Textured flowers

And we were back with Anneliese Bates (Instagram) for the last week of the Wanderlust “floral” theme.

I’d seen people mention using glue guns to create stencils before but the technique never made it anywhere near the top of my “things I must try” list. Although I have managed to shake off the worst of my perfectionism over the years, there was something about this that always felt a touch too rough and ready…

But, in the spirit of trying whatever techniques Wanderlust would throw at me, I grabbed my glue gun and set to work. And… well… they looked like the instructor’s, but I still wasn’t overly hopeful.

Then I had some issues with getting the colour on the panel: I had a lovely bright layer of colour and then I overdid darkening it, and then I absolutely hated the white I put down! Much fiddling and I eventually got it to a point where I didn’t hate it.

I was really surprised how well the glue gun stencils and drips turned out. And the texture paste roses. I do rather like the look of the extra depth of the stencilled flowers.

As is often the case when I get to the end of a lesson, I wasn’t completely happy. It’s someone else’s style after all and while there were definitely bits that I liked, it didn’t feel like a finished piece. So I put it to one side to come back to the next day.

I’d been thinking that I would paint in some stems for the flowers, but that felt a bit weak given the amount of texture in the blooms. My next thought was to use some twine instead, but that had the potential to go to the opposite extreme and look too bulky. Then I remembered that I had some florist wire so I used that to create stems and leaves instead.

A bit of colour in the leaves, some extra wax to highlight the textures and I was much happier. The final touch was to add a little shine on the drips and some of the dot texture with my Liquid Chrome pen.

Class:

• Wanderlust 2019