Bathing Beauty at the Beach! - by Claudia

Hi, servus and I hope you are all enjoying a beautiful summer at the beach (or lakeside...or in your swimming pool)!

I am sharing a beach themed project today that somehow "happened" while browsing all my Calico Craft Parts boxes (yes - by now I have three of them...one for the Mini Craft Shapes Sheets, one for the larger wood shapes and 3D kits and one for a wild mix of smaller craft shapes that are too small to store in one of the other two boxes).

I browse these boxes from time to time to keep up to date with what I have...and often I find wood shapes I had almost forgotten about...and on that occasion often a project forms in my head that I would not have thought of - simply because I rarely look at all the craft parts I have at one time and see them all side by side. Most of the time I just focus on the ones I most recently ordered to use in a specific project. And when I change my mind (which happens quite often honestly) and create something totally different (because another genius idea just hit my mind so I just have to do that project first) some of these pieces go to the side for later use...and that over time generates a mix of craft parts that sparks new ideas too. ;)

So this beach plaque with a bathing beauty in her gorgeous swim suit was one of these projects...I had a palm tree, some left over tiny shells and a dolphin from Mini Wood Shapes Sheets, a sheet of beach themed Word Elements, the newly ordered art doll kit and some gorgeous beach sheds...et voilá!

Her bathing cap seems to be a bit tight....lol.
That reminds me...I have only recently seen that these seem to come into vogue again! Really???!!!

From my point of view retro fashion only feels fashionable (which from my understanding includes "good looking", too) to those who see and wear that style for the first time! And to those who wear it of their own free will!

We were made to wear bathing caps back in my days! (OMG...am I sounding as if I were in my seventies? Must be the heat...)
No one cared if that made you look like a complete wally. I remember my mom even wore one monster of a bathing cap when she went swimming in a lake (to protect her expensive perm) . It was a bone-ish beige colour and made from strangely smelling thick soft rubber and had massive soft rubber flowers of the same colour and material all over it. It had a very high cringe factor for my sister and me (especially as our bathing spot was quite small and everyone knew us there so we couldn't pretend to be the kids of some other family there).
 Oh...well...at least that made me feel thankful that I just looked like a chubby-faced egghead wally when wearing my sportier version with no flowers (YESSSS!!!!) and just a red stripe.

Erm...I seem to have wandered from the subject here...(must have been the shock of the unexpected lively reminiscence)...back to my bathing beauty at her beautiful, hot, sandy beach!
I love that you can put the art dolls in almost any posture you want. And when I found the beach themed word element I knew I wanted her to casually rest on it in front of a dream beach scenario. ;)

Calico Craft Parts used:

- Fancy Birch Ply Wood Plaque - Style 2
- Striped Beach Hut with Flag Wood Shape
- Sheet of Mini MDF Nautical Motifs - Style 6
- Sheet of Mini MDF Nautical Motifs - Style 1
- Standard Jointed Art Doll Kit - Style 1
- Palm Tree MDF Wood Shape
- Word Elements - Summer & Seaside


The background on the birch ply wood plaque was done using DecoArt media Texture Sand Paste.
To get a neat straight edge between sky and beach I used some masking tape.

The Texture Sand Paste was scraped on with a palette knife and I removed the masking tape while the paste was still wet.

I used the masking tape to also mask the beach edge when painting the sky. To create the summer sky I used DecoArt Chalky Finish paints "escape" and "timeless" both wet on wet. I also used "timeless" alongside traces of "Golden Straw" Americana acrylic paint to paint the sand.

The other wood shapes were primed with a dry brushed layer of "timeless" Chalky Finish paint. On top I used DecoArt media fluid acrylics (pure and as washes) and Americana acrylic paints to create my bathing beauty, the palm tree, the beach hut, the dolphin, the shells and the word band.

To layer my bathing beauty accordingly I used tiny cut off pieces from left overs from Calico Craft Parts Mini Wood Shapes Sheets. I always keep these for that purpose as they have the perfect depth for stacking the craft parts.

This image shows the depth of the created layers and also the lovely texture from the Texture Sand Paste.

To finish off the beach scene plaque I added some black line drawing with a PITT artist pen.

Have fun at the beach!

Claudia

xxx