Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Blue Fern Studios January Sketch Challenge

Happy New Year! Not only is it a new year, but it's the beginning of a new month, and that means a new sketch challenge at Blue Fern Studios. I have always loved playing along with the Blue Fern sketches, and am delighted to get to do so as a member of the 2014 Design Team!

Here is this month's sketch from the incredibly talented Michele Singh.


Although you do not have to use the specific Blue Fern chippies used in the sketch, I LOVE the Winter Page Dangles and couldn't wait to use them on this layout.

This is a picture of my two youngest cuties. I don't know what it is about ski gear, but these two have been obsessed with putting it on ever since they could stand. Brennan, our middle son, has been skiing for a year now, and Colby, at 2.5, can't wait to get started and regularly steals his brothers' helmets and goggles. I foresee a lot of tears this year as his brothers suit up for ski lessons and he's still too young to go (though we do plan on getting him out on the bunny hill on a leash). The "Photo Op" words from the Picture Perfect set were perfect for this photo - I don't have many of these two together.



Because the colours of the photo are so neutral, I wanted to add color to the layout and began by smearing yellow acrylic paint across the background, then added some stencilling and stamping to tone it down a little bit.


I painted each of the dangles in gesso, then added a couple of shades of the same colour to each one for some depth, and finished them off with Stampendous Aged Embossing Enamel - I love how in addition to the dominant colour it also contains gold or silver and black, adding more dimension to the piece. A little touch of gesso on my finger finished the coloured bits off.


I left the chain parts of the dangles white so that the shapes would stand out, and made sure to assemble my cluster so that the shapes could still be seen - why cover up those cool little details?


I mounted my photo on a piece of the Tattered Diamond Bits, which I treated simply with gesso and some blue paint.


A closeup of some of the background details.



Blue Fern Studios Chipboard Pieces Used:

Winter Dangles
Picture Perfect
Tattered Diamond Bits

Thank you for stopping by! Check out the Blue Fern Studios blog for details on entering the Sketch Challenge and to see the beautiful chippies up for grabs. 

1 comment:

Paper Attic said...

I love your take on the sketch Jackie! What an adorable photo, love the colors you used, Lisa