AWNB Sea Nymph collage

This fortnight at Art With No Boundaries, our challenges  are Anything Goes and for the bonus round The Rhythm of the Sea. For my DT project, I chose the gorgeous Sea Nymph digital image from CS Designs. Love her with that script behind her, the letter tiles, and starfish.

I started with a bright orange shadowbox bottom. We're talking neon orange and eye-popping. No way was that going with the sea greens and blues, the calming water colours that I envisioned. I had a lovely scrap of paper with glittery white sea coral on it that was perfect for the background so I used 3 colours of acrylic paint to sponge a soft watery background to cover the orange. Once dry, the scrap paper was cut to fit and glued inside the box.

I took my colour palette starting point from the paper and the painted background and coloured this awesome image with my Prismacolor pencils and a little OMS to blend. I checked out a bunch of real starfish images online. Who knew they came in such gorgeous colours...perfect to add in a little contrast and excitement to the turquoises and greens. When she was all coloured, I backed Nymph on black cardstock to frame her and mounted her on a triple layer of foam tape...after checking with her about  her feelings  towards heights, of course.

Before I mounted Nymph inside the box, I misted some cheesecloth with a few colours of shimmery ink and hot glued it on the diagonal across the box. Nymph was adhered on top of this so that I knew where to place this fun collection of shells, starfish, and sand dollars.They were hot glued to the cheesecloth and background. Then I used MuddPuddles which has sand mixed with glue, and another with sea glass mixed with glue, applying them with a palette knife to create a sandy ocean floor on the bottom of the box. All that was left was to add the metal word, DREAM, which really captures the  expression on Nymph's face. Wonder what she's dreaming about? Maybe she's a mermaid who is thinking about that sailor's handsome face she glimpsed just the other day. Or maybe she's like me and longs to see the ocean again.

Anyway, thanks so much for visiting with Nymph and me. Be sure to check out the other projects created by the CS Designs DT. They are phenomenal! I hope you'll join us in this fortnight's challenge at Art With No Boundaries, either in the Anything Goes category or in The Rhythm of the Sea Bonus Round for a chance to win one of Chris' fabulous designs. We love it when you play along :)

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie