Remembering Manchester

Obviously, the events in Manchester have been on my mind all week, especially as I often used to get the bus into Manchester on a Saturday with my friends to look round the shops when I was a teenager. I was looking for another stamp in my stash, when I stumbled across this lady from Impression Obsession and she just spoke to me. The way she cradled her arms around the heart mirrored all the communities that had pulled together to support those affected in Manchester.

I forgot to take any photos of the start of the process, but I stamped her in black versafine ink on a 5x7 canvas board and then used faber-castell glass bead glitter gel through a Tim Holtz Wilfdlower stencil at her feet and a Tim Holtz Blossom stencil above her head and let it dry.

I then used my distress crayons (for the first time!) and scribbled then directly on the canvas and blended them with my finger. I wanted to get a dark background with nature being blurred into it. The glass bead glitter gel is quite abrasive to rub over and I had a sore finger by the end of the project!

I then started painting in the figure, using a mix of chalk and acrylic paints, depending on what I had available in the right colours. 

I wanted to add some more depth to the background and so used a stencil over the top of the distress crayons and used a barely wet baby wipe to lift off some of the colour. I got some on her face, but as I intended to make her skin a bit deeper this wasn't a problem. I also decided at this point that I needed some more foliage in front of her as there was a gap as the stencil overlapped at this point when I first applied the gel, so I added in an extra wildflower and left it to dry.

I added green distress crayon over the new wildflower, having dark base behind it rather than the white gives a slightly more vibrant colour to it. I felt the contrast in the background was too strong and so I knocked it back with more directly applied distress crayons and blended again with my finger. I continued to paint the figure until I was happy with her.

Almost finished, I painted the date on to the heart and added gold Buff It around the edge of the canvas to frame it. I still wasn't happy with her hair and so I grabbed my copics that were next to me and coloured over the top of the paint. Finished.

 The glass bead and glitter gel gives a subtle sparkle as well as texture,hopefully these photos will show it better.