Amanita Muscaria - Finnabair Creative Team

I bet you know a mushroom named Amanita Muscaria – it's a common toadstool. The red one with white dots which is known for being extremely poisonous. Despite its bad fame, it is regarded as the house of fairies and one of the most picturesque woodland inhabitants.

Here's how it inspired me:

I started with preparing a messy background from creased vintage pages. I glued them with Clear Gesso to a canvas panel and then sealed the whole with the mentioned medium getting it ready for some colours to come.

A bit of White Crackle Paint added in chosen areas resulted in even more distressed look. I cut out a few mushroom-shaped figures from thick paper and covered them with Light Paste which offers a fantastic effect, both fluffy and dimensional.

I glued down the mushrooms with 3D Gel to the panel and added some colours. I used watered down Gelatos which stuck great to the all the mediums I used.
When everything was dry, I decorated the background with old-fashioned patterns of stamps from 'Old Town' set. Then I applied a spoonful of Modeling Paste under the caps and below the mushrooms. Its thickness also helped to attach a few woodland elements such as berries and a snail shell. When the Modeling Paste was not completely dry and still sticky it was able to grab a pinch of white Glass Beads along with silver and black Micro Beads.

To finish the mushrooms I added some lace under the caps.

Afterwards, I engraved some gills with a match below the caps, spilled tea onto the canvas to make some stains and attached silver Mica Flakes here and there. Finally, I fixed the flower frame from Mechanicals Labels set just below the forest composition.

Have a wonderful New Year. May it bring a lot of prosperity, fulfilment and happiness.

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