Challenge: Yin Yang Interpretation

Hello all!

This month I joined a private challenge, where the theme was "Yin Yang Interpretation".  I began thinking about the idea of opposites, and duality, and remembered a stamp I carved for a project a year or two ago, that I've been looking for a reason to use again.  It's an ambigram (which are some of my favourite things to carve!), where depending on how you view it, it either reads "saint" or "sinner".  From there, I pulled out my Distress paints and began to play.  Here's the finished result:

Materials used:

 - Ranger Inkssentials Manila Craft Tags

 - Ranger Distress Ink: Faded Jeans, Fired Brick

 - Ranger Distress Paint: Black Soot, Broken China, Brushed Pewter, Mustard Seed, Picket Fence, Spiced Marmalade, Tarnished Brass

 - Ranger Archival Ink: Deep Purple

 - idea-ology Grungeboard Elements

 - Gold ribbon, foam dots from my stash

Here's another view: 

And a look at the stamp from the other direction:

On the tag itself, I dotted my Distress Paints to give the illusion of clouds and flames, and then inked the Distress Inks over top.  Distress Paints resist the Distress Inks, so I got a nice effect of the lighter colours through the darker ink.

One thing I learned while painting the Grungeboard pieces was that if you use too much heat to dry a thick layer of Distress paint, it will begin to bubble, and the bubbles won't go away.  After this happened to me, I layered on more of my paint colours, and accepted the texture it gave me, but it's worth remembering that if you put a thick layer of paint on, you may want to be a bit patient with it, before pulling out your heat tool to force it dry.

That's all for now - hope you like it!  :-)

BAC