Barbed Wire Beauty with Tracy Moreau

I'am known for my skulls. I love painting them, weather they be cute Skulls or more Gothic. I'am particularly enamoured with Skulls that fall into the Tattoo style. It’s not often I find a surface that lends it’s self so perfectly to this style. Southern Ridge Trading had this Wonderful HEART with a barbed wire overlay frame.. PERFECT!  My creative juices began to flow and I thought that a basic tattoo style skull with rosary and Roses would be perfect for it!! This piece is available in two sizes  and would be perfect for a door sign as well!!

I started with a base coat of Lamp Black on both the panel and the frame. For the frame, I mixed DecoArt Texture Sand with Soft Black, and lightly dabbed it all over the frame, creating a fine grainy texture (like rusted metal)

I used two Metallics to get this metal look. First by stroking in some details, like the twists in the wire with simple diagonal lines between the barbs. Then I dry brushed a Copper metallic and a Gold metallic onto the frame in a random fashion. I shaded the twisted barbs to give them a little more dimension and then added a small highlight to the twists with a small stroke of Gold mixed with a little Warm White.

I used the same Gold to stencil a little pattern onto the panel , only a little as it was just to carry the metallic onto the background. I based the roses with Scarlet, The Leaves with Antique Green,The Rosary Beads and the Skull with Warm White and the Cross with Dove Grey. I used what Soft Black to shade the petals of the Roses, And a Mix of the Soft Black and Antique Green to shade the leaves. Thin floats of Asphaltum are used to shade the rosary, cross and the Skull.

Dry brushes of Warm White mixed with the scarlet , and Antique Green with a touch of Warm White is used to Highlight the leaves,  highlight the petals, with a fine squiggly line of the same is added to soften the edges of the petals . All of the finer details are added with a liner. 

Adhere the Barbed wire frame with a CLEAR glue and allow it to dry.  Lightly Spatter the finished piece with Lamp Black and Asphaltum to create and aged look. I sealed my finished piece with two light coats of DecoArt Matt Spray. 

Southern Ridge Trading Company Products Used:

- Wood Barbed Wire Frame

Other Supplies Used:

- DecoArt Americana: Soft Black, Lamp Black, Scarlet, Warm White, Dove Grey, Asphaltum and Antique Green

- DecoArt Extreme Sheen: 24 KT Gold and Copper DecoArt Matte Spray

- Dynasty Brushes: Faux Squirrel - 1827 1/2 Angle, #4 Round, #2 Rigger, #4 Dome Blender and Tracy Moreau Stencil Med. Brush (www.thebrushguys.com)

- Tracy Moreau Stencil: Elegant Swirls (www.tracymoreau.net)

Thanks for joining me today!

- Tracy