Traced Silhouette Art

Finally, the last part to my traced artwork.

(Artwork done on an old piece of wood I found at the second hand store).

Above is the remedied piece.

Here was the process:

After the image had been traced onto the board,

I painted in the words

and filled in the whole shape of the robin with black paint,

also painting the shape of the branch.

I then used a light green to paint in the holly leaves...

and then added touches of dark green to the leaves for some shading

and a watered down red for some holly berries.

I used a touch of black mixed with the green for the pine branches

and watered down brown for the branches.

After it was all dry,

I wiped the whole image with a damp paper towel to remove

the charcoal traced lines.

I used the same wax and stain method as on the detailed Robin.

mixing the two together...

painting it on

and then rubbing it off after it had dried.

I applied another coat of stain on it however,

wanting it to be slightly more antiqued looking.

(Just make sure the first coat of wax is dry and buffed well before adding more stain).

When it was done,

I wondered,

"Does that look more like a raven than a robin?

"Ut-oh."

So,

I asked my Farmer and my daughter

both very honest people,

and they confirmed what I hoped they wouldn't.

"Robin's Song.

That doesn't look like a robin.

That looks like a crow or a raven."

Rrrrr.

So out came the base-coat paint.

And back to the computer I went for some new wording.

It was applied with the charcoal backed tracing.

It was painted...

and then I rubbed some more of the stain on it,

mixed with just a tiny bit of the wax.

This was beneficial as the wax and the stain blended easily

with the first application,

much more so than when I've tried to fix something that has just stain on it.

After this dries,

a spray of fixative,

like spray polyerthane

is recommended to seal the paint and stain.

So the BIG tip I would give for this project is to wait until 

after you have painted the creature's shape you are painting

to determine your writing

because

just because a creature starts out one way,

creativity may demand you alter

your original expectations.

But then, altering expectations proves to be such a big part of life,

so somewhere down the line

it should get easier,

shouldn't it?

Linked up to:

House of Hepworths: Hookin-up-with-hoh