Andy Skinner: Trésors de la Méditerranée, by Natassa Blazaki

Hello my lovelies. Hope you are all doing well and keeping safe.

This is Natassa and today I’m on Andy’s blog to share with you a home décor project inspired by the Mediterranean Tile Art. Recently, I received Andy’s new products, which are all gorgeous as always, but what made my heart pound were that set of Tiles Rice Papers, released by Creative Expressions. It was love at first sight!

Haven’t been in Spain or Portugal, where these amazing pieces of art ornate the exteriors and interiors of whole buildings. However, some years ago I visited la Costiera Amalfitana in Italy, where they also have a wonderful ceramic culture that dates back many centuries. Although not exactly the same, there are many similarities between the ceramic artworks of those three countries. Living in a Mediterranean country myself and having the sea as a big part of my culture, it was only natural to draw my inspiration from it. I created this couple of decorative panels, having in mind that they can beautifully ornate the outdoor walls of a Mediterranean beach house.

So, lets dig into the process. As a base I used two pieces of OSB boards, leftovers from another project. They measure 16 ¼ x 7 ¼ inches and first thing I did, was to give them a good coat of white chalk paint.

Let the paint dry well and then used the Mandala stencil and dubbed some paint with a soft sponge. I used a mixture of Artist Pigments Paynes Grey, Cobalt Teal and a tiny drop of Primary Magenta. I used matte decoupage glue to apply the rice papers. No need to cut the papers with scissors. Instead,you get much smoother result if you take a damp detail brush and draw a line where you want to cut the paper. The water softens the rice paper and cuts beautifully.

While the rice paper was still wet, I slightly scratched it with my fingernails, just to make it a bit distressed. With the same mixture of paint as before, I painted my airdry moulds. Let them dry and then dry brushed them with gold paint, to make their details pop up.

I glued the moulds on the panels with Quick Grab Glue. Then, I created a dirty wash with Paynes Grey and Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide and applied it on the whole surface. I let it dry naturally.

To decorate the shells, I coated them with Versamark ink, sprinkled with Mixed Media Embossing Powder Satin Sunset and heat set.

Tip: turn on your heat gun and let it heat really well, about 20 seconds, before directing it on the embossing powder. Works much better.

I chose the Ammonite Rubber Stamp for the background, but the substrate was so uneven that I couldn’t get a nice impression. So, I took some tissue paper and stamped on it with blue archival ink. Then cut it to smaller pieces and glued it on the surface with decoupage glue. I also used E6000 glue for the shells.

I really hope you enjoy this project as much as I did and I'd love to read your comments. Find a full list of supplies at the end of the post.

Here are some close ups