LB2015 : Treasure Seeking

This Life Book project was created by Mati Rose McDonough and involved incorporating gold or silver leaf into your project. My last couple of projects (Life Book and Documented Life) involved moments and layers where I didn't know which direction to take, or things took a bad turn, and although I ended up loving them in the end, this piece came together quickly and easily which made it an especially joyful experience. Most of my Life Book pieces are being worked on watercolour paper. Because that is quite expensive, I use alternatives when the watercolour surface isn't used. This time I used a piece of cardboard packaging. Mati Rose's sample was a simple sail boat and after some consideration of another subject, I decided I would keep it simple too. 
First layer was acrylic paints. There are two dark blues in the background - the first added with a credit card scraping, and the other to fill in gaps with a paintbrush. Then I added some pattern for the sea using bubble wrap and that lovely swirly roller. I had decided I would  make a night sky so I could add more metallic ideas - here I've painted in a simple moon shape as well.

I wanted some movement in the sky so sprayed and dripped some starburst spray - this is delphinium turquoise. They have a divine shimmer. 

When I turned it the right way I had a lovely wispy cloud-like pattern. 

 Then I needed stars and glitter to create a night sky.

I have had some metallic flakes for quite a few years in my cupboard. Put them in a plastic jar to store but never really used them because I wasn't sure how.

The instructions say to use a special metal adhesive, but I didn't have that and didn't want to stop creating to buy something new! So I just used a heavy gloss medium and applied gold flakes to the moon (as seen in the photo above), and the various colours for the boat.

Not sure if it would have been more even/flatter effect if I'd used the correct adhesive but I like the effect I got. I am really happy that I purchased the rainbow flakes. The purple is glitter that I sprinkled to fill in the gaps. For the rest of the boat I used fabric for the sails and machine stitch to put the boat together.

I used gold metallic thread in the top and plain black cotton in the bobbin. I increased my stitch length and stitched a bit slower than normal and had no problem stitching through the thicker cardboard. This was a fun lesson and something I wouldn't have done without this class :-)

You can see all my posts about Life Book HERE and I've created a Flickr album for all my Life Book projects HERE.