Moon-faces, keys to the kingdom and birds

Hi everybody!

Another warm and sunny day has flown by here. I went to a trial session for dance-gymnastics this afternoon - ouch! For some reason I now have a lot of bones and muscles which are groaning - It was fun, but perhaps a gentler sport might be more suitable for my advanced years!

I have been having fun again with the Dina Wakley stencil I bought last week. This time I painted it onto a piece of old, rust-stained linen to make my hanging. I did not try to wash or iron it, I wanted the original distress to show. I fringed the edges, and then stenciled the faces with Viva-color Rust. The corrugated background  (17 x 37 cm) has been partly peeled, gessoed and then daubed with gold, bronze and rust paints, and embossed with Frantage vintage gold and copper. I sewed the fibres on by hand to give the faces a wild and witchy look, and added some brown glass beads from an old necklace. I  used a piece of an old bracelet to make a loop to hang it from. I know things like this are not to everyone's taste, but I do like grungy stuff. My neighbour thought the linen looked like it had come from a Mummy's tomb....who knows!

I am linking today  to Paint Party Friday, hosted, as always, by Eva and Kristin, and to Simon Monday Challenge, Rock the techniques and AJJ, living beings

The large texture canvas I started last week is finished, and I have called it  'The keys of the kingdom'. My neighbour looked at it, and said, 'Yes. Well, what is it?' Good question, no answer - I just had fun playing with the colours and texture. As I used metallic paints, the colours seem to change according to how the light falls on it.

Today a big Heron was sitting on the rocks down at the shore under the castle ruins, really beautiful, and it was fantastic to watch it spread its wings and fly off over the water.

And this duck is always the first to greet me - does she know I always have something in my bag for her?

Have a great day, take care, 

and thanks a lot for coming by!