Golden ivy

YouTube videos are a great source of inspiration, whether it’s the finished image that sparks the imagination or just the techniques used. Combine that with your own supplies and a sprinkling of other ideas and you end up with something unique to you.

It was the process as much as the end result in this particular video that made me want to get my supplies out.

• coat with gesso
• texture stamp on the background
• add acrylic paint with a wet wipe
• create a focal point with texture paste through a stencil
• add sparkle to the stencil
• add words

I’ve been meaning to play with using wet wipes and paint for a while and this nudged me into actually doing it.

Most of my base layer of stamped “fluff” didn’t survive the addition of the paint layers and I wanted something a bit more structural there anyway, so I added the modern mosaic over the top.

Even though I put some tacky glue on the back of the ivy stencil, the texture paste — which I had coloured with acrylic paint — still seeped under the edge a bit; luckily it did it fairly evenly.

Once the texture paste was dry, I replaced the stencil (mainly to guard against dropped brushes) and softly outlined the ivy leaves in gold, using an almost completely dry brush to highlight the texture in the centre of the leaves.

The mosaic stamping was looking too strong, in spite of stamping it in grey ink, and the background needed some more depth to it. I took the fluff stamp and some darker blue and brown inks and stamped around the edges.

Choosing the words to go on here took the longest time.

The last thing I did was to use a charcoal pencil and a paper stump to add outlines around the words and shadows under each of the ivy leaves.

Supplies:

• Prep & Stick:
  Liquitex white gesso
• Texture:
  Finnabair paper texture paste
• Colour:
  Golden fluid acrylic – carbon black, titanium white, phthalo green, ultramarine blue
  Ranger archival ink – watering can, forget-me-not, potting soil, cobalt blue
  Stuart Semple – gold
• Stencils:
  Craft Box – ivy
• Stamps:
  Impression Obsession – fluff
  My Favorite Things – modern mosaic background
• Paper & Fabric:
  Daler-Rowney mixed media paper
• Pens & Pencils:
  charcoal pencil
• Embellishments:
  Tim Holtz – chit chat stickers