the door on the side addition. It took some creative adjustments of the dies, but since I managed in the end ;)

The next step is a loooot of cutting. And I mean A LOT. You can see the walls, window frames and (about a ton of) shingles. After cutting the basic shapes I modify them to fit with what I have in mind. I try to match the colors of the different elements with the planned color scheme, it helps giving a smoother, more natural look in the end (if I don't have a matching colored paper I use white and paint it, but because paints often react with the mediums I use and change it's safer to start with color paper). Even though my miniatures don't aim at perfect realism, I feel that these little touches make a big difference and give the houses their unique character.

Then I texture the walls. There are about a million ways to do it, depending on the look you're after. In this case, I wanted stone walls that has an old-fashioned feel to them, but (unlike my haunted houses) without being creepy (or at least not obviously so ;p)
I used one of Tim Holtz's stencils, I think it's meant more for paved roads, but the uneven shapes are great for old stone walls. There's a variety of pastes and paints you could use, here I went with Ranger's texture paste because it's consistency (and drying time) allows some play and creating the gritty\rocky texture, plus it takes paints perfectly - as you can see in the photos below :)

Because the walls were covered with stone texture it's pretty easy to get realistic results. I went with greys in this one, adding some greenish tints for a mossy effect. It's always easier to paint flat surfaces, so I do most of the coloring before adhering the panels and just add some final touches afterwards. Before adhering the painted walls to the base I added vellum to the windows so it would be sandwiched between the two layers that make up the walls. I also added the door, which was made from woodgrain paper for texture, and built a tiny frame around it. Finally I adhered the roof base in place.

Next are the shingles! I used Tim Holtz's distress black paper because it has some (lovely) texture and a kraft paper core so when you sand it you get a pretty realistic look for the shingles. To be honest, I usually put a lot more into the texture and coloring of the shingles, but in this case I knew they would be mostly covered with snow so only did the minimum.
For the windows, decided to add glaze on top of the vellum. I usually use vellum because it's masks the candle and diffuses the light beautifully, but I wanted the shine of glass and decided to try glaze. I really like the results here, it's not completely even which fits with wet/frosted windows. I'm not sure it would work with other projects, but here it does. 

 

I then tinted the frames a bit to bring out the texture of the paper and added some glazing so it would look more like a lacquered frame.

Next is making a base for the little house.

 

I use two layers, the bottom is wood, so I don't need to worry about warping when I add paints and whatnots. The upper layer is thick grayboard, so I can cut out the shape of the house with a craft knife. This creates a perfect place for the house to nestle in and keeps the whole structure stable even though the house and base are not adhered. 

I painted the base white and voila! The basic house is ready, now the real fun begins with the details :)

The first thing I did was to cover the house and little yard with snow. I used Tim Holtz's Distress Grit-paste and sprinkled it with Distress clear Rock Candy Glitter. I'm not a fan of glitter, but I saw a lot of AMAZING examples of snow effect using these two products over the holiday season so I had to try and I have to admit - I squealed a little, but I mean just LOOK at this roof! Can you blame me?

I sort of forgot to take process photos from this stage, just got sucked into it... You can see the results, tough, and I'll just go through what I did ^^

In building the snow in the yard I created an entrance way and then painted the paving. The little snowman was made from air-dry clay, I used the end of a toothpick for the nose and teeny-tiny branches for his arms. When the clay was set it was brushed with grit-paste and then a bit of glue and rock candy glitter. I added very (very) thin strips of grayboard under the window frames and sprinkled them with snow. 

This is the original front view, but it felt like something was missing. I got some great ideas from followers on FB, and in the end added the sledge. I used the same woodgrain paper I used for the door and some silver metallic paper for the runners. It's seriously tiny, and I had to use tweezers in making it because my fingers were just too big! After placing the sledge in a little pile of snow (=some more grit paste + glitter) I added the "rope" as the finishing touch.

The lantern at the door was made with a flower-center die I cut from grey paper, rounded and then built the lamp with clear Nuvo drops + a drip of their glow in the dark yellow drops. The yellow does glow in the dark, but it's such a small amount it's hard to see... However, like most glow in the dark products, it has this luminescent property even in the light that definitely works for a lamp.

