Brown Owl By Guest Designer Helen Chilton ....

Tonight we are thrilled to welcome back Helen Chilton, who has been having fun with Grunge paste, stamps, Frescos and canvas...a winning combination! I'll leave you with her...

"I've only just got a pot of this stuff so had to have a go! What I love about it is that it dries so quickly and you can colour it".

For today's post I've used some of the Vintage Collection stamps ID02

I particularly love the owl collage on this and have teamed it up with a wood-grain stencil and a wood framed canvas.

I started off by stamping a collage onto white tissue paper with the owl stamp and some of the text and other images from the same plate. This is a good idea if you want a focal point, but need to make the composition larger to fill a bigger space, like the 20x20 canvas I am intending to stick this onto.

Where I wanted a bit of text, I didn't bother to mask off the owl, but just used the stamp without a block and curved it to fit the space:

Next I flipped the tissue paper over and painted the back with a range of Fresco Paints ... Zesty Zing, Butternut, Pumpkin Soup, London Night, Mushroom, Guacamole, Limelight, Hyde Park. Remember if you paint from the back, then the image on the tissue stays bold and clear from the front side.

Then I covered the whole of the back of the tissue with Snowflake

This makes the colours pop, and also makes the tissue stronger for handling. Plus if you are quick, and the paint is wet, then it also becomes a bit like a glue onto the receiving surface too.

After that I used the paint to stick it to the canvas, splodged on some Satin Glaze and smoothed it on with my fingers (couldn't find a brush!).

I then painted round the image in Hyde Park and Guacamole to blend in the tissue paper, finishing with highlights of Limelight (got to have some brights in there!).

Next came the Grunge Paste. I used a Prima stencil that I bought on impulse - wood-grain pattern - got it home and thought 'what am I going to do with that?!'

The main problem was that wood tends to be brown and I realised that I don't really do brown. However here I thought I'd use it to make a tree with a hole effect for my owl. The Grunge Paste goes on beautifully with a palette knife.

Ending up like this.

I was tempted to leave the Grunge Paste au naturale (ie. avoid the dreaded brown!), but eventually I plucked up the courage, plonked back the stencil and painted through with London Night which I'd also used on the owl.

I used a stencil brush for this to really get in the nooks and crannies but in the end had to touch up with a brush after as well as the nooks and crannies defeated me! In hindsight, I could have tinted the GP with the paint first, and then this would have made the process more straightforward, but highdsight eh...if I had a pound.....!

Finally I painted my frame with London Night as well, used one of the text/pattern stamps to randomly decorate it in black:

...and added some die-cut leaves (a bit chopped around) to finish:

And that is my owl, or should I say, my Brown Owl!

Until next time!

Helen

Leandra Says: Fantastic Helen, thanks for dropping back in to see us this week! It's been great to see Grunge paste used through a chunky stencil in this way! Thank you. You come up with such different ideas!

Gillian Says: The use of the Grunge Paste with the Woodgrain Stencil to create a natural habitat for "Brown Owl" is genius Helen. I love the contrast of London Night against the bolder green hues. Lovely to have you back with us this week.