Painting Goodness!

My work desk this weekend was covered in paint.  I had to be at school all day Saturday for PD (professional development) which robbed me of a lot of  play time.  My allergies decided to show themselves thus the appearance of eucalyptus oil sitting by the paints.  The wire is for making the stems of the leaves for the ATC’s and the embossing powders were purchased last week with the intention of learning how to use them.  Gasp! I can hear you now!  But nope, I have never ventured into embossing but after seeing all the beautiful cards you ladies make I got inspired and decided to try it.  Just need some play time!  Again, wish I lived closer so I could get a few lessons.

I stumbled on these awesome ATC’s at April Cole's Studio and knew I had to try my hand at creating my own. 

With the earlier than usual arrival of fall, I decided to use reds, oranges, yellows, and browns.  I never thought to paint on corrugated cardboard before, it was FUN and therapeutic!  I noticed that it looked like the artist’s paint had a thicker consistency than mine.  To achieve that look I tried leaving the paint out on the pallet for 30 minutes before using it and that did seem to give it a thicker consistence but I never did get mine to look like hers.

I needed thicker wire than what I found in the house but at 4 a.m., one just uses what one has.  Making the stems was not all that fun and I found my gluey fingers were constantly sticking to the tissue paper as I was trying to roll it on the wire.

I like the design of the papers I chose for the leaves and didn't want to completely cover them with paint.  Instead, I pulled several metallic paints then watered them down before painting over the leaves.  I thought the metallic colors lent themselves well with painted background.  After cutting the edges of several of the leaves I opted to not do the rest as it just didn't look right.  As a finishing touch I went over each card with BRILLIANCE gold ink (the shine you see).

Here are 2 other ATC’s I made:

GROUP: It's a Rainbow! - brown

ATC of ABCs: #6 "F"

This one is a resend as she never received the original.  I decided to hand color the feathers this time using Sakura Gellyroll Stardust pens (my favorite pens).  This one was a lot less fussy than the original.

Finding encouragement and loads of creativity within a wonderful group of creative people over at What’s on Your Workdesk? Wednesday.