Angel Whispers Tutorial...

"There is always an action we can take to support our inner artist." -Julia Cameron

For 56 of 61 days I participated in an art challenge called ICAD 2016 (Index card a day). The creator of this challenge is Daisy Yellow. Truth be told, I learned about the challenge through an Instagram feed I follow and never actually visited the Daisy Yellow site to see how it is really supposed to go. Apparently there are weekly prompts to help get the creative juices flowing, but I don't know what they are. Instead I just focused on embracing the idea of creating 61 consecutive little pieces of art (I fell behind when an unplanned trip to visit colleges with my daughter came up-will soon finish the last 5). I have never done a project like this before. When I am finished with all 61 pieces of my art I plan to sell them in an attempt raise money for a local charity called Dream Makers.  It is an organization that fulfills wishes of kids aging out of the foster care system here in Colorado, where I live (more details to come).

​I started out trying to do the art on actual index cards, but that was a disaster for me. They are awful to use for wet media and I became quickly frustrated. So I started cutting Strathmore 500 Hot Press watercolor sheets to size and using them . The results were sooo much better! I documented the process of this card, which I am calling Angel Whispers, so you can see how it was done. I am really happy with the results, and you'll see just how easy it was!

I started by cutting this piece of vintage looking scrapbook paper to the size of my watercolor card, 3" x 5". 

After adhering the scrapbook paper  onto the watercolor paper I coated the whole thing with a thin layer of gesso.  This helps soften the background and gives the surface added tooth for the paints to adhere to.

Next I lifted off some of the gesso with a baby wipe (not just for tiny bottoms anymore-lol) to let more of the background show through in spots, still very subtle.

I then dabbed two shades of Tim Holz's DIstress paint in Walnut Stain and Antique linen randomly onto the paper.

Here I softly blended both colors, again using a baby wipe, to get a slightly antiqued look to the paper.

Here is my big cheat secret (gasp!). I found an angel wing image on-line that was what I had pictured in my mind, printed it off on regular copy paper, cut it out and adhered it to my card with Collage Pauge (you could also use matte medium, if you prefer. I use them interchanegably all the time for projects like this). I could have drawn it by hand of course, but I am not super confident in my drawing skills and this saved me time and effort and gave me exactly what I had hoped for. Also in the end, as you will see,  it doesn't look like an exact replica of this print out.

I applied a thin layer of gesso to the wing image.

Using Golden Heavy Body Titanium White paint, I proceed to paint in the wing image. The heavy body paint gives some nice texture and depth to the image, which was my intention.

You can see the wing take shape more here. I actually repeated the layers, letting the layer underneath dry before adding a new layer, building up more texture and depth as I went along. I applied about 3 layers.

To add even more depth to the wing, I applied a little Golden Fluid Acrylic in Raw Umber to the wing once the white paint was completely dry.

Once again using a handy dandy baby wipe, I removed some of the raw umber to give the wing just a subtle antiquing.I really like the effect it gave.

Here I added a little shading to the outside of the wing using a gray Pitt brush pen. They have india ink in them which dries permanent. However,  on top of an acrylic surface they allow for just a few seconds to manipulate the ink so I could smudge it out a bit.

Lastly I added some text using little alphabet stamps I found at Hobby Lobby  (See something similar here) and Archival Ink in Watering Can. I am really pleased with the final result for just a little tiny piece of art.  It was divinely inspired! ; )

I hope you enjoyed seeing the process and maybe took away a new trick to try on your own art projects. 
Also please stay tuned for the art sale coming up that I mentioned earlier to benefit  Dream Makers. Together we can make a dream come true!

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