Saturday, 28 June 2008

Architecture swap for Fiona

I have been working on an architecture themed swap today. As you read this, you will begin to see how my mind works, and also how my artwork never ends up anything like the original plan!

I fancied the idea of a little shrink plastic 'house' that opened. I took pieces of shrink plastic that were 4.5 inches tall and 2.5 inches wide, cut some diagonals off to make a roof shape, sanded, coloured, stamped and shrank.

The front doors

The inside of the front doors


The inside

The back.

At this point, I decided that the whole thing was way too small to send as a swap, and wondered how big a piece of shrink plastic I could shrink to make a bigger house. When I looked at my shrink plastic stocks the question became immaterial, as I didn't have enough white shrink plastic to try!

And so began version 2 of the architectural swap...

Fiona had sent me a tin to alter some time ago. I decided to use it as the basis of the swap. I painted the tin with 4 very thin layers of black gesso, then stamped the spots with brilliance ink. I fused some fantasy film using a stamp, Stazon and a hot iron, to create the embellishment. I edged the piece with cream dimensional paint. I may yet dust this with Pearl Ex to make it less stark. I attached the key and keyhole to finish the front.


I painted the inside to match the front, and created a little shrink plastic shrine. The shrine is two layers of shrink plastic, glued together with spacers after shrinking. The door opens and Fiona will be able to see who is inside.

I thought I had finished at this point, but decided the left hand side looked too bare.

I searched through my stash and found some clear shrink plastic wings left over from another project, so that led me to think of an angel... and this Paper Whimsy image that was just the right size. It still looked a little stark, so I decided she needed a halo. I also decided I should have painted that before I stuck her in!!! Which is why she ended up with a blue starry halo.......

I hope Fiona likes it!


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