Southern Ridge Trading Company: Zen Garden Dragonfly with Tracy Moreau

This month the entire design team fell in love with the Zen Dragonfly chipboard piece, which can be found under the New Releases tab. So, we decided as a team that one of our projects this month would use this piece. Tracy is kicking off our Zen Dragonfly projects with this beautiful piece she has created. Read below and learn how Tracy created her piece.

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I loved the intricacy of this wonderful ZEN Dragon fly from Southern Ridge Trading Company, it is delicate and decidedly elegant. It lends itself well to metallics , the New Extreme Sheen Metallics from DecoArt are a perfect addition to create the iridescent quality that is associated with dragonflies. The Striking mirror like finish and dimensional effects of the Pebeo Gedeo dimensional Adhesive and the MIRROR foil, adds sparkle and softens the edges of the floral.

This is a really easy piece with some simple but fun techniques.

I started with a 6 x 6 wooden art panel ( these are great for Mixed media as they are very stable substrate.) I based it Lamp Black, then Stencilled the harlequin pattern on using 4 different Extreme Sheen metallics! 24kt Gold, Copper, Aquamarine and Sapphire. I then drew a crisp clean line of 18kt Gold to border the harlequin. (18kt Gold Leaf Pen from Krylon)

I cut out the print of the line drawing of the Rose with decoupage scissors, getting as close as I could to the edges. I then decoupaged the paper to the panel. (Roughly centred)

I then added tints of colour to the Leaves and the rose petals using DecArt Fluid acrylics, Prussian Blue, Primary Magenta. Pthalo Green and Green Gold. Once the colour was dry, I outlined the Rose petals and leaves with Pebeo Gedeo ( Dimensional Adhesive) and set it aside to dry. Then I rubbed over the raised adhesive with Pebeo Gedeo MIRROR. (Metallic Foil)

I dabbed each of those same metallic colours used in the background, onto the Dragonfly using a cosmetic sponge. I allowed the colours to blend in places and over lap in others, Giving the dragonfly a bit of a patina. I then glued 4 small pieces of wood( Painted Black) to the back of the dragon fly. I think the added height gives this piece a bit more impact. When the glue was dry, I glued the Dragonfly to the surface allowing the wings to extend past the edges of the panel, accentuating the height.