2015 #14 Large Flower {by Wanda Hentges}

 2015 Topic 14: Flowers

Hi everyone!!! Wanda here, joining you this evening with a post for the Flowers theme. I thought it would be fun to make a large flower to hang on the wall but, was it ok to make an enlarged copy of a stamp. After emailing Leandra the answer was, yes, it is, as long as it's a one time thing and not for making multiples for commercial gain.

I stamped the flower from ELB24 onto white cardstock and, using a laser printer, enlarged it as much as possible but it still fit onto an 8 1/2 x 11" piece of paper.  I made 5 copies onto white cardstock.

ELB24

I cut out 2 complete flowers, 2 flowers with just the center petals, and one flower that has just the "front" center petals.  As I started cutting the last one I realized that since there was just a bit holding each petal onto the center that I would probably manage to tear them off before I was done ... So I stopped and coated the back with Golden gel medium. I just brushed it on not bothering to get it really thin and smooth as I wanted the extra strength. Once it was completely dry I finished cutting it out. You still have to be careful not to "overcut" between the petals but it worked well for strength.

Fresco Finish paint was used to add color. I started with one of the large flowers and quickly painted all the petals with blueberry and then began painting each petal separately using china, lavender, smurf, wisteria, and snowflake. I didn't blend too much allowing brush strokes to be seen.

Here is one flower with all the petals painted. I painted the other flowers in much the same way except on the other large flower I didn't paint all the way to the center.  It was going to be the bottom in the stack and it wasn't necessary. Honestly it was probably only necessary on one of the full center petals pieces and the front center petals piece but I painted them anyway.  

I only painted the actual center on the front center petals piece. I mixed chocolate pudding and squid ink and painted the whole center and then using a texture tool added spots of toffee.  I've had this tool for years and years.  It was bought at a rubber stamp convention when they used to have them in Iowa. I don't remember what it was called but it has a plastic mesh stuff glued to the end of a finished wood stick. 

If this was going to be a gift, I would have painted the backs of all the flowers but I'm keeping it.  I intend to hang it in the bathroom so I wanted all the flowers to be sealed and I did this by painting them, front and back, with satin glaze.  The satin glaze also brightened all the colors and gave a fabulous finish to the flower!!!!  To give added dimension to the petals, working on a foam pad I used a stylus tool to puff the paper forward.  I could have worked it to be more smooth (which I did with the painted center) but leaving the lines added a more realistic look to the petals.  I stamped the quote from ELB24 onto a scrap of white cardstock with Archival Ink jet black, cut out the words and glued them to the painted center and then painted the center again with satin glaze. Using a Posca paint marker I went around all the petals on all the flowers except for the one with just the front center petals. To give more variety to my layers I stamped text using Minis MN61 onto the ends of the petals on one of the complete flowers and one of the center petals flowers. I left the front center petals flower without marker or text.

MN61

I attached all the flowers together just in the center with foam mounting tape.

To make a hanger for the flower I used 2 cardboard circles that I had and some craft wire.  I twisted 2 pieces of wire and glued them between the circles with heavy gel medium, clamping them together and allowing them to dry.  I then attached the hanger to the back of the flower being sure it would hang with the words upright.  

Once they were all attached just in the centers, I thought it needed more so I carefully lifted the front petals and added dots around all the petals of the next layer using a white Posca pen. I then added the white swirl to the front petals holding my breath and hoping I wouldn't mess it up... success. Finally I glued each of the very front petal with a blob of gel medium behind the center of the petal. They needed to be glued so they wouldn't flop when the flower was hung up but I wanted them to keep their dimension and shape.  

I LOVE how this came out!!!!  Bonus... my husband also likes it, yay!!!  This could be done with any color or how about making a flower and each layer is a different color group.  That would be really pretty and fun!!!  I hope you have a chance to get painty or inky and create something for the current Flowers Challenge.  

~Wanda

You can find me on my Blog and also on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+ and Pinterest.

A quirky piece of art to grace any wall space Wanda, love the enlarged multi-dimensional petal layers and the white highlights. So glad it has the tumbs up from hubs too. Thanks for sharing your creativity with us.

We would love you to join in with challenge #14: Flowers.

If you are inspired by any of our guests who blog with us over the fortnight (July 26 - Aug 9th), or perhaps you want to just do your own thing with flowers...then please join in and link up your creativity HERE. 

All links go in the draw to win a voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Flowers link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Aug 9th winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.