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“Dear Sir”

Welcome back friends. Today I have a 13@rts project to share with you. “Dear Sir” was a quick project that I made this morning using a mini clipboard that I had in my stash. I have wanted to use this adorable board for so long. The project for the Design Team this month was anything using Color Glow. Now pigments I love. I love to create with powders. And I have no idea what my fascination is with them. Maybe it is the fact I get to mix water with powder and colour to make things pretty………. but in this case grungy.

I pulled out my huge stash of 13arts goodies and the masculine Mr Handsome collection jumped straight out at me. I do absolutely love this collection. It really does bring out the grunge in me. I started out by priming my clipboard with clear @13arts gesso and with a palette knife I scraped over the surface of the clipboard with an amount of 13@rts gel medium. A medium amount of the 13@rts Rust Effect Powder was sprinkled over the gel medium. I let it sit for a minute and then applied the reagent. This takes no time at all to work and the effect is just amazing. I did a few layers, and I am sure I could have just stopped at two but I kept going I think because I enjoyed just playing. I even had a little show and tell with husband and children. I did love this so much.

But even better was adding in the contrasting colours of the Color Glows. For as long as I can remember I have always been a lover of pigment powders. There are so many reasons why I love to use pigments but for one they are a lightweight, and space saving media product. And because they are a powder there is no leakage and incredibly inexpensive for what they are. They last forever as long as you keep them in a dry place and the lid is on tight. And the metallic glow is stunning to say the least. Okay I could go on forever telling you why you should have these in your stashes, but for now I will just tell you how I used them.

It is as simple as adding a small amount of the Color Glow powder to a pallette or small container. I use a pipette to add a few drops of water to the powder at a time. I do it this way because using a spritzing bottle usually has powder exploding everywhere. I simply then mix it with a paint brush until the powder becomes fully disolved within the water. Then it is only a matter of adding the colour with a paint brush to your project. I sometimes add a small amount of water if I feel the colour is too bright for a project. For this project I used a combination of Jadeite, Golden Calcite and Tiger Eye.

So once I had my clipboard base coloured I went about adding in some elements to build upon my board. I chose to use iCraft MDF skeleton clocks and a flourish for this project. They were coloured using 13@rts black gesso. I sanded the clocks back after the gesso had dried to relieve the piece of the one colour. I add in some Tiger’s Eye Color Glow over the revealed areas of the clockface. These mdf pieces were cut and adhered to the clipboard using the 13@rts gel medium. Upon the clock pieces I cut from the Mr. Handsome paper of “Gentleman” and the “Grungy Walls” a few elements to layer up. Each was cut and distressed and then inked in Black Soot Distress Ink. I used a some old board to give dimension to each piece. More clear gesso was applied over these and then more colour using the Color Glow. I also added in a paper doll from Tim Holtz’s idea-ology collection.

Finishing off my project I added in some rolled up cotton thread in a grey colour, and a little addition of the 13@rts microspheres were adhered using the gel medium. Lastly I lightened the edges of the clipboard using white gesso and I splashed over the project with 13@rts white acrylic ink.