Sunday 7 February 2016

Large Background Experiment: Part 2

As I am experimenting with adding colour to the large background that I was working on yesterday, I started with one of the backgrounds which didn't quite stamp well enough.  Having decided to use Archival ink and stamp using the mega mount as an acrylic block, I used one of the failed backgrounds as a starting point.  I love distress ink pads as you can blend them really well with the small round blending tool and lift the colour using water if you need to.  Here's my first attempt - you can see where the beetle didn't stamp properly, but I just wanted to try out colour placement.  I used a water brush and kitchen towel to lift the colour from the shirt cuff, 'hello', the compass hands, balloon boat and around the key.






I went with masculine colour distress inks; Rusty Hinge for the balloon; Pumice Stone and Old Paper for the majority of the background and Hickory Smoke for the key.  I also added Vintage photo all round the edge. 
Pumice Stone on the hand; Old Paper around; Vintage Photo around the edge.


Rusty Hinge surrounded by Old Paper and Pumice Stone blended together.

Pumice Stone on the compass surrounded by Old Paper with Vintage Photo around the edge.  You can see where the colour has been lifted from the letters. 

The only area that I wasn't happy with.  I was careless with the Hickory Smoke and used my bleach pen instead of water at first to try and lift the excess colour at the top!




I decided to see what I could do to rescue the situation round the key and added more Vintage Photo in the bottom right hand corner, with a little Black Soot to darken the edge further.  I also used the Old Paper distress pen to try and disguise the 'bleach' mistake (that'll teach me to label my water pens clearly!).  Unfortunately, all that happened was that the top surface of the card came off.  Otherwise I quite liked the colour placement of my initial colouring attempt.  I decided to see how things would look using decoupaged pieces from the failed heat emboss attempts with the background as layering elements and leaving them white.
I really like this contrast.







 


 I like the halo effect around the white balloon, but I'm not keen on using the rest of the image.


 Here you can really see the contrast between the stark white of the decoupaged element and the softer effect created by lifting the colour from the letters using the water brush. 
Adding the extra colour to the right of the key provides emphasis, but even the addition of the decoupage element (which still needs the fussy cutting finishing) cannot disguise the mess made by bleaching, then adding water, followed by the distress pen.
 I am not certain that I am going to use the decoupage elements yet, as the bottom left corner looks a little bare.  I may die cut some cogs to add interest to that section, but I'm still not sure about so much stark contrast between the foreground and background.  Once again; please watch this space!

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