My latest experiment

Many years ago, there was a crafter called Donna Dewberry who regularly appeared on QVC with her folk art painting.  I admired, but never did.  2 or 3 weeks ago Sheena Douglass was on Create and Craft with a similar technique but using easier paint techniques, and using rubber stamps along with it.  Examples of her work can be seen here   So, being very easily led I ordered the Pick of the week which included the DVD of techniques and half the stamps which are currently in the range.  Now, I have to admit, that I bought it more for the stamps than the techniques, but did like the look of the finished designs so thought I might as well give it a go.

I decided not to invest in the recommended paints(pebeo deco acrylic matt) , just in case it turned out not to be my thing, so didn't have, obviously, the correct texture acrylic paint, having com to the conclusion that £4.99 for 20 tubes of acrylics from the Works would do to practise with.

Painting the background was quite straightforward.   To get the crackle effect desired, you paint the base material (board recommended - me used watercolour paper) with dark paint (any old paint will do, so I used a dark pink emulsion left in the cupboard).  Then when that is dry you paint over with cheapo PVA glue, and then when that is semi dry you paint over the top again with a light paint (such as magnolia emulsion paint)   The result (obtained much quicker if you have a heat gun) gives a rather nice crackle effect.

So whilst I was waiting for this to dry, I stamped an image or two, and painted them with the acrylics, the result was so-so but as I thought - I'll get better.

So then, taking one of the 6 backgrounds I prepared (the one in the pic above is the best, and not the one I started with) I did some stamping.

And then chickened out of doing any more painting, cut out the flowers I'd already painted and added ti to a plain card.  But given that the paint had caused the card to curl, I stuck it down to within an inch of it's life and unfortunately, didn't stick it straight. 

So I might end up cutting it off and resticking it to something else.   But they are nice stamps.

I'll give it another go soon.

later xxx