Mystery Project–Part 2–Brown Heart

The first of the three hearts that I worked on was the brown one. This was for my friend who is an artist, and I thought she would appreciate a more grungey, earthy tone. This turned out to be an excellent choice for her as she told me she is working a lot with these colours at present!

I began by using the original back piece of the frame to trace the shape onto some corrugated cardboard to make the background of the altered heart.

I tore off some of the top layer of paper to expose the corrugations.

I rummaged through a lot of my mixed media supplies to find the right sort of mesh to overlay the bottom part, and eventually decided upon an old roll of scrim which I think was originally supposed to be used for plastering walls – I’ve had it for many years and can’t remember where it came from.

I cut off a length and stuck it down across the bottom of the frame, pulling it as tight as I could.

I then did a bit of experimenting with inks and paints to get the effect I wanted on the corrugated cardboard.

I used three shades of Distress Stains – Pumice Stone, Gathered Twigs and Walnut Stain, creating a mottled effect. When this was dry, I added a little Treasure Gold gilding wax and a touch of Antique White Rub’n Buff to highlight the corrugations. The gold doesn’t really show up very well on the photo.

Here is the corrugated cardboard in place in the frame.

Turning it over to work on the back, I packed out the recess with more corrugated cardboard and secured it in place with masking tape.

I used the outside of the heart frame to trace the piece of cardboard for the back, and distressed the edges with Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

I stuck this onto the back of the piece and signed and dated it.

Here are all the brown roses and single-piece flowers that I made for the brown heart. They have also been highlighted with some Treasure Gold gilding wax.

The brown leaves, together with a few of the flowers, ready to be stuck to the front of the frame.

After sticking down the mesh, I added a couple of lengths of different thickness of jute string and tied them in a bow. The overhang of the mesh and the excess string was trimmed off flush with the edge of the frame.

Time to add the flowers and leaves. Here is the finished result.

When she came over and I gave her the heart, she was intrigued by the various processes I’d used, and we had a short session up in my studio where I demonstrated first how the roses were constructed, and then showed her the gilding wax – she has achieved similar effects with dry brushing. It was very interesting comparing notes about how we have achieved similar results in other areas, by using different methods. She has only recently branched into mixed media art from more of a fine-art background and is exploring different materials. Quite an adventure and I am very excited about it, and can’t wait to see what else she is going to come up with! I was so pleased that I’d hit the right spot with her little heart, with the colour she would have chosen, and the different materials and textures.