Art Recipe: Rusted and Rustical

Hi again my dear friends, I hope you have a great beginning of Summer!
It's been a long time since I posted my last Art Recipe tutorial. I tried to come back to this kind of post many times, but my busy schedule of May and June made it simply impossible - in the end, no matter how enjoyable and fun it is -  all this editorial work and photos takes twice  as long as making the project. Or longer.
Today I'm back with brand new Art Recipe for you - and I hope you will like it. Personally - I had great time creating this project... and here is why..

As you know already - I'm a collector: I keep finding or buying different stuff which "may be useful in the future" and then I put them somewhere in my house as a part of crazy-vintage-eclectic decoration or put them somewhere in my studio to use it later for one of my projects. Sometimes the sequence changes and findings from the studio will go to living room or some special elements from the "display" will get incorporated into one of the projects. Or photos. I'm totally ok with it - this makes a lot of sense in fact: you are inspired by things that surround you and it's natural you want to use them in your artistic process.

The same story happened this time. We found a nice, long piece of weathered wood somewhere away, walking our dogs. We've decided it will be perfect for a rustic shelf (of course!)  and took it home. Andrew cut it a bit shorter, made 2 smaller shelves matching perfectly my dining room space and  - we also had a small size leftover. Nice piece of weathered wood.
This week I decided it was the right time - this piece of wood had to finally be transformed. And this just happened...

It was a real shame to cover too much of the natural beauty of the wood - so I decided to be really delicate with my work and add just a bit of texture and colour to it. I could finally use some of my rusted screws I  found in our yard too - they were perfect for this kind of project!

With a bit of Art Basics Modeling Paste, a touch of rusty orange colour and a bit of Art Ingredients - this turned out far better than I expected. In fact - no matter what you put on this wood - it always looks great.

I'm really happy about the final look of Mica Flakes and Micro Beads - together with naturally rusted elements they added so much detail and depth to the collage. And I used just a bit of them - huge wow! OK, let's go back to the point...

Here comes the Art Recipe and a brand new tutorial for you - enjoy!

And the whole process, step-by-step:

1. My first step was finding a perfect cabinet card to go on the piece of reclaimed wood I had. I finally decided to use a photo of a young gentleman - all in beautiful sepia tone. I started with adding some delicate texture directly on the wood - I decided to use Art Basics Modeling Paste and one of my new stencils - Alpha.

2. I dried my Modeling Paste with heating gun and I was ready for the next step - adding dimension and creating composition using found objects such as cotton lace, rusty metal star, piece of paper from an old book, rusted washer from my Mechanicals collection - all these were glued down using Art Basics 3D Matte Gel - great adhesive which gets clear and permanent after drying. After that I sprayed a bit of homemade tea stain to add aged, vintage look to my composition. I dried everything again.

3. It was high time to add some bolder colour! I decided to use Primary Elements Pigment in Ginger Peach colour and I sprinkled it in the chosen parts of the projects - but just a bit as it is really concentrated product! After spraying with water rusty-orange magic happened. I dried it with heating gun, added 2 rusty screws and I was ready for next step.

4. I used some 3D Foam Squares (from Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L) to place my cabinet card in the right place of the composition. Before that I embellished it with a piece of soft wire, some screw heads and a small keyhole. Next I started adding some beautiful, shiny texture: Art Ingredients Mica Flakes and Micro Beads. I simply applied a bit of my Art Basics Soft Gloss Gel in the chosen parts of composition and glued down my flakes and beads. I used just a bit, but the effect was stunning!

5. Finally I was able to focus on my finishing touches: I used again my Soft Gloss Gel to glue the quote to the photo. Next I added a piece of natural thread in yellow ochre colour, matching perfectly my project and added some stain on the edges of my wood block: I simply inked it with a bit of Walnut Stain and Weathered Wood Distress Ink. In a moment my project was ready!

I can't even express how much joy it brings to me to recycle and re-use all the items I collected somewhere on my way - the natural beauty of the wood was a great "canvas" more a simple, but really enjoyable collage project - and now I have a perfect home decoration too! Just perfect!

To make it easier I've put together the list of supplies I've used for this project
- all of them are available in our Mixed Media Place Store:

Not enough inspiration?
I've got an extra treat for you... Here is one more project based on the similar idea - in fact made on the second part of the very same wood found on the fields...

This time I've focused on more "patina inspired" colour palette and added more layers of cotton lace and my old needle holder, covered with Art Basics Heavy White Gesso. I was thinking it would be great tribute to the older lady on the photo.

Again - there are some old nails and screws used (I'm so happy i still have some for the future!) and a piece of Prima thread in warm shade green - this was exactly what I needed to ad a pinch of colour in this project.

This time there were no Art Ingredients used - but a bit of splatters of Black Indian Ink instead to add some depth and interest to the composition. I hope you like it - it is a perfect add on to my collection of found treasures and curios in my living room - what can be better?

Now if only I had more of this weathered wood... sigh. Time for some treasure hunting again, I guess!

See you soon - and have a great creative week.
sending hugs