Love as Noble as Gold

I do like a challenge - can you make something with MDF and with rice papers was the request and so I searched my stash and this piece was formed. It is very definitely a full on mixed media piece but I am hoping over a series of blog posts with rice papers I will be able to share with you some of the ways of using this fabulous craft essential (well it is for me).

The base of my piece is a teapot artboard which comes complete with attatchments to make hanging easy. they can be simply glued to the back of the piece if you want to use them or left off the choice is yours.

 Normally I would prime any mdf/artboard/birchply piece before painting but for this piece as I knew I would be adding lots of layers I simply painted the entire surface with salmon acrylic paint. Once the paint had dried I applied white one component crackle paste - so easy just use a palette knife to apply varrying thickness and you con't even need to cover all of the surface if you don't want too. Let the crackle paste dry - it is safe to use a heat gun to speed up the process. The crackle paste gives a white layer which is really essential if the colours of the rice paper you are using are going to be shown to their best advantage.

 

Next I took a blooming retreat A4 rice paper and drew around the imagery with a wet paint brush - this then allows you to tear around the images giving a soft feathered edge which is then easier to disguise on your project (hiding edges is one of the tricks for successful use of rice papers). Having decided where abouts the floral elements were going to be I then used decoupage glue to adhere them in place and over the top to protect them - you need a thin glue and there are lots on the market. 

The salmon paint showing through the cracks also shows through the rice paper helping to disguise that the rice paper is just glued ontop - it links the layers together. To further help with unifying everything I then added areas of gold stencil paste through damask stencil 16 and again left it to dry.

Having created my base I knew that I needed to create a focal point on top of it and yes I know that means covering up some of the layers but that really is the key to mixed media creating. For my embellishments I layered elements from the  rose buds and leaves chipboard sets placing some directly onto the base then a layer of distressed cheesecloth followed by faux fern leaves, although one of the faux greenery pieces I have used is no longer in stock the berries will work and I also added in leaf 11. On top of the faux greener  I then added flowers similar to lime daisies and lime poppies. The embellishment clusters were then filled out by tucking in more of the chipboard leaves and then everything was dry brushed with white gesso.

 

I chose a sentiment from the wedding inscription set and edged it with gold wax before adhering it in place. To finish the piece I then added more wax around the edges.