My love for Freida Kahlo

Hello there.  Hope you are all well? I am so glad the summer has finished and autumn has arrived. In my latest project i've thought outside the box - literally - yes.....I've done ANOTHER box but this time with a twist.  I have added a shrine to the box so it's a kind of 'mash up' of projects.

  Here is the finished piece 

As you can see in the picture this piece was inspired by the artist Frieda Kahlo.  I am a huge fan of her work and i love the vibrancy of not only her art work but herself as a person.  I really enjoyed working on this piece but it did take a while as there were a number of techniques used and a lot of waiting for either glue to dry or paint. 

My favourite picture of this wonderful woman is this one

This is how this project started life and where my inspiration came from for doing the 'mash up'

After i glued the box together using wood glue i then proceded to glue the shrine on.  After this i used Prima Transparent texture paste and gessoed it to give the whole project texture.

I then painted it with Deco Art Americana multi surface satin paint in Blue Lagoon which is such a wonderful blue. When this was dry i painted Deco Art  Perfect Crackle 1 over this. I let it dry naturally and i then went over this with Deco Art Perfect Crackle 2.  When this part was dry i then went over it with black distress crayon and rubbed it in all over the box.  I thought, being something to do with Freida, it needed some bling so i dry brushed all over with Dazzling Metallic paint in Venetian Gold (again by Deco Art) and it really brought out the crackle.  

Whilst i was waiting for all this paint, glue and crackle paint to dry i raided my embelishment stash and i had a great time.  Freida liked putting flowers in her hair so naturally flowers had to be a part of the project - bright ones and big ones.  I wanted it all to clash as she was into this in her clothes and paintings.  This self portrait was also my inspiration for the colours and flowers used 

I felt like i needed some gold somewhere so the winged angel got painted also the mdf cross at the back of the angel also got covered.  I then stuck some big and bright flowers onto the sides over some  filagree embellishments.  When i had everything else to my liking i then started putting things in the actual 'shrine' part.  The heart is by Prima in their artifacts collection and i covered it in Deco Art Crackle Paste which i waited overnight for so it crackled to perfection! I then painted it with Liquitex Heavy Body acrylic paint in Alizeron Crimson Hue which gives us a lovely deep red.

I loved doing this project and i hope you like it too.

Thank you so much for visiting and i hope you enjoyed your stay

Take care

Jo

xx