2015 #19 Angel Face Painting {by Pam Thorburn}

 2015 Topic 19: Faces

Hi everyone Pam Thorburn here, joining you this evening with a post on the theme of faces. I jumped at the chance to do a project on this theme as I have been experimenting with how to paint faces for sometime now, and I know that Fresco chalk paints are beautiful for painting lovely smooth skin. I have chosen to paint an angel for my project, since Christmas is approaching, and also I fell in love with Sarah Naumann's new stamp collection, ESN18. This set has a winter/Christmas theme.

So here is my Angel painting:

Step One: I began by sponging on and blending in some Fresco paint for some background colour and roughly sketching in some guidelines for my face. The paint colours I used were Haystack, Sherbert, Candy Floss, Orchid, Spanish Mulberry and Snowflake.

Step Two: This is the ugly part of the painting, adding some shadows and highlights, and some hair colour. The colours used in this step are not that important as they will be covered up. You just need a mid tone for most of the skin, a dark tone for shadows,  and a light tone for highlights.

Step Three: I began layering paint onto the Angel's face. The skin is built up with lots of layers of thinned paint, ensuring each layer is dry before adding the next. The main colours used were Blush and Stone. I also worked on the hair and the facial features. The hair is a painted with a number of Fresco colours to create the streaked effect. I used Snowflake, Haystack, Toffee and Claret. The line detail is added with some watercolour pencils. I also used watercolour pencils for the eyes and the lips, (as well as some fine black marker pen). The halo effect is done with a dry brush technique, brushing Snowflake, and some Zesty Zing away from her head.

Step Four: Now for the wings. I wanted some lovely textured wings so I decided to use Grunge Paste through  stencils. First I used  the Mini Peacock stencil, but I only wanted a semicircle of this design, so I masked off where I wanted the first application of Grunge Paste to go. I finished the wings with a Mini Onion skin stencil.

Step Five: I began adding some stencilling background detail. I used interlocking flowers in Spanish Mulberry, and Mini Roman Letters in Haystack. I also began my stamping by embossing the twig from ESN18 using gold embossing powder.

ESN18

Step Six: I continued stamping: The dress is collage tissue paper onto which I had stamped the music score image. The necklace is a chipboard star, painted and stamped, and the chain is dots of gold Stickles.

Stamping has been added to the background. The sentiments from the stamp set are stamped using Fresco Paint. The bird stamp has been added to the angel's 'halo'. 

Finally, the wings were painted  first with Snowflake paint, and then with Metallic Glaze as I wanted the wings to simmer and shine. And they do! here is a close up, and I think you can see a little of how they glimmer.

I really hope you like my painting. I have to confess that she really hasn't emerged the way I had envisaged. My original idea was to take my inspiration from the 'Winter Chill' stamp in the set. My background was going to be in cool blues, and my Angel was to be pale and white, with a silver halo. I'm not sure what happened. When I went to collect my paints the opposite colours seemed to jump into my hands instead. Has that ever happened to you?

I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone's faces. You can see  more of my work over on my blog Waltzing Through Life.

Pam, your Angel face is absolutely delightful from the choice of colour palette you opted for to the built up stamped/stencilled layers. The Angel wings are exquisite as is the use of the gold embossed twig halo. Thank you for sharing your step by step creativity with this theme. ~Gillian

We would love you to join in with challenge #19: Faces If you are inspired by any of our guests who blog with us over the fortnight, 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 Faces link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, 

Oct 25th winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.