This month's theme for the StampscapesII yahoo group challenge is May Flowers. For my inspiration, I used a photo from my Dentist's office. Hey, you can find inspiration everywhere! :) If someone were to look at my mobile phone gallery right now, they would find lots of photos of paintings and photographs from offices, stores and even some homes. A really great place for on-line inspiration is the overstock.com art gallery.
I picked out my Stampscapes images first - 239D, 251C, 296C. Next, I went to work on my background. I taped off the edges of an A2 size piece of cardstock with a low tack tape - this worked for the boarder and for it keeping in place when I sponged. I built color with a stylus, sponging my lightest color on first then adding depth with darker colors. NOTE: I did not fill in the color completely, leaving highlights. Also I was a bit heavy handed with the stylus in some spots - that will be covered up later.
I stamped the trees in the distance in a green, using a mask of torn paper so it would not look like they were sitting on top of the ground.
I colored with water-based markers and then stamped over the trees again after stamping off one time. This step was to add some of the detail back in. I sponged a little color at the bottom of each tree for a shadow.
Next, I removed the mask on the right side and bottom to allow the flowers to spill outside the boarder. For the flowers, I used a stencil from Donna Downey and gesso. I added two coats of gesso. The first I coat, I dabbed through the stencil. when I saw it was not covering enough, I added a second coat. A idea just popped into my mind to create texture by squeezing the gesso directly from the bottle in a random squiggle. Now, I admit - I'm not sure if this was an orignal idea or if I saw it someplace in the hundreds of you tude videos I've seen and classes I've taken. LOL!
I used a brush to paint the flowers with acrylic paint. TIP: before painting the flowers, I colored them in with a red water-baster marker as a base. This step allowed me to get right to the edge of the gesso over the texture. I really dig how they turned out!! I will use this technique again! It's funny how you accidently stumble upon something really cool :o) I added the black center with a tooth pick, first spreading the black and then adding white dots and gently mixing.
Shout Outs: For more information and great instruction videos on building color, visit Kevin's Stampscapes Youtube channel. I got the idea for gesso in a dabber bottle from Jane Davenport. Her Whismsical Faces instructional lesson is fabulous! You can get it on DVD or download it. I'll be posting some faces soon! I need to practice a little more first! :)
Take care and STAY POSITIVE!
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