Art With No Boundaries Asian challenge week 2

This is week 2 of our Fortnight challenges of Anything Goes and Asian Inspired at Art With No Boundaries. This week we were able to play with two new designs by Chris Stern at CS Designs. The first one is a more traditional Geisha style domino design and the second one is a Harajuku style image. I just learned about this fashion style and am absolutely smitten...not for myself so stop rolling your eyes. I love the design possibilities and the inspiration this style provides. It's kind of a cross between Edwardian and Alice in Wonderland...with a little steampunk fashion thrown in. Think of the character, Abby, on NCIS. It's very funky and extreme but so fun. Google it, especially the Lolita style. Harajuku is a fashion district in Japan where people dress in this style and then congregate to strut their stuff.

I decide to create tags this time. I love tags and haven't done any in a while. I also wanted the contrasting styles of these two women to hang side by side in my craft room. The first tag uses the traditional geisha domino digital image. I printed the bamboo background on red cardstock and made it the base of both tags. A piece of black cardstock was embossed with a bamboo folder and then drybrushed with copper metallic acrylic paint. The domino image was coloured with Prismacolor pencils. Gold gel pen was added to her hair decoration as well as square blue bling. The background was painted with this shimmery irridescent watercolour that is sometimes pink and sometimes green depending upon the angle you view it. I wish I could have captured that on film becuase it really adds to the tradiotional feel of this tag. It looks like the inside of an oyster shell. The additional embellishments for this tag were the gold sequin trim, the metal tassel, and the dragonfly button.

The second tag used the same bamboo background image printed on red cardstock. The black band behind the image is also dry embossed using a more modern geometric pattern and no drybrushing. I wanted the stark black contrast to the red and the gray background of the image. I coloured this Harajuku girl with Prismacolor pencils, adding silver gel pen and bling to her shirt. Her hair ornaments were first covered in purple Stickles and then bling was added to the segments. A rhinestone flower with a purple center was adhered to the middle of the hair ornament. To further play up the edginess of this image, silver metallic stars were added to the design. Becuase she looks like a fierce warrior or rock star type, I used beads to spell out proud. The fibres attached to the top of the tag also have beads strung on them.

I thoroughly enjoyed creating these two tags: one so serene, natural, and traditional and one so edgy, with attitude plus. Check out the rest of the wonderful projects created by the other members of the design team at Art With No Boundaries. It's always so much fun to view the different interpretations of the same theme. Have you linked up yet? We'd love to see what you've been creating, too.

Thanks for coming by and visiting the three of us. It's always a pleasure to have your company.

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie