Two Arches with Owls

Hello everyone. For this Black and Red theme, I (Coco) have just finished a trio of lovely arches made with the inner boat pieces of my previous 'layered boat with oars' project shared with you a few time ago. They are fantastic leftovers!!!
I have created a textured and painted background, playing at start with black Gesso on the first arch, and white Gesso on the second one to try to produce two variants for the same combo. I added texture using only white Gesso and my Sequin Waste stencil. 
When dry, I used various red shades and dark/black acrylic paints (I used mainly PA Fresco Finish London Bus, Claret for the reds and French Roast, Chocolate Pudding, Mocha Mousse, London night and Little Black dress for the brown/black shades). On the first one, I added some Treasure Gold (Ruby) on the edges and on parts of the circles, and on the second one I inked the edges with Brilliance Graphite black and a bit of black paint.   

I stamped and cut out the sentiment and the bird on separate cardstock using Archival Jet Black ink. The bird was coloured with my Distress markers and a watercolor small brush, and then glued on a piece of leftover rubber to give it extra beautiful dimension. At the end I also stamped directly on the edges in white (using Brilliance ink) and black (with my Archival Jet black) some text to add even more interest to my two arches. My text and sentiments are Crafty Individuals stamps.

Here's the second one, I really enjoyed the process of creating different owl faces!...  Love this Owls Andy Skinner long Mask/Stencil, that's a great one! The little tree and birds are still Crafty Individuals stamps (I used a set of just mounted stamps sitting on my table, ready to be used haha!), I stamped them on tissue paper first, then glued with Satin Glaze (but you can use any other medium) and finally slightly painted over it... I also highlighted some areas thanks to a white Posca  marker, and then again with some light brown Distress markers...

Well, I also had fun to use my new Cosmic Shimmer Gold Twinkles you can see here and there haha!! I put a tiny drop of Liquid Pearls in Ruby Red on the eyes of this second owl...
To finish, I just added a few buttons to embellish my two arches. Et voila!

It was not an easy theme for me as Black and Red colours are not my favourite ones...  But love the result... what do you you think? Which one is your favourite?... 

I have used the following Tando products:

Thank you for popping by! Come again tomorrow for more inspiration in Black and Red! Hugs, Coco xx