Yes, I know it’s supposed to be “a bird in the hand”. It’s Monday a.m. at Chez Getz and life continues in the new normal. There are many more locks on the door today than Saturday and by this evening a contract will be signed for bells, whistles and buttons and that will be another new normal. But all is well, all is well, all is surely well.
This piece is on a new surface for me, an 8×8 hardwood board. I picked this up at Whim So Doodle in St. Pete recently and wondered what it would be like to use, especially compared to my standby, stretched canvas. There are differences, one obvious one is the hardness and inflexibility of the wood compared to canvas, the other in surface texture. I did like the board for stenciling as there was no “give”, which can be a minor problem on stretched canvas during stenciling. Not enough to keep me from doing it but there was more stencil control and a finer image. This image is from The Crafter’s Workshop from Balzar Designs. I pushed Golden’s Light Modeling Paste through the stencil then used Claudine Hellmuth’s Studio Paints over top of the paste when it dried. The rough paisleys are Americana Writer which is an acrylic dimensional paint. The background is paper painted with Claudine’s Studio paints. I swiped white tempera paint all over the board when everything had dried, then sandpapered a lot of the white off to reveal various surfaces previously worked. Then I painted the folk art bird, which is a cross between an old German fraktur design and a more traditional Indian folk bird. I had trouble with this piece, there are about 6 previously worked designs under this one. I think it was the newness (and preciousness) of the board which is more expensive than my usual 12×12 canvas, but even with all that, I do like the surface and would definitely use this product again.
Crickyn 