Quiet? Not me ~ inspired by a Vera Lane Studio image

Hi everyone! I decided to have a play with a background technique I haven't used in ages. I love doing that just to see how I can incorporate it into my evolving style. One of my art goals this year is to create backgrounds using different techniques and mediums, changing it up so that I continue to learn and grow. The star of this page is an image by Vera Lane Studio called Crazy Cat Lady It comes with Flora, whose face I am so loving, 3 funny cats, and a saying. Flora is travelling solo in my page today.

I coloured her with a mix of Prismacolor and Polychromos pencils, adding white paint pen highlights and black pen to re-draw the lines that the coloured pencils dull down. Flora was fussy cut leaving the narrow white border, matted with black, and trimmed out leaving the narrow black border that I favour.

The background technique which I chose to create on this 6x6 watercolour paper began with a coat of gesso which is necessary to get good results. I then spritzed the page with water and added three watered down Liquitex Basics acrylic paint colours: Cerulean Blue Hue, Light Blue Permanent, and Bright Aqua Green. You want these paints quite watery and still wet for the next step. A piece of plastic wrap larger than the background is layered over the wet paint and then pushed/scrunched in toward the center of the page to create creases where the wrap is not touching the paper. These areas will come out much lighter once you remove the plastic wrap because the paint has been pulled off along those lines. I generally let this dry overnight because you want it to dry completely.

Black gesso was pounced through AALL & Create Lotza Dotz stencil to add pattern and contrast in a few areas. Jet Black Archival Ink was applied to number stamp from a Studio Light set and added in 3 areas. White chalk paint was used on a bottle lid to create the white rings.

A Caution tape washi was added to white cardstock, and trimmed to give Flora a place to stand and also to warn the general public...you don't want to mess with Flora!

The wording was printed onto white cardstock, cut into sections, and matted with black. Three enamel dots were used to signify the pause between the two sections of her statement. To finish off the page, Black Big Brush Pen was used to outline the edges and a border was doodled on all four sides of the background.

Thanks for joining Flora and me today. We appreciate your good company as well as your support.

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie