Sporty Christmas Angel - by Claudia

Servus! I am so glad you're stopping by today as I am sharing one of my first Christmas makes for this year! I hope you had a lovely first Sunday in advent, lighting the first candle, enjoying some lebkuchen and/or punch and listening to an advent story or song!

I am sure some (most?) of you have already started decorating the house and wakening the Christmas angels from their long and cosy sleep in some stored away boxes. carefully wrapped up in tissue paper! Mine still are waiting to be put up, but I created a new one today - using one of the lovely Calico Craft Parts Art Doll Kits:

Please, welcome Agatha! She obviously is a very sporty Christmas angel (doesn't she look just terrific in her sports dress?) and creating her was a lot of fun!

Calico Craft Parts used:

- Standard Jointed Art Doll Kit - Style 1
- Rounded Rectangle Greyboard Mixed Media Board - Style 18
- Sheet of Mini MDF Wood Wings - Style 3
- Curled Vine Fancy Flourish MDF Wood Shape - Style 1
- Curled Vine Fancy Flourish MDF Wood Shape - Style 2
- Stars - Mini Greyboard Shapes
- Sheet of Mini MDF Wood Crowns - Style 2

My main goal was to create texture in as many ways as possible and still have that bit of bling. The angel's body parts were monoprinted instead of painted - this adds lovely texture and depth!

To do so I first gave all the parts a coat of loosely brushed on white DecoArt Gesso and let that dry.

Then I took an index card and painted on some DecoArt Americana Bahama Blue and pressed the parts face down into the paint.

This is how my parts looked after the first layer:

I repeated the monoprinting step using DecoArt Teal Dazzling Metallic ...

...and afterwards Light Buttermilk Americana paint. 

I punched two holes into the mixed media board and then gave it a coat of white Gesso. 

Once that was dry I applied DecoArt media white Crackle Paint through a snowflakes stencil 

and put it close to our central heating to speed up the drying process. 

In the meantime I created Agatha's face. I used snipped off bits from some Calico Craft Parts flourishes for her hair and made sure I painted the eyes, nose and mouth so they would be well visible once the "hair" was added. 

Agatha's hair was painted using DecoArt Venetian Gold Dazzling Metallic paint. 

I also used it on the stars and to add some dots to her dress. 

While I had done Agatha's head my background panel had dried and the cracks had turned out beautifully! I applied a thin wash of DecoArt media Cobalt Turquoise Hue to highlight the cracks and tone down the white of the panel.

The wings were drybrushed using DecoArt Americana Light Buttermilk, Bahama Blue and the Venetian Gold Dazzling Metallic paint. 

Then I glued everything in place using matte Decou-Page. I added tiny half pearls to hide the joint holes. 

Agatha got an additional "layer of hair" that was glued directly to the panel - that helped make her head and hair less prominent and also visually fuse all the elements and layers. 

And there she was! 

I hope you like her as much as I do! 

Enjoy a wonderful advent season! 

Hugs and happy crafting!

Claudia

xxx