Spreading your wings...

Hello!
A few days ago I spotted a rather interesting post on the Stampotique designers blog... a DT call in fact. Now, as any of you regular readers out there will know,  I use a Stampotique image on rather a lot of my art! I just adore the quirkiness of the figures in particular! Stampotique would be my number one choice stamp company to design for, so as this kind of opportunity doesn't come around all that often, I thought I'd be brave and have a go at making the team!
My creation today is a very typical 'me' project....it's all about the painty layers!

I love creating backgrounds with inks and sprays, but my most favourite medium to use is paint. Lots and lots of paint! I thought I'd take you through the stages in my painty background, so brace yourselves, there are just a few pictures!!
 For this piece I've used regular white cardstock as my base, but the painty layering technique will work on anything!
Start off by smearing colour over your base...

Roughly, any old how is great! Then, roughly brayer over some white paint.....

This gives texture as well as the colour variations! Next, more paint. A different colour...

More brayering and adding colour until you're happy with the way it looks. I decided to brighten up the scheme a bit with some zingy yellow...

Once you love your basic background, you can start to add detail. I've used stencils to add shapes..

I've used the three colours we already used (plus white) to keep it cohesive. Printing next....

Bottle tops and Lego pieces! Have a look around the house for interesting textures to print with, its great fun! Next, I added background stamping. This is done with black Archival ink, and I used unmounted stamps.This way, you can just add tiny random bits of stamping wherever you choose....

Next I did a little stitching around the edges, and randomly over the background too. This is why I chose cardstock rather than chipboard to work on! This amount of painty layers on cardstock does tend to make it curl up a little, but this can easily be flattened out!

My next layer is what I call my 'pop' colour! Everything is pretty tonal so far, so we need some 'oomph' to catch the eye... I chose a violet colour...

For this piece I didn't go overboard with the violet, a little around the distressed edges and smidges here and there! That's the background done, next thing is to add my main image...

I chose Mela, one of my favourite Stampotique ladies! As many of you will know, I really like keeping my figures black and white as a contrast to the bright coloured backgrounds, although I have been known to add colour sometimes! Mela has triple layered wings...

The Big Bee stamp by Jo Capper Sandon is great for fairy wings! I've used acetate, book pages and painted cardstock for my layers. She also has a little wonky crown...

Another Jo Capper Sandon favourite stamp! I have used a cut out phrase from an old book as my title for this....

You can find some great words if you spend the time to go through the text! I find old romance novels good for this!
So, loads of painty layers all build up to give loads of interest..

and the stitching gives that extra bit of texture (and somewhere for the figure to stand!)

Phew...are you still awake?!!
So, that's how I created my painty layered background, hope you like it!
Have a great day everyone,
Trish xxxxx