Guest Designer Chaitali Dekhtawala.

Hello Crafty Souls,

Welcome to another exciting post at Mixed Media Academy...

Today we have our May Challenge winner Chaitali Dekhtawala as our Guest Designer and she created a wonderful project inspired by our moodboard this month.

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Hello everyone, 

I am Chaitali Dekhtawala. Today I am sharing with you all, my Guest Designer entry for this month's challenge at MMA. Very excited to be the guest designer and loving the uniquely beautiful challenge by Priyanka Srivastava, "What's your Raashi (Zodiac Sign)?". Here is what I created...

It was a delight to create for this challenge as I've always been fascinated by the sun signs and their effect on our personality and life. I chose to create the entire zodiac calendar with all the 12 fabulous signs, their symbols, their time frames, and their unique traits. Also, used various elements related to the zodiac like the astronomical clock, the sun, moon, stars, and decided on a galaxy backdrop to match the theme. 

So below is the stepwise instructions of my project:

# I have used the reverse side of the canvas. First applied Artist's Loft white acrylic gesso all over the canvas. Then used Tim Hotz Lattice work stencil and Finnabair's modeling paste to add textures on the canvas. (see pics: Step 1 & Step 2) 

                         

# Further added more textures to the background base using Golden's crackle paste, Finnabair's sand paste, art stones small and medium, chipboards, plastic caps of different sizes from home. Used Tacky Glue to stick everything on to the canvas.  (see pics: Step 3 & Step 4) 

 

# Once fully dried, applied one more coat of gesso over everything (see pic: Step 5)

# Drew the main focal part - the sun and the moon, on white card stock and colored it with Pima Marketing's watercolors and acrylic paints. Enhanced it with beads, microbeads, and glitters. Later after cutting the shapes, kept aside for drying (see pic: Step 6) 

# Then covered the entire canvas with Liquitex's black colored gesso. Once dried, started the first layer of coloring using Finnabair's art alchemy SPARKS Acrylic & Metallique paints as shown in the pic. (see pic: Step 7) 

# Similarly, colored and decorated the astronomical clock and cut half into 2 semi-circles, and pasted them on to the canvas, also pasted the sun and moon on the border of the canvas with two-sided foam stickers to give it a slight raise as shown in the pic. Further, added circular cardboard in the center of the canvas to elevate that part. Added few strings around it for effect. (see pic: Step 8) 

# Printed a pic of 12 zodiac signs in a circular design. Colored with Pima Marketing's watercolors and Finnabair's art alchemy SPARKS Acrylic colors, and pasted on the elevated center circular cardboard. 

# Further added more Finnabair's art alchemy SPARKS Acrylic & Metallique paints, Finnabair's art Pebbles, Finnabair's Gloden Mica Flakes, glitters, golden strings, chipboards, and many other metal embellishments. Also used Finnabair's art alchemy Waxes and white and golden splatters to intensify the overall galaxy effect. Also added a golden string horizontally and vertically with round metal zodiac signed coins. You can see the various texture effects and details in the closeup pics below 

# Added the word "Zodiac" using the page curl effect and the quote "... where you find who you are!" on top of the canvas. Decorated it with few splatters, stars, and chipboards.

# Created 12 small rectangular Zodiac cards containing the sign name, their dates, and traits from white card stock. Colored and pasted them on to the canvas side border as shown in the pic. Decorated the border with silver stars and sequence.

 Below are the different close-up pics of my project. 

Hope you like my project and it inspires you to take part in this fabulous challenge. You have time to play until Aug 31st. So do participate! and win awesome goodies. 

Thank you. Stay blessed.