ID: Strata Botanica - Step By Step
Size: 13"w x 9"h

Created: June 22, 2017
Modified:

This is still a work in progress as well... But thought I'd get the steps locked down so I don't forget them...

I really like the printing version. Easy and no clean up per se.

I worked on 90# Arches HP watercolor paper. 

Limit your color palette. 

Use a couple of wax crayons to act as resist designs, and a couple of watercolor pencils to give a fussy look when wet. Draw various organic shapes, turning your paper so all the designs are not facing one way.

You'll notice there are - what look like smudges... - and that's from the pressure of your fingers holding down the tin foil so it doesn't move. So of those smudges are desirable, but too many of them or if you use your hands rather than the tips of your fingers to hold your tin foil down, you'll get unsightly smudges...

With a 2B pencil draw designs on the tin foil which will transfer the paint lines to your art work. Again draw various organic shapes, turning your design around to get them in every direction.

Apply water in the background areas of your tin foil design and drop in color, then drop in another color and let the water do it's thing... I also put water/paint into interesting shapes.

When you're happy with the shading etc., and things are dry, add shapes (I used a frog stencil). With a liquid type gesso (Liquitex) or water down some gesso to get an inky type consistency, start painting around your new designs, blending the gesso to a ghostly impression of color. Continue working the gesso till you're happy.

Needless to say the gesso still needs working to eliminate the purple tone (which is the wet gesso picking up my watercolor layer) and have more of a ghosting effect around the edges.

After the gesso has dried, it will stop picking up the underneath colors...