Monstera leaf pair #2

I liked the black background against the green and the clear embossing on the last pair of leaf panels I made, so I thought I’d have a go at a more subtle version with one of the other Brusho/stencil attempts.

Once again, I used the stencil as a mask, covered the Brusho with Versamark and heat embossed it with clear embossing powder — though I just added a single layer this time.

For the background, I blended some green Distress oxides — I could have used regular Distress ink but the oxides were right in front of me. The result was nice though not that interesting. In an attempt to perk it up, I dripped water across the background and lifted some colour to add a bit of texture; that helped a bit. Then, I smeared the three colours of oxide on my mat, spritzed them with water and covered the background with splatters.

It was really in need of some contrast by now, so I outlined the leaf in India ink. Again, a simple outline wasn’t enough, but this time I restrained myself and just filled the gaps within the leaf in black.

A smear of white gold wax around the border finished it off nicely.

The other panel in this pair is the simplest of all six that I made. I decided to not use any black and just keep it really simple. The Brusho had seeped under a few of the stencil edges, but only to the extent of being “nicely imperfect” rather than “a mess”, so I could get away with simply replacing the stencil and drawing around it in pencil to define the outline.

Because there were already a few marks on the background, I couldn’t leave it clean white. Instead, I continued the graphite/grey theme and smudged a charcoal border, pulling some of the grey towards the leaf.

More white gold wax on the very edge provided the finishing touch.

As with the first pair, I found some thin board to mount both pieces.

One more pair to go and those are a little more colourful…

Supplies:

• Prep & Stick:
  Ranger collage medium
• Colour:
  Brusho – leaf, emerald
  J Herbin – India ink
  Distress oxide – twisted citron, peeled paint, bundled sage
• Pens & Pencils:
  pencil
  charcoal
• Stencils:
  CraftStar – monstera leaf
• Embossing powder:
  Wow! Superfine clear gloss
• Paper & Fabric:
  Strathmore Bristol 300
• Embellishments:
  Finnabair metallique wax – white gold