'Be You' canvas

Original post on ColourCraft's blog in English < here >

Une pas à pas pour vous aujourd'hui: Une toile que j'ai créée à l'origine pour l'équipe créative de ColourCraft en utilisant leur peintures avec mes jolis tampons et pochoir de PaperArtsy.

Le fond de mon projet commence par des couches de peinture acrylique sur une toile sur bois de 20 x 20 cm. J'ai commencé avec turquoise, en ajoutant de petites quantités de peinture sur la toile, puis en la déroulant avec un rouleau peinture, en faisant attention aux bords et en veillant à laisser un peu de blanc visible au centre.

 I repeated the process with Cadmium yellow ...

 ...and the Phthalo Green and finally with a very small amount of White to soften the layers underneath.

To build more layers and interest to the background I sponged some more White through a stencil in random places. I then brayered Prussian Blue paint on to some flower stamps to add these to the background and coloured them with some diluted paint to make them a bit more solid. Prussian Blue was also sponged round the canvas to frame it.

Some Prussian Blue was also sponged through a different stencil but I forgot to take a photo of this stage!
I stamped a dragonfly on to watercolour paper and coloured this with Turquoise, Magenta and Prussian Blue Eco Acrylic Paints using a fine brush and diluting to blend the colours.

I used the blunt end of a brush to add dots of White paint for details on the design.

Once dry, the dragonfly was cut out and glued on to the canvas leaving the wings free. Finally I added some text by stamping on watercolour paper, cutting around this, edging it in black and gluing it on.

You can, of course, use these techniques with any stamps you own or by collaging other elements on to your painted backgound. Hope this inspires you to get brayering!