New Year - New Challenge - New Art

Happy new Year to you all - one of the things I want to do this year is make more time to spend on my art , for me...my Design Team commitments have reduced and with that has come more time and freedom to join in with things just because I want to. The first new challenge that caught my eye is being run by Darcy over at Art and Sole. She's invited us to join her in altering a calender throughout the year. The rules, as explained by Darcy are simple -

1.. Keep a part of the original picture and incorporate that into your design

2, Technique - Crackling, any brand of crackle glaze, or the pva crackle method.... or any other way you can think of to add crackling. 

3. Add some book text 

4. Blog your calendar page and link up from Jan 1st 2015

I bought a cheap Claude Monet calender and this is what I created for January 

 This is what the page looked like originally - 

I started with a layer of gesso and then white acrylic paint...using a tree stencil (clarity Stamps) to leave some of the original picture showing. 

 I added Distress crackle paint (weathered wood) and distress ink through a dotty stencil

I applied grunge paste (paperartsy) through a snowflake stencil across the top and sprinkled this with glitter while it was wet. Also added splatters of pale blue and white paint. 

 The snowman is old book pages covered in crinkled tissue paper and sponged with distress ink - I also added some strips of tissue paper and book page across the bottom section.

 I was a bit daunted at first by the large size (I also bought a cheap smaller calender in case I couldn't get on with this one) but really enjoyed working on it and am already thinking about February. To join in and have a peek at Darcy's amazing work pop over to Art and Sole.  Thanks for stopping by.....Esther xx