Feature Artist - Celebrate Your Style - Welcome Kris

Hello Everyone!

Branka here and I am so thrilled to introduce you to our Feature Artist for May, the lady who was the winner of my 'Crazy For Colour' challenge in March. Please welcome Kris from My Beloved Arts & Crafts!

Kris is a fabulous mixed media artist and if you visit her blog you'll see how wonderfully she combines textures and colors using so many amazing techniques. Her art work is so inspirational and so impressive whether she used dark or bright tones in her projects.

I am so excited about the project she put together for our current challenge 'Celebrate Your Style' and it really showcases her unique and amazing style.

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Hi, how are you, I am Kris (which is my nickname!) from My Beloved Arts & Crafts. My real name is Kristiina, I am originally from a country called Estonia but my home is in Dublin, Ireland for almost 16 years. I am in my early thirties, married, have 3 kids who keep me on my toes and I absolutely am in love with all sorts of creativity. Long story short!

Art is a great passion of mine already from my early childhood years. I found mixed media only a few years ago but my deep affection for it is growing stronger day by day. It is just amazing what you can come up with with using many different media on one project. I have always found pleasure in traditional art though - pencil drawing and oil painting, acrylic painting but I enjoy anything artsy and crafty basically, like altered art, jewellery making, card making, home decor, sculpting, art journalling and of course watercolouring and may I even say lino cutting sometimes and the list would go on.

I love retro, vintage, distressed, and aged style mostly but can try many things, it depends of the mood, liking and the ability I have, really. Abstract art is the one I truly enjoy too, maybe even the most in recent years and I try to incorporate mixed media with it. I am keen on creating textures, using mostly vibrant colours and adding details.

May I take this opportunity here and say my thank you words again for choosing my canvas as a winner and therefore the opportunity for being here as a Feature Artist. It truly is a great honour! As the theme is 'Celebrate Your Style' for the May, it inspired me to create a mixed media abstract art 'texture celebration' on a wooden panel (12x12")! 

And I just had to use some of Powertex products again (and I promised to myself that I won't touch those this time but ...). I chose a wooden panel because it is stronger than a stretched canvas as I intended to use heavy texture, and it is ready to hang on the wall too which is a great bonus. I do hope I can inspire you with my work!

At first you would always want to cover the work area with thin plastic when working with Powertex as it doesn't stick to thin plastics so I just use the bin bags and tape them down on the sides. Kitchen floor is my working area! After finishing you can just pop the dirty bags in the bin and like no mess ever happened! Don't wear your fancy clothes obviously and I always wear nitrile gloves too when using a wet media, it's great to do art but the condition of my skin is also important to me.

Next step for me was to pour the Powertex (here I used the Transparent colour) in a plastic bowl and cover a piece of stockinette with it, and attach it to the panel. By doing this, it just made a starting point for me. I painted the panel here and there with Powertex, some areas thicker, some thinner. I rubbed on Stone Art too (not seen here). It's a cellulose powder and it should be used combination with Powertex and with it you can create a mixture too that resembles a clay. I just rolled up some random pieces for some texture, like below.

Then I added a thick layer of Easy 3D Flex mixture with a painting knife. That one is an inorganic filling compound and comes in a powder form too.You have to mix it with Powertex and I used a large painting knife for it. 

The mixture resembles a lot like a whipped up meringue! It will show cracks when it is very thickly applied. The heat tool will help too or a hair drier or leaving it on the sun for example. I had so high expectations for it but I waited and waited, for days and only a few cracks developed. I must of been doing something wrong or it just takes ages! So I gave up and changed my plan by adding a thick lace fabric piece and Ribbon Trimmings mixed with Powertex on top where were no cracks. I mixed Transparent and Bluish Grey for those.

But the paste is so versatile as more of that Easy 3D Flex you add, you end up having a sculpting clay, it dries to the air and gets rock hard (you could do all sorts of stuff with it) but I just made again a couple of flat pieces like with other clay and pressed down on the panel but before I brushed down some Powertex. Same for the Stone Art pieces. This will act as glue!

I also left some clay to dry, rolled it with a small painting brush and I had a clay pieces with beautiful texture but smooth to touch. Then did the same way as with other clay parts I used before. By now they are mostly covered on the panel but that's fine with me, I see them and know they are there. Enjoying the process!

I mixed Powertex with its colour pigments to paint the whole surface (except the fabrics) in brown colour. When the clay parts and everything else with Powertex were strong and dry to touch (be patient with the drying time!), I brushed on a layer of chalk paint (except the fabrics), let it dry and then removed most of it with a damp soft cloth as I just wanted it to get to the crevices. From there came in acrylic paints and acrylic inks, here and there. 

In the mean time I glued on some pieces of slate, using a Liquitex Gloss Super Heavy Gel which is just perfect for heavy items. More slate later on too. If you may wonder how I got these pieces - from a slate tray which I hammered down!

A mixture of Daler Rowney Acrylic Ink and Golden Tar Gel with a help of a wooden skewer gave me gorgeous 3D splashes. After drying I used a splatter brush with Sennelier Abstract Paint. A few more splatters with acrylic ink, more mixture of Tar Gel, and more ink splatters!

I baked raspberries from Fimo Soft Clay. When cooled, I smeared them with Antique Wax, cleaned off the excess with a soft cloth and a dry brush. 

It needed that something more so I thought that a zip would do, I cut the fabric part off and got an interesting embellishments to glue on. And I was left to paint the edges, a day and more to dry and cure and with Liquitex High Gloss Varnish I got the colours to pop and the protection. And I was finally finished.

I do hope you like it and enjoyed reading the process. Keep up the great work Pamellia and the team, you rock! Thanks a million!

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WOW, what a fantastic project with a brilliant combination of rich textures and vibrant colors! A real mixed media gem full of awesome elements! Thank you Kris, from the entire team for joining us here at Anything But Cute with your fabulous project!

I hope that you are inspired as much as I am with this absolutely amazing project and I encourage you to join in our anniversary challenge 'Celebrate Your Style'.

You have until the 4th of June to play - and you'll find all the challenge details as well as lots of inspiration from the brilliant Anything But Cute design team by clicking on the challenge link.

Happy Crafting
Branka xx