Andy Skinner: Washed Ashore, by Natassa Blazaki

Hello my dear friends!

Natassa here, this time with a new project inspired by the Pirates of the Caribbean.

I had a beautiful bottle, that once had some kind of liquor inside and which I nearly threw away in a declutter frenzy. I think you can all relate…

Anyway, I finally decided just to empty it from the liquid and hide it away for some future creation. And the future came!

Its fish-like shape made me think of a sea themed project. I thought of what I’d like to find, on a walk on a deserted beach, one summer evening just before the sun set. It would be a treasure from the past, washed ashore, sticking out of the sand just a tiny bit for me to discover. Then pirates came to my mind and so on.

I wanted a pirate’s skull on my bottle and since I didn’t have one, I made one with polymer clay. I also made some tentacles out of epoxy clay and casted a couple of star fish with light air-dry clay.

I aged the skull, by applying a combination of Media Antiquing Creams.

I used the clock stamp from Andy’s Steampunk set with air dry clay and made a couple more embellishments. You can see the process, in the video below.

To create some texture, I did some stenciling with Andy’s 6x6 Snake’s Web stencil and black modeling paste. I used heavy gel to glue mini art stones here and there. Also, I glued some gears from Tando’s Industrial Kits.

As a base coat, I applied Americana Decor Chalky Finish – Carbon. , I colored the bottle with Traditions in greens and blues. For the next layers, I mixed the paints with DecoArt Glazing Medium and also did some dry brushing with Traditions Warm White, mixed with a drop of Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide.