Loving my Faber Castell Gelatos!!

 If you remember a couple of days ago, I posted a picture of a watercolor I did in my art journal of bleeding heart flowers.  The view from my desk is SO drab and cold right now, I just wanted some flowers to brighten my view.  Well, little did I know, but these flowers actually do grow in the winter!! Made my day!!

I took the pic from my art journal and altered a wooden block with modeling paste, paint, paper and glue to create a piece of art!

The very first thing I did was color my modeling paste with a red Gelato.  I made three little plops (real technical term, huh!) and mixed in different amounts of Gelato.  Of course, the more you add the darker color!

 By making three different colors you make color variations and provide more dimension to the shapes!)  Usea palette knife or plastic knife to cut off the color and chop it up and smear it into the modeling paste.

 The Gelatos help keep the consistency of the modeling paste the same because when you add paint or ink, the paste tends to become more liquidy (another technical term!) The thickness of the modeling paste allows you to make actual embellishments of your own.  I wanted to make hearts, I took out an old heart stencil, put it down on wax paper and pushed the colored paste into the stencil.  When you pull up the stencil, it leaves behind the shapes!!  Love it!! 

You have to let it dry which can take a while depending on the thickness of the paste.  At this point, put the wax paper up and don't touch it!! Trust me, you be more frustrated when you ruin your work by touching them before they are dry . . .24 hours people!!

If you don't have Gelatos, you can use your Faber Castell Big Brush to color the modeling paste!!  Put down a 'plop' of modeling paste on a craft sheet.  Then literally color onto the craft sheet.   Mix the paste with the ink and VOILA colored paste!! (Plus, it uses SO little it keeps the consistency the same the Gelatos do!)

(I had already added some color from the pen before I took this pic! Sorry!)

The second step is to prep your surface.  I am altering this piece of wood (best Christmas present this year, was a big box of wood scraps . . . just takes little things to keep me happy, seriously!)

Gesso and lay down patterned tissue paper onto the wood! This makes a fantastic background texture!!

After the gesso dries, paint the background!  I used Titan Buff  in the middle and Carbon Black around the edge.  The black edge really helps make a 'frame' around the picture! When the paint is dry, I used my Faber Castell Cold Grey III around the edges to help blend the 'frame' to the middle!) Plus, it also provides some dimension here too!

Third step, create the stems and leaves!!  Pull out all your green Gelatos and Big Brush Pens!!  I gesso'ed a white piece of cardstock and drew on the leaf shapes onto the gesso.

Now, I kinda experimented here.  One side of the paper I kept dry and just used my finger to blend the three green colors.  On the other side of the paper, I used a wet brush to combine the colors.

Then I used my green and brown Faber Castell Pitt Pens to highlight the leaves.  I like both types of leaves.  The watercolor leaves are a little softer looking ... the smudged ones are a little crisper!! So I used both because I couldn't choose which ones I liked more!!

Since we need stems too, color Gelatos to randomly onto a piece of paper.  I took a wet brush to combine the colors and stamped it up to make some texture!!

 Use this paper to cut out stems for the flowers.  (Before I cut out this paper though, I made some out of scratch paper to get the size right. I get SO frustrated when I cut my 'good' paper the wrong size and have to do it again!!)

 So now, if 24 hours haven't passed by, you have to take a break.  But if they have . .. then you can pull your hearts off the wax paper!!  SO FUN! I LOVE this technique!!  

Assemble all the pieces onto the wood board! I used matte medium to 'glue' the pieces down.  You could also use decoupage glue also, but I like the texture of the matte medium and my fingers stay cleaner!

Finally, come the finishing touches!!  I use my Faber Castell Pitt pens to highlight.  I used the reddish color around the edges of the hearts.  Then I used the fine tip pens to go around everything - it really is an important finishing touch.  I also use the Cold Grey III to shadow the pieces! The pens give the project pieces a POP!

I have several books full of famous (and not so famous) quotes.  I found this quote by Henri Matisse and I just thought if fit my winter flower blues SO well!! I typed it on my computer, printed it out, cut it up and glued it down onto the board.  Finally, added some rub-ons for texture, signed it and DONE!!

So, now join us at the Get Altered Challenge at ePaperie! Sue has a wonderful challenge going on using, hearts!!   And as always, you can find the fabulous supplies I used at the ePaperie!!