Bristling In the Dark

In my art group, one of this month's swaps is four sheets of background paper. We are to use our choice of technique and create pages that can be used by someone else as a collage (or other project) foundation.

I've been wanting to do some stenciling since following Michelle Ward's Street Team in the process, so I decided to use a layering technique involving stenciling. Here's the first layer of one of my backgrounds, using commercial stencils. You can see the stencils at the bottom.




For the stenciling on this one, I used gel medium combined with bronze pearl-ex. I liked it, but the color was not rich enough. But it was nice, how the gel medium provided texture and stayed moist long enough for me to apply bronze embossing powder over the stenciling. This gave additional volume and shine to the design (much as a good shampoo gives to hair!). I wanted the texture, so that when I applied a thin layer of paints over the design, it would not be completely obscured.




For the second page, I used the same acrylic gel medium, this time combined with paints instead of pearl-ex. I was able to vary the depth of color. This provided a slightly deeper color. This is the second page, after I applied some lavendar embossing powder over the wet medium.



Then I applied a slightly thicker layer of paints than the one on the first sheet.

After the first and second pages had dried, I saw that there were fine paintbrush bristles embedded in the paint. They were all over the pages. I had just purchased some new brushes, and I guess they're useless.

There is no way I can swap out the pages, so I cut them in half and glazed one half of them. That's why they're cut in the final photos.

For the third page, I was able to avoid the bristle problem. I wanted to stencil with white, so to provide a background I painted the page first with a wash of sky blue. Then, stenciled white and charcoal over it, finishing with one of Michelle's original images, which I LOVE.

I didn't paint over this background, but just glazed it. Luckily, there is only one bristle on this page, and it's mostly obscured, so I can swap this page out. But apparently, I'm going to have to go get better brushes. There are certain times when you can't cut corners!

Next: Chris makes more pages, with a stencil of her own making. Don't miss it!