Dragons Dream TIO #183

This fortnight the challenge was to use Red and Flowers.  The usual rule of using at least one real stamp applies too.

Being of the school of “Refuse to do the Obvious” (Red Roses)  I set about making this challenge harder than it had to be.

I downloaded a great Silhouette shape of a young lady with flowers in her hair to start with as a base.  I cut it to use as a stencil first and foremost but the negative of the entire shape proved useful too.  Probably more so really.

I started by painting my tag red, then stamped a script text stamp through a honeycomb stencil to create my background.  I then masked the with the negative space left from cutting out the shape, filling it in with black gesso mixed with a crackle texture paste.  The crackle didn’t really show very well though.

The next step was to place the cut portrait over the black and add the detail of the roses and butterfly in white texture paste. Hmmm …. didn’t like it all.  Boring and flat.

So – out with the paper flowers and the distress ink pens on the butterfly.  Better. I then added the sentiment stamped in white on black card and cut out the banner (which is just part of the actual stamp).

Still not sold on it, but it’s done.

Thanks for taking a look.  Hopefully my next tag will be a little more exciting.

Cheers, Esther