Riikka Kovasin - Paperiliitin: A spoonful of you

Hi there and happy new week and month! Today I'm sharing my piece for April's Finnabair Brand Ambassador post. You can see the original post here (link).

What a lovely theme, don’t you agree?! “Old and covered with patina” is just a fantastic theme that sparks the imagination and gives you multiple choices! I decided to do my assemblage on top of a canvas after some thought.

I used one of my own old projects as my jumping off point. I did it years ago as a workshop sample and it included a white crackle base with a rusty composition on top. I used that this time, too, but instead flipped the canvas so the piece has a frame immediately. As I wanted the full attention to go to the patinated center piece, I added just a couple of pieces of an old book to the frame. To adhere them I used Clear Gesso.

The focus on the composition is the old spoon. I gave it wings using cardboard piece I had spotted from a sale. On top I mixed Mechanicals with doodahs from my stash. There are broken jewelry pieces, screws, buttons, and a bobbin, to name a few. I layered most of the embellishments before adding the rusty effect on top, but the Antique Label I put in afterwards as it already had the gorgeous patina.

To make my piece “covered with patina” I first added texture fantasy pastes on top of the composition. There might be a hint of the actual color in some place, but I mainly colored everything after the pastes had dried. I went with Anemone and Coral set as the pinkish tone worked well as the base layer while I then could add the turquoise tone on top, just highlighting the patina. After the first texture layer was dry, I then added rusty tones on top using acrylic paint and Liquid acrylics. I mixed Tiger Orange and Nude to a dark mahogany tone of acrylic. To add shadow here and there I also added a touch black gesso in the mix with a really wet brush and let the color bleed. I also used that to make a few black splashes to the background.

Now my project was rusty, but I wanted to add a hint of weathered copper patina in there as well. To my eye that turquoise makes the red rust just pop! So, I finished the piece with turquoise-colored texture fantasy paste from the Anemone and Coral set and then added a light touch of Patina Blue wax as well.

Thank you for stopping by today! Wishing you a lovely week! Stay safe everyone!