VALENTINE GIFTS

It is that time of year when thoughts turn to love!  I have recently completed a valentine's display in the gallery featuring lots of hearts, in all sorts of media. Amongst the display is this set of three wooden dishes, which I have decorated.

The insides were collaged using sheet music, a vintage New Musical Express paper, and a paper napkin.  The outsides were covered with plaster filler, before being painted in shades of violet.  The edges were painted with gold, which became distressed when I waxed the dishes - inside and out.

LOVE AND HEARTS!

The One Craft Gallery is full of love and hearts!  Above is the recently created window showing some of the cards and gifts available to buy for Valentine's Day.

Here are my latest 'heart' canvases - they are both constructed using plaster filler.  The small green one (10cms  square), has the filler pushed through a couple of stencils, producing a raised effect which was then coloured with acrylic paints and finished with clear wax.

The other heart is gilded on top of lace which was glued in a 'heart' shape onto the 20cm square wooden panel.  The 'heart' shape space had been prepared by having a template placed on the panel and then covering the whole thing - sides and all - in plaster filler.  It has layers of acrylic paint and it too was finished with clear wax.

These small gift bags and tags were done by sticking punched shapes and cut out letters onto backgrounds which had white gesso dry brushed onto them.  Here's hoping the people of Shepton are feeling romantic...

LOTS OF LOVE!

I have been working on some more romantic hearts...

The base of the top three was a cheap frame with these 3 wooden hearts, which had their middles cut out for displaying photographs, hanging from it. I dismantled it and covered the hearts with plaster filler and sculptured a heart in each centre.  They were coloured with layers of acrylic paints with the words and markings scratched out of the plaster.  They were finished off with a soft clear wax furniture polish.

The bottom open hearts are also wood.  They were collaged with various papers and napkin tissue.  The words were stencilled on and the letters made raised by using a cerne relief outliner in black.