Southern Ridge Trading Company: Shine Bright with Sandy McTier

Karen and I are excited to introduce our last talented Decorative Painter, Sandy McTier, today on the blog.

Sandy McTier is sharing a beautiful piece with you today, so read below as Sandy shares with you her Shine Bright project. Make sure to leave her some love and give her a warm welcome to the team.

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Hi Y’all!!

So excited to be here on the Southern Ridge Trading Co. blog!

My name is Sandy McTier, and I live in the state of Georgia in the United States with my hubby and darling dachshund – Becks. I’m the proud momma to three amazing boys – ages 22, 21, and 20 J I’ve been fortunate to travel teach around the world, sharing what I love to do with others!!

I love painting and creating everything from crafty to fine art! I was beyond thrilled when asked to be a part of the SR Design Team and look forward to creating with all of the AWESOME SRTC products!!! It was like Christmas opening up my first box from Karen! The brain went into overdrive, and I couldn’t wait to get started!!!

I’m happy to share my first design with you ~ Shine BRIGHT!

My palette inspiration came from some pictures of beautiful rusty metals. The burnt oranges, turquoise and browns spoke to me – don’t you love it when that happens.

I knew I wanted to create some texture in the background so I used a brayer and rolled on some Gesso over the entire surface. Then I painted the entire surface with some gorgeous Burnt Orange and Quinacridone Gold Fluid Acrylics.

TIP: Lay the surface down on some Press’n Seal (kitchen wrap) and press down. This helps keep the piece in place as well as keeping the colour from going through the fret work and onto the other side. This works especially well for tiny chipboard pieces, words and more!

Whilst that was drying, I created a butterfly out of a manila folder. I glued the folder closed, drew out my butterfly design and painted it up with a mix of Quinacridone Magenta and Quinacridone Gold. Added some accents on the wings with Titanium White, Vermilion and Carbon black along the edges. Outlined everything with an Identi-Pen and added some yummy Bronze Metallic Lustre to the wings. Added some softness to the edges by rubbing a bit of Titan Buff along the edges. I finished it up by painting a nice thick layer of Crackle Glaze on the wings.

TIP: Do all the painting on the butterfly before cutting out the shape. It’s much easier to hold the edge of the folder, keeping your fingers off the butterfly as you are painting it.

I envisioned a scrolly, swirly type center to go along with the gorgeous rim on this surface. I had this stencil which was perfect and exactly the picture I had in my mind when designing this piece. I mixed up some Cobalt Teal Hue, Cobalt Turquoise Hue, Blue Green Light and a touch of Titanium White to get a pretty shade of turquoise/aqua and stenciled it and taaaadaaa – loved it!

Sometimes the perfect thing to finish off a background is paint splatters! It adds another layer of interest, and it went great with the initial inspiration of the speckled look of rust. Of course the butterfly wings needed some splatter too J .

It needed a saying, and I just got this Shine Bright piece at Michael’s, so painted it up with a brighter colour, highlighted it and shaded around the edges with Staz-On ink pad. Added some of the same highlight colour around the rim here and there and finished with scuffing up the edge of the rim with the ink pad.

I finished by sealing the entire piece and gluing the words and butterfly on with E6000 glue. I wanted the wings to stand up a bit more so popped a couple glue dots underneath the wings right at the body. Oh… and he needed some antenna’s so painted those on too!

So in love with the dimension achieved with the butterfly and the colour combination. Hope this piece inspires you to create something fun today!