Hi everyone! My name is Mary Jane Chadbourne and I am so very pleased to be here as the Relics & Artifacts Guest Artist this month! I am a mixed media artist and teacher who resides in Las Vegas, Nevada….a transplant from New York and although I miss back East sometimes, I sure do love living in the desert southwest! I became a full time artist when we moved here 11 years ago and absolutely love that I get to do what I love every single day! I also teach online over at Artful Gathering every summer and it’s a passion of mine to be able to inspire others! I will be teaching my seventh class in 2019 and the details are under wraps until early spring, but I am sure having a great time putting the next class together!

I adore all of Sandra’s Relics & Artifacts kits! When I saw the Mini Santos I knew I had to work with it. I have a passion for anything Santos and have a collection of them around our home and in my studio! I will often work with religious artifacts and collage with religious paintings from the masters.

I love these kits not only for the wonderful selection that Sandra has provided, but for the fact the material itself is very easy to work with! The pieces not only sand nicely, but you can drill them with absolutely no trouble, too. They have a wonderful matte finish that takes paint, paper, crackle medium very well!

In this first project I wanted to keep the santos itself more simple and with not much color. I painted her face in a flesh tone, painted the wings a pale gold and collaged her body. I then applied crackle to all and added a medium tone stain. Once dry, I added a santos like headpiece to the back of her head, added some trim work and some beads. I added a tiny cross to her neckline along with more trim. Her skirt is made from recycled teabags that I had sewn at the top and gathered….the bottom of her skirt had some teal blue stain added for color, and the skirt was lightly painted with some Stickles to add a bit of “glisten” to her! Once she was completed I housed her in a shrine that I offer in my Etsy shop, and just removed the doors. It was painted a deep blue along with Payne’s Gray and then I stenciled some stars from a Tim Holtz stencil and embellished those with some sparkle, too! Last, but not least, I added the plaque to the bottom that completes the piece.

For the second Mini Santos I wanted a free standing piece! She pretty much was created the same way as the first piece. Her skirt is made from a piece of lace that I had purchased and tea dyed. I drilled a hole through the bottom of her body and inserted a 1/8” dowel, cut to the length I desired. The dowel sits in a 2” round base that my husband cut for me, and it’s painted gold and have added some distress inks and Gilder’s paste to add age!

I really enjoy working with small things and this kit was so much fun to work with and allowed myself and my imagination the flexibility to create what I was looking for!

Artful Gathering

Etsy

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