‘Bessie’ can be messy :: step by step

Yeeeee…p… it’s not funny :) aha hahahah these are my English poet skills :) ok, not important. How was your reveal yesterday? Did you get everything you want? For today I prepared a simple step by step tutorial based on the ‘Bluegrass Farm‘ add-ons, especially on ‘Bessie‘, but you can find embellishments from other: ‘Clover‘ and ‘Pip‘ kits as well.

Bessie‘ is my this month’s favourite kit. These are ‘my’ colours, my favourite embellishments, nice alphabet, beautiful floral patterns and fabulous tiny, skinny masking tape – just fabulous. I creeated a layout based on my favourite composition which is the best for the workshops (in my opinion), so I think most of you can easly repeat it using also different materials in different palette.

Starting from the begining. First you have to combine the composition. I will focus on some tricks in this post, so I will leave the words about building composition, mixing colours, etc… for the next time.

First step is to past the pattern paper,placed the photo with all the layers we want to collect under the picture and glue them all to the background. