Creating substrates and an experiment

Hello all and thanks for dropping in. I am still hugely enjoying doing an online class with Kate Thomson called Children of the Wild. In one of the many videos Kate shows how to make amazing mixed media backgrounds and I had great fun experimenting. Here is a little portrait I did on one of them.

The backgrounds are very textured, so doing the portrait straight on top, was not easy, I think a next time I would do that differently. But, - you live and learn. Below some further substrate examples:

Kate suggests to do these on old ledger paper, but I don't have any of that, so instead I used some 12 by 12 scrapbook papers with a ledger like background. As the techniques are part of the class, I can't really share them, but here are some more samples:

I used chalk paints mostly Decoart and Paper Artsy and played around with a muted colour palette which I think suite these techniques so well. Obviously stamps and stencils play a part as well.

Kate's site is called Fractured Angelics. I so love the "fractured" elements she uses in her work and shows examples of in her class.

Here is a smaller piece, started as a 12 by 12 and then cut into smaller parts. I incorporated more blue and quin. gold in these ones.

Here is another cut part of the same piece and my portrait was done on one of the other smaller pieces.

Here you can see just how much texture there was on the substrate, - kind of obvious it was going to be hard to draw straight onto that, but I just had to give it a go. I used pencil, stabilo All and tinted charcoal for the drawing.

This is probably my favourite bit of the piece, I love how the colours work against the stencilled bits.

Anyway, that's it for now, I'll experiment some more, so stay tuned :o).

Thanks for your visit like always and have fun with being creative!

xxx