Better Together - A Mix and Match Challenge Week 2 by Andie

During this time of quarantine, Brandy and I miss crafting together.  It isn't that we did so often - we didn't see each other every week sometimes.  It's more that we can't see each other.  So I had an idea to create a challenge each week - one just for Brandy and she could create one just for me.  Brandy has to amp the idea up and came up with our official title.  We began last week and this is our second week of challenges.  I present to you Week Two of the Better Together - A Mix and Match Challenge.

The theme for your Better Together challenge is Whimsical Nature.  Brandy is looking for you to go outside of the box with a  mixed media concept. Over-the-top, needs to have elements of nature in it trees flowers, animals, etc. You can use stamps or dies. Not that there is a prize, but extra points for free hand design or painting.

The color pallet is bright and abundant, the more colors used the better.

Sentiment type and card size are up to you.

HAVE FUN WITH THIS!

Inspiration Photo

My take on the challenge was largely inspired by the theme and the color palette.  I started on my creative journey being slightly intimidated by the suggestion that I free hand paint.  I'm not comfortable with the idea and Brandy was right to challenge that discomfort.  I settled down when I decided I didn't have to get extra points (can you say overachiever?!?!).  I decided to watercolor the background in an imitation of the color palette inspiration.  This took several layers of wet on wet painting to get the backgrounds to be a close approximation.  A bit of a challenge to me, but the best kind that stretched my talent and my patience and my willingness to go outside my comfort zone.  Brandy was right, it was fun!

After watercoloring the base layer, I knew I knew I needed to work in the mixed media aspects.  So I started by spritzing with green and aqua watercolor spray stains through a stencil.  You can kind see the pattern in this card, though not so much in some of the others.  There was likely too light of spray stain and too bright of watercolor layers underneath.  Next, I spattered some white acrylic paint and when that wasn't a bold enough addition, I used the paint brush from the splatters to brush white across the pattern, keeping the movement of my background flowing.  It still wasn't enough so I used some Art Anthology Mud Texture paste and a stencil to make the circular pattern in the background.  The paste dries white and was too stark, so I spritzed some of the green spray stain across the texture paste once dry.  The spray resulted in a a greenish yellow that I think was just the right combination of contrast and unity that it feels a lot like the inspiration photo to me.  A bit of gold Art Anthology Dimensional Media and ahhh, now I'm feeling both comfortable and satisfied, but how to embellish my "nature" part of the challenge?

The last bit was the addition of the floral sprigs and the flowers.  I knew I didn't want clunky paper flowers and I was stretching to figure a solution when I remembered I had some coffee filters and had previously watercolored the filters for the effect on these flowers for a wrapped package.  The pictures just don't do these cards justice as those floral elements are decidedly ethereal - light and see through and delicate.  Just the right touch to finish on my Whimsical Nature challenge with heavy overtones of mixed media.  I'm delighted with the finish and I definitely had fun with the process.

I'm so enjoying this challenge process I am already dreaming of Brandy's challenge for next week.... and she mentioned she's doing the same.  Just our part to bring a bit of enjoyment to each other when we can't craft together.  I made a few bonus cards with some back-up backgrounds made during this process.  I still need to edit those photos and will look to post those tomorrow, if not sooner.

Up next, Brandy's challenge and response.