Mixed Media Ex'bear'imenting

Hello there, Horace here to entertain you today. The team over at Smudgy Antics have come up with another fabulous challenge, this week it's TIc Tac Toe. Now I must admit to feeling a little confused at first, I didn't have any tacs, my facial tics are not for sharing, and my toes were definitely NOT for showing on a public blog!!!

BUT! Wilbear took me aside and explained that I should read the challenge properly, not just the title, and on second perusal I discovered that the idea was to choose three in a row of the suggested techniques. What fun.
I was so excited at the prospect of playing with my journal, I rushed straight to the desk, knocking over Mr. Headly in my haste, and causing him a fatal injury!




Oops! Someone call an ambearlance!
Anyway, I chose the first line down, as Wilbear does when he begins his crosswords, this consisted of:

Paint
Distress
Hardware or metal

To start, I foraged in the bits 'n' pieces box...




I found this fabulous chipboard puzzle alphabet, which set off a creative spark.




To comply with the challenge, I selected masks, acrylic paints and distress inks, and began to create....




I dabbed various colour distress inks through several masks, onto my blank page,




building up layers. then I added splodges of acrylic paint with a foam brush, misted with water, and let them run away with themselves.




There was a stage where I wondered where on earth I was going with my page! I thought it was best to carry on and see where my creativity took me though. After all, if it doesn't work, it can be Gessoed over!! What a weird mess of mist and paint effects below, I call it art-vomit!!




I used Mod Podge to adhere some elements to the page. I love Mod Podge, as it dries completely clear, and can be dabbed on liberally.




Here's my mid-craft mess. I 'borrowed' some of Wilbear's jigsaw for my project. I hope he doesn't want to use it any time soon.




I added some journalling cut from Sizzix Alphabets, we had various bags of pre cut letters waiting to be used.




I thought the page needed more background decoration, so foraged in the stamp box. In my excitement, I leaned a little too far, and fell in! Ouch. (Please excuse the bottom shot! Podgy thought it would be funny to record my little mishap.)




After climbing out, I finished off my page by adding some background stamping, and a stamped sentiment, 'live for the moment'.

The die cut letters on the right hand side have been distressed in purple, to match some of the masked background. To comply with the metal or hardware element of the challenge, I added a key in place of a word.




While creating my page I discovered a new technique - dab kitchen roll on your distress ink pad




and press over the top of chipboard for another distressed effect.




Here I am with my finished page. The wording says




'Life is a big puzzle, the key is to live for the moment'.

After looking at my page a little more, I decided there was something not quite finished about it, so I took a trip to my local scrapbook store, Papermaze, and spent the last of the bears' pocket money on a white gel pen, to highlight my journalling.




A close up of the left hand side




And the right hand side




I'm still not sure about my page being finished, but hey, art is one big ex'bear'iment, and this is my grunge attempt!! ;). I could always gesso over it and re experiment.

Thanks once again to Smudgy Antics for coming up with such interesting inspiration for me, at this rate I'll have my journal filled before Christmas.

TTFN (time to find new jigsaw for Wilbear!)

With love from the bears.