I had a random flash of inspiration and thought of doing Braveheart!!
After googling to check I was on the right tracks with what was in my head I went for a design inspired by the pre and post war scenes:
And what I did :) I've photoed them before the 'blood' too.
I used a white crackle varnish to do the stripe then filled the middle in with a plain white varnish. This was to make the effect of it fading out. And to do the blood I wiped off a lot of the varnish and then just shoved it down on top which caused the bristles to spread out - worked well!
2/5 for time and 2/5 for difficulty.
Without the 'blood' it's a quite a nice design!
HAVE a good day :)
Lovelove
xxxx