Hello and welcome to my blog :) I have a piece of Fantasy mixed media to share with you today, another tribute to my favourite books by Tolkein. Several years ago I created a birthday card with a similar theme, Smaug's Lair in Durin's grand halls beneath the Lonely Mountain. For this project I have used stamps from the Here Be Dragons set; various paints, black Versafine ink, clear EP, gold gilding wax, an embossing folder, some gems and sparkles, and a wall of air dry clay from my stash.
I began with two pieces of black card and embossed them in a folder from my stash to represent the stone halls and arches under the mountain. I painted the panels with a chalky grey paint, using a dry brush, and then dried them. I added irridescent green-blue paint with a dry brush then finished with a pearlescent bronze colour, drying each colour between applications.
I completed the background panels by rubbing gold gilding wax over the raised lines of the pattern. I then attached the panels to a canvas.
I wanted to re-create the piles of gold and treasure that the dragons had plundered from the Dwarves so I spread black sand texture paste across the bottom third of the canvas, making the top edge very uneven as piles of treasure would be. Then I let it dry naturally.
On another piece of black card I stamped two dragons in black ink and embossed them with clear EP. I then painted them with metalic glitter paints and fussy cut them.
I painted the texture paste with light and dark gold metalic acrylic paint, and I extended the paint around the paste to give the effect of a bright glow coming from the gold. I attached gems and sparkles from my stash, adding some of them to the dragon's bellies as if they are embedded into their skin from lying on the treasure for so long. I stamped and embossed several swirls onto acetate, cut them out and coloured them with alcohol pens. I attached them as if they are flames coming out of the mouths of the dragons.
I stamped and embossed a sentiment in gold onto a piece of CB printed paper, tore and inked the edges, rolled one edge up and attached it to the canvas. To complete my artwork I took a small panel of stone wall made from air dry clay and painted it in the same way as I did the background, then attached it to the top of the canvas.
I am delighted with the results of my work, I think that I have achieved my goal to represent the dragons gaurding their treasure. In fact this version is way better than the birthday card I made years ago. This was so much fun to create and I'm sure that any Middle Earth fans would love to receive a canvas like this.
Thank you so much for dropping in today, I hope that you have enjoyed this post and maybe been inspired by it. You are welcome to browse the blog and I hope that you will visit again soon :)
