Irridescent Medium

Yesterday we went to the lovely Truro Arts shop where I made a few wee purchases... I found this lovely stuff called Irridescent Medium. It is for use with acrylics and you can either mix it with acrylics or you can paint over things with it. It adds a bit if texture but more importantly it gives a lovely sheen... I have only played with painting over things so far..


This was fairy paper left over from the Hello Kitty card. I had left over purple gesso which I used up. The irridescent medium was used to highlight the fairies so they gently shimmer. I then added the text (yes I know it is wonky!) int hree different coloured purple pens.


This card is going to be postcrossed for someone wanting art cards and encouraging people to produce them themselves... I drew the maze in a silver pen and then used a limited selection of water colour pens. I then slapped lots of rridescent medium over the top.

Cornish Culture Card

Last I night I got a new postcross address and read about the recipient. And thought hmmm, thanks for saying what you want, you can have that card of Porthcurno I have lying around upstairs awaiting a home...

Then this morning I had another look and realised that actually, they had said very clearly what they wanted. They wanted some words in your native tongue and a translation into English (which I immediately discounted because I only speak English) and some culture (culture on a card? where do I get that?). But as I thought about it I realised I could do this...

I looked up Cornish poems and eventually found this one here.

I decided to take the repeating bits of the poem and put them on a card. I also really liked the picture at the top and decided to use it, bargain! Culture and language! The card above was the result...

St Piran is the patron saint of Cornwall and legend has it som nasty non-Christian Irish folk threw him off a c liff on a millstone. He made his way to the lovely Perran Bay in Cornwall. Here in the bay, a top the sand dunes he built himself an oratory and began converting the local animals to Christianity. He eventually got a little more ambitious and started converting people.

The original Oratory was made of wattle and daub and was eventually replaced with a stone one. The dunes of Perran Bay continued to grow and in time the Oratory was abandoned to the sands, where it still lies. They built St Piran Old Church further away but eventually this to was left to the sand....

The Cornish language nearly died out but was saved in the nick of time. It is one of the old Celtic languages related to Gaelic and Welsh. I don't speak it but some Cornish words are part of the everyday vocab down here.

The words of the poem by Tim Saunders mean:

'Sand dunes hold a treasure captive between land and beach:
Black the deep nook where the shadows meet,
white the foam on sand.'

So in the end I managed culture and Cornish...

Goodbye Kitty

My latest postcross card called for a slight diversion from my normal diet of landscape cards. The only thing they listed as liking was Hello Kitty... I looked online and saw no cards so the chances of finding any in my small town are kind of low. I did look in the biggest local supermarket which has a whole aisle of cards, but no trace of hello kitty...

Never one to turn down a challenge I thought I would make one!

The pink gingham is tissue paper. The flowery paper on the right is fairy paper with said fairy removed. The flowers on the left are a vinyl tape. The for you at the bottom is sticky ribbon. The heart is a peel off. Kitty herself is some clipart I printed off.

I then laminated it so it hopefully won't fall apart in the post.... I stuck a label on the back for the stamps.

I can't imagine she will get to many hello kitty cards so I hope she likes it!

Punk Postcross

I have recently started using Postcross. A lovely idea for exchanging postcards with the world. I sent my first five, of which only two have so far arrived and this entitled me to send two more. So far I have just sent normal landscape and nature cards of Cornwall but my seventh address called for something a little different...

This person is an artist who likes altered art... They want things half destroyed, changed, whatever and of course, I had to rise to the challenge....

The plain white card was splotched with cats eye inks. I then used stickers to do the writing. Crumpled the card then cut it up and finally stuck it back together with tape... I hope they like it!