Steam-Punkie Night Faire Poster

I've been trying to stretch my steampunk wings lately and here is my latest effort.  While  I was making a recent project (Celebrating Autumn), I got to tryout some of my newest Sizzix dies (Pumpkins #2 and Tim Holtz's Pumpkin Jack).  It just so happened that I was listening to a steampunk novel about air travel at the same time.  When I made my first die cut with Tim's Pumpkin Jack die, I laid it down sideways (horizontally) on my my craft table. I looked down at it and thought, "Wow!  That would make a really cool (yet not so aerodynamic) dirigible."   So, over the last couple of weeks, I've put on my creative engineer hat and tried to figure out how to create a pumpkin dirigible. Now on the eve of CC102 (Tim Holtz's online Creative Chemistry 102 class), I have finally finished this piece in time to post it in the what-have-I-been-working-on-lately class gallery. 

 

Before I get lost in trying to remember the details of creating this two-week project, I wanted to tell you a little about the theme of the poster.  There actually is Punkie Night.  It's a holiday, similar to Halloween, that is celebrated in North-East England where children parade from home to home, carrying a punkie lantern (similar to a jack-o-'lantern) and singing the Punkie Night Song.  And yes, I've even listened to a recording of the song from the British Library collection.  I was looking to see what sort of pumpkin festivals are out there and I found Punkie Night.  It must be noted that the punkie lantern is traditionally fashioned out of a wurzel, which is a large yellow-orange skinned root vegetable.  Today, you will also find pumpkins in the Punkie Night mix as well.  Anyway, I thought it might be a great idea to have a Punkie Night festival featuring an air machine show -- thus a Steam-Punkie Night Faire.

As I said earlier, it took a little time to figure out how to put such a air machine together.  I began by recycling some Tim Holtz cardboard packaging by die cutting the Pumpkin Jack pumpkin base out of it.  If you look at some of the old dirigibles, you will see that the "skin" was made out of fabric panels.  My panels are made out of various vintage-patterned papers.  I used the "pumpkin" shaped hole that was cut out of the cardboard packaging as a template.  I created five different "panels" for my pumpkin airship.  I then took some heavy jewelry wire and tightly wrapped a Spellbinders Media MiXage foil sheet (that I painted with Rangers Sunset Orange alcohol ink) around it.  I then outlined each of my panels with these foil-covered pieces of wire (the wires were glued on with Glossy Accents).  Next I used Distress Markers in Ripe Persimmon, Spiced Marmalade, Gathered Twigs, Walnut Stain, and Black Soot to add some color to the patterned paper.  I arranged the five panels into three layers (two panels on bottom, two panels in middle layer, and one panel on top) and adhered them together with foam tape (to give a 3-dimensional effect. 

I wanted to make sure my airship's panels did not fall apart, so I made some "ribbing" out of pieces of grungeboard that was covered in the orange-colored foil.  I glued then ends of each "rib" on the back of the back of the bottom layer of panels.  I made the cables that attach the balloon to the car are made out of Tim Holtz bakers twine.  The framework on the pumpkin balloon to which the cables were attached is made out of black jewelry wire.  The pumpkins stem was cut twice out of grungeboard and a patterned paper.  I glued the two layers together and used Ranger's Black Enamel Accents to outline the patterned paper.  I used Distress Markers to add color to the stem.  I curved the stem a little so that it would attach to the three dimensional paneled pumpkin base.  If you look in the above image, you can see a piece of foam (painted black) supports the stem underneath.


The car was made out of some Tim Holtz paper (an entire sheet of rulers) that I die cut with Artful Dwellings die.  I folded up the edges around one of the rulers to make a little "artful dwellings box".  I distressed the edges and added some tiny fasteners that look like little screws.  At the end of my airship, I added some grungeboard wings (stamped with Tim's wings in black archival ink) that I colored with Spiced Marmalade and Wild Honey Distress Ink.  I added some sparkle with some detailing with a couple of glitter ink pens and then covered it all with a nice coat of Glossy Accents.  I also used a spare piece of grunge board to attach a propeller embellishment.

I used a piece of Mixed Media paper for my background.  I started by covering with different layers of paper and tape.  I originally thought I would cover them with distress ink (transparent color) to create sky and clouds with the paper pattern showing through, but I decided to add some other airships in the background.  So I covered almost all the paper with a layer of gesso, added more tape, stamped some leaves and other images, then used Broken China to paint over everything.  I misted the paint and let it disperse.  I then brushed the thinned paint over the entire piece (darker at bottom and lighter at top).  I added some Picket Fence paint for my clouds.  Then I took Broken China and Iced Spruce Distress Ink to around the clouds to give them a little more definition.   I let this dry and then came back to stamp some balloons and other airships in the background.  I mixed Matte Multi-medium with Distress Markers on my craft sheet and used this to color my balloons.  The balloons color ended up too intense and competed with my main images, so I used Picket Fence stain to wash over the balloons (heavier on some) to put them in the background. 

I created a little hot air balloon with one of the Sizzix Pumpkin #2 die cuts.  I cut this out of another vintage print paper.  I colored it with the multi-medium /distress marker mixture.  I used the bottom half of a Tim Holtz bird cage die cut to make the basket for the balloon.  Baker's twine was again used for the cable system. A pointing hand and some gears were stamped on a piece of lined vintage print paper to draw the eye to the poster's information.  This little sign was adhered with foam adhesive squares.

Several artists lately have been stamping on patterned paper and I loved it!  So to create my Punkie Night Fair Sign, I started with a piece of vintage newsprint pattern paper, stamped it with some autumn leaves in brown archival ink  and gave a watered-down gesso wash. I then stamped my steampunk gents with some archival ink (but not very juicy).  I used some of alphabet stamps to created my "Punkie Night Faire" info in heavier black archival ink and highlighted it with Distress Markers.  I then came back in red archival ink and stamped the added "STEAM" to the sign.  The sign was then decorated with a stamped Admit One stamp.    To complete the piece, I added my very own Punkie Lantern made from another Sizzix Pumpkin #2 die cut.  If you look carefully, you will see he is cut out of more Tim Holtz cardboard packaging.  I sent the pumpkin back through and cut out the eyes, nose and mouth.  He is backed with some Mustard Seed-Distres Inked paper to give the impression of a candle inside.  I stamped him a gent's hat (which I fussy cut) and that's the end of this project.  WHEW!

For all this work, I am going to enter it into two challenges:

SanDee & amelie's Steampunk Challenge:  Tic-Tac-Toe October
and
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge:  Say It with Stamps

Okay -- too tired to proof-read this right now.  Sorry for the typos and incoherent ramblings!  Hope to see you all in Tim's CC102 class tomorrow!!

Time to get the workspace cleaned up just in time for more fun!!  -- Mary Elizabeth