Finding Nemo? by Claudia

Hello, servus and hi again! Claudia here today, bringing to you a little scene from the ocean's bottom.

But first I want to thank all who left those lovely comments on my previous project (which was my first project as an official member of the DT...which always is exciting and a special moment) - you all made my day(s) and I want to thank you for the encouragement! Mwah! X

Today I have this little scene for you that I created in a shoe box lid shadow box.

Nemo obviously isn't there - so sadly still not found. But a lot of other typical sea dwellers are there to be admired and looked at. Here's the list of Calico Craft Parts I used:

Jellyfish MDF Wood Shape
Hammerhead Shark MDF Wood Shape Style 2 - two sizes
Blue Whale MDF Wood Shape
Floral Vine MDF Wood Corner Embellishment - Style 31 - two sizes
Skull with Teeth MDF Wood Shape

 I started with a background I had done while experimenting with selfmade alcohol inks on Yupo paper and I made the shoe box lid fit the measurements of my Yupo by cutting off and folding one side in. I secured everything with masking tape and painted it with blue acrylic paint. The Yupo with the acohol inks on it had been secured with a matte spray sealant before glueing it inside the box lid. 

Next I gathered some matching DecoArt fluid acrylics to paint my jellyfish, skull, flourishes, whale and sharks.


The corner flourishes were cut apart to use them as seagrass. I used two different sizes (which I also did with the sharks) to create the impression of depth and perspective.

 To create the sea floor I glued some old yellowed magazine pages onto some heavy card and cut three stripes of different width.

I inked the edges with dark brown archival stamping ink and stacked them with sticky foam pads before I glued them to my box lid.

I found some designer paper in my stash that had some sand dollars on them - so I simply cut these out and used them to add a little bit of "life" to my see floor.

The corals were die cut from various designer papers (using leaf dies) and glued behind the different layers of the ocean floor.

The jellyfish were painted using a mix of Titan Buff and Quinacridone Magenta and Red.

I fixed them to the sides of the box lid with transparent acetate (taken from packagings of my dies) and matte DecoArt Decou-Page  - so they would look as if they floated in the foreground of the scenery.

I loved that the skull's eyes allow the spectator to peek right through and see the sea weed that it is surrounded by. That really creates the impression of depth!


I also made sure I used some greens and blues with the pale white of the Titan Buff on the skull so it looks as if the skull reflects the surrounding colours (which also helps with blending it in with the whole scene).

I painted the whale and sharks with slightly different shades of blues and greens - varying darkness, layering washes and/or mixing the paints wet on wet directly on the MDF shapes so they would give the impression of being closer or further away.

I used sticky foam pads to glue my animals to the background and stacked them in varying numbers so I could layer them without them touching each other...which creates a really cool depth and also adds a lot of "motion" to the whole scene.

I hope this image gives a bit of an impression:

So where's Nemo? Honestly - I have no idea. Looks as if we will have to keep on searching... oh, Jeez! I hope we won't meet Bruce!!!! I guess I just saw one of his skinny friends hide behind some sea weed.

Hugs and happy crafting,

Claudia

xxx