A few weeks ago a person on a chat list shared where one can find water soluble oil pastel crayons. The Portfolio brand, set of 24 is at Staples (office supply store) for $9.65 in my area (and in other locations around the United States). Not a bad price so I bought a set the next time I was near a Staples store.
My reason for buying them was to use them to alter photographs with.
However my first test ended up bing to draw a picture. Using the technique that another ATC and ACEO artist I know uses (Lauri Jean Crowe), I started with the background as a page of text in a foreign language. I grabbed a book which is a play in French that I bought for under a quarter at a used book shop. It is printed on cheap paper with acid in it and the foxing has already begun (the browning edges on a page of a book is called foxing, this is where the paper is oxidizing). The book was actually starting to fall apart so those of you who hate to think of taking apart a book can stop cringing now.
There was a cover illustration on the book of ladies in ball gowns. Since I am not good at drawing I decided to try to imitate the style of the drawing on the cover, which was not highly detailed so it was perfect to use with these crayons.
I was thrilled to see how creamy the crayons were. The first one I drew with just the crayons. The second and third were sketched first with pencil then drawn over and colored in with the crayon.
I then used a wet paintbrush to blend the color. It was fast and fun!
I did this one night while my kids were getting ready for bed. This first step went very quickly.
I left these overnight to dry.
On day two I mounted the pages onto stronger ATC backs with Golden Acrylic Soft Gel Medium and left them to dry.
On day three, I cut the corners off using a die cutting gadget. I decided to leave them 'as is' and not to embellish them any further. I put a top coat of Golden Acrylic Soft Gel Medium in gloss on them and let that dry.
On day four, I put a label on the back with my name and then did a coating on the back.
I liked how these turned out.
I already swapped one out into one of the ATC art boxes in one of my Yahoo Groups!. The other two are still here and I need to decide if I will keep one or both. I also want to make more like these with the same style, more pages from the book, etc.
French Lady in Blue Ball Gown created April 2006
French Lady in Pink Ball Gown created April 2006
French Lady in Ball Gown created in April 2006
Technorati Tags: artist trading cards, ATCs, water soluble oil pastel crayons.
1 comment:
These are really nice! I love the foreign text background and the drawings of the ladies. Great atcs!
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