Chainmail notebook cover - Finnabair Ambassador

Moikka! It's Friday and weekend starts soon! This piece is special to me in two ways - first that it made an appearance in the Finnabair Ambassador Cafe and it's made for a member of my favorite band. I'm also giving this away this weekend when I'm attending a heavy metal festival at Tampere. 

The topic of the Cafe is this time "my journey". The ambassadors got to choose whether they interpret the theme as their personal journey or how they create on the go. Please visit Finn's blog (link) to see how each one interpret the theme! 

Like I write in the Cafe post, I don't create that much when I'm on a vacation and on the go. If I'm travelling for a workshop I naturally create the class sample and sometimes even something extra, but if I'm on vacation with the family, I rarely even have any craft supplies with me. I guess if I'd be on the go for weeks and weeks I would need something to let the creativity flow. Then an art journal would be something to have with me.

What I do pack with to a vacation is an album or even a paper bag to gather the ephemera from that trip. My favorite thing nowadays is a box styled minialbum, like this one I made for London (link) or this I used when attending Finnabair's classes for the first time (link). The box allows me to add all the things to one place and the album catches the impressions I have the moment I have them - during the trip.

But now for the project. It's a part of a series of some sort. It all started with a big warrior canvas (link), continued with an altered violin (link) and then another canvas, black and white heart (link). They all are pieces I've created inspired by Turisas and especially one of their gig posters (link). What the pieces also have in common is that each of them is given to a member of the band. This journal is for Jesper Anastasiadis, the bass player of the band.

The inspiration for this cover came from the chainmail on the gig poster. The texture transformed to the can opener tabs in my mind and so I purchased several openers from the local recycling center. When adhered close to one another they created a lovely texture that reminds me of the chainmail. First I thought to adhere the pieces layered on top of each other but the texture looked better this way. 

I wanted to keep the texture of the openers as visible as possible, but the cover seemed to need at least something. So I added a couple more embellishments to finish the cover, a couple of gears, a bottle cap and also a star. 

The dark background is done with black gesso, then there's Impasto paint on top, the turquoise, and then I added the metallic shine on top using the metallic waxes. I also added some "oil splashes" to the cover by mixing black alcohol ink, Soft Gloss Gel and black glitter. 

Thank you for stopping by today! Have a great start to the weekend! 

Materials: Prima Marketing