Michelle Ward presents Crusade No. 36 - Braving the Elements. Basically, GPP Street Team members were asked to start with two journal pages covered with gesso. Then, our mission was to create snowflakes to use as stencils or masks. Michelle's snowflakes are so much prettier than mine. I think I need a snowflake tutorial.
I used Golden cobalt teal and turquois phthalo acrylics to create my snowflake stencils. Although I used two different colors of paint, the pages looked bland to me. Next, I painted a wash of Lumiere Pearl Magenta acrylic over the snowflake designs.
For my first page, I made a bird stencil from a transparency sheet. I used oil pastels to color the bird, branch and to highlight the page edges. I applied a heavy coat of oil pastels and then wiped most of it off to create shadows. I outlined the bird and branch, using a charcoal pencil.
For my other journal page, I first drew some basic flower shapes and then colored them in with oil pastels. I used the same technique of applying a heavy coat of oil pastels and then wiping most of it off to create shadows - and to let the snowflake designs peek through the flowers. You can also see some of the snowflake shapes on the bird and the branch.
During each step of the process, I felt as if things weren't coming together. But I kept working on the pages. After I was finished, I realized that you have to keep coming back to the page (or the canvas) and not give up. Thank you Michelle - I learned an important lesson today.
Join the GPP Street Team and try this technique today. The deadline is February 1.
Darlene - bravo for being in brave, for keeping up the work to the point where you felt you learned something. Yay for that, and yay for sharing your work. Thanks!
Posted by: michelle ward | January 29, 2010 at 02:41 PM
Your pages are really cute - my favorite colors and you can really see the shimmer in them too, I like that. If you want to know how to cut snowflakes, there are probably a tutorial or two on youtube? :-)
Posted by: iHanna | January 30, 2010 at 04:51 AM
lovely...the magenta is a great choice.
Posted by: Nancy Lefko | January 30, 2010 at 05:03 PM
Sweet pages! I liked the oil pastel technique that you shared and will need to try it out.
We've had lots of birds on branches with even more snow so your subject resonates with me & I like your interpretation.
Posted by: Regina | January 30, 2010 at 09:23 PM
Great pages, I really like the effect you got with the oil pastels. That wee bird sure is a cutie :-)
Posted by: Cath | February 01, 2010 at 03:59 AM