To the Beach - Guest Designer - Nikki Acton

Hi everyone - it is my pleasure to be the guest designer here for July.

When I knew I was going to be creating a couple of projects using the fabulous Calico Craft Parts I was instantly attracted to the wonderful beach huts. I then saw that Trish had done something very similar but I decided to stick with my idea anyway - you can see Trish's version here.

Using the back of a canvas is one my favourite themes - creating a little shadow box effect and perfect for lots of mixed media techniques and embellishments.

I started by adding some texture to the canvas - using texture paste, string, little beads and cheesecloth. I also added some Deco Art sand texture paste. Once this was all completely dry I gave it all a coat of white gesso.

I then began to paint my background scene - the sea, sky and sand. Once the colours were dry I dry brushed white gesso over the surface - particularly the areas with texture to highlight and create contrasts. I also added lots of spatters with watered down gesso.

Now to the craft parts! I used the beach huts (small), the 'to the beach sign' and little ring buoy both from the mini nautical motifs sheet and some seagulls from the mini seagulls sheet. I really wanted the wood to still be visible so added my paint very lightly, mostly with dry brushing again.

The beach huts were coloured with a pale colour each and some white for contrast.

The sign and birds just had a little white paint dry brushed over the surfaces.

Finally I secured my craft parts onto the canvas - using foam pads for the beach huts to create some dimension.

Craft parts used today:

Sheet of Mini MDF Wood Birds - Seagulls

Beach Hut MDF Wood Shape

Sheet of Mini MDF Nautical Motifs Style 5 

Thanks for stopping by, I will be back later in the month with another project. 

Nikki xxx

Addicted to Art