Pearly Stars/ PaperArtsy blog challenge

Hi everyone. Thankyou for popping by. Perhaps you've hopped over from the paperartsy blog here, as this post links with the Paperartsy blog tonight. I've had great fun seeking out all my pearlescent stash to create these Pearly Stars for the new theme: Pearlescent.

The stamped images are from Tracy Scott's new Christmas stamp sets, designed for PaperArtsy and  can be bought Here. They are simply drawn images and can be painted, doodled in or stamped over different media, so are pretty flexible. They are perfect for art journaling! 

I started with a layer of gesso as I intended to use PaperArtsy Fresco paints for the backgrounds. The pearlescent part would come later! 

I used DecoArt Tinting base to help produce light and darker areas as a foundation layer.

I then used a darker shade to add a little depth.

I then used the colours I had already used, plus an even darker shade, Baltic Blue, to add some stencilling. Don't you just love that 'Jade'? That's from one of Tracy's limited edition sets. 

For a final layer, and to introduce some white areas, I used a new Stencil PSO70. They are such pretty snowflakes, I think that will be well used this year! I painted the reverse of each star with Baltic Blue. 

The remaining two stars were painted with reds, pinks and oranges as a complete contrast to the blue. I was originally going to place complementary stamped images on top of the stars but, in the end, opted to keep with the tone on tone. So far, I have only used chalk paint so I now needed to search out some pearlescent paints for my stamped images. I could have added pearl glaze to the Frescos but I'd recently bought some pearlescent paints so I decided to try them out. 

I used Lustres paints by Colourcraft CSA Ltd. These are very pearlescent but it is difficult to show this in a photo. I used three colours for both colour families, just swooshing across some Smoothy PaperArtsy 240gms card. They blend beautifully. 

Hopefully, this will give you a better impression of the gorgeous sheen on this card. There are silvery streaks appearing here and there. Delicious. Using almost all of the images from the two sets: ETS12 and ETS13, I stamped with black Archival across the pearlised sheets. I had made several copies in both colour ways. 

Now I just needed to cut them out! It didn't take too long actually, so I was able to assemble them on each star fairly quickly. 

Once they were glued and layered, I was able to add even more pearlescent products on top.to create some dimension on the spots inside some of the stars and circles, I mixed some modelling paste 

(Golden) with some pearlescent 'Silkies'. I'm not sure who produced these as I've had them for some time, but they are Acrylic Glazes. I'm pretty sure Finnabair was using them at some point. These produced some lovely shimmery little domes over the spots! I also used Ranger's Liquid pearls to add little beads of colour here and there. Now, apart from a little doodling, they were pretty much complete. 

I used some Tim Holtz chain links to connect them, one to the other, and Hey Presto, they were ready to hang. I do hope you like this Christmas wall-hanging and have been inspired to search out your pearlescent stash and take  part in this fortnight's challenge. Thankyou so much for popping by! Until next time, happy crafting!