On the side and back I added trellis using a fabric net I brushed with Distress Collage Medium Vintage. The tint in the medium gave the net a light brown shade that is perfect for a wooden trellis and also hardened it and made it easier to shape. I threaded some green and brown threads through the net for vines, or what's left of the - it is snowing after all! Finally I added a cat at the back window, just because :)

Here are some more shots of the house from different angles, so you can see the overall view.

That was a long one! I hope you found some part of it useful. I think I covered everything, but if you have any questions do feel free :) 

Till next time! xx

Tale-ing Fragments #5: I Persist

Hi everyone, 

I’m back with a new Tale-ing Fragment but this time - it’s a book! Small one, but still, a handmade, handbound little book. As always, the story is incomplete, the text and images only fragments of a larger tale so that every time you return to look through the pages a different story can emerge.

This tale is a ghost story, told by a ghost. 

I love ghost stories. Not because they’re scary, but because they are fragments of the past that linger in the presence. At least that’s how I see them :) 

If you think of the word ‘haunting' it’s not just related to ghostly manifestations, it’s also used for beauty, a thought that lingers, an image that keeps popping in your head. That’s what I had in mind when making this. 

Our ghostly storyteller has been around for a while, her consciousness flickers. It comes through words, images, textures… I used a book format because it gave me more space, but also because different pages can have a completely different feel to them, uncover a different aspects of the story and of our heroine. And because it’s a book and I love making books – best reason, right?

And because it’s a book, I’m doing a first here and uploading not only photos but also a video (!!) of the work. It’s mostly just me reading you a story while flipping through the pages, but I hope you enjoy it ^^

As you can see in the video, I combined a lot of materials and images in this work. The images are all vintage photos and ephemera I got either in Tim Holtz Idea-ology sets or online (check out thegraphicsfairy.com for AMAZING selections of vintage imagery. They have gorgeous themed kits, but also a lot of great free images). I didn’t upload photos of all the pages, just a selection and  details I thought would be interesting.
 

The front cover was made from a couple of Tim Holtz' Worn Wallpapers, they have such great texture... I bound the pages with a ribbon and added some vintage lace and a key (also by Tim Holtz) that a rusted thoroughly with Finnabair paints. 

The first page (pages?) uses transparency vellum and lace to create layers. I used a lot of transparencies throughout because I thought it fit with the the ghostly theme, and specifically with the cloudy mind of this ghost. She shifts between remembrance and forgetfulness and time doesn't really flow for her anymore. The main image you see here is two vintage photos I superimposed and printed on vellum, then layered it on background images (a house, handwriting) that peek through. I like that she remains unidentified, because who's to say it's the story of one ghost? Maybe more of them hide between the pages.

In these pages I used vellum to create layers of photos that hang\were hung on the walls in the house. Because our ghost doesn't sense time like we do, the photos sometime cover each other, as new people come to live in the house and place their photos where other photos were displayed before. These are all vintage photos, but I tinged some of them a bit more to give the feel of something that was loved and looked at often.

These are from a moment in the story our ghost thinks about the dreams she had. I say think, because she doesn't describe them, saying only that she must have had some. The first layout has another transparency vellum and a little envelope with photos inside that I thought could reflect dreams: actress portraits, a house, a wedding... The background is a beautiful foiled paper by Tonic, dreams need some sparkle, right? In the second layout I gilded a damask pattern on one page to echo the gold foil. There are several details in these pages that echo each other and other pages in the book, it was really fun to make :)

This is another layering play with a beautiful image of a girl that was printed on vellum. I love how she continues to follow you with her stare as you flip the page and if it's a bit creepy, well, this is the beginning of the creepy part of the story...

The last image of the book is the one that opened it, but this time I printed it on photo paper to give it more solidity, it's a strong moment for our ghost, with some self recognition, so it felt right. 

In case you were wondering: the background papers are a combination of cardstock I inked and lots of patterned papers from Tim Holtz idea-ology, Tonic Studios Craft Perfect and papers by the Victoria and Albert museum. I used a lot of materials and techniques throughout so I won't go into it (this post is pretty long as is...), but please feel free to ask anything.

Aaaand that's it! 

Hope you found it interesting, I'd love to hear what you think :)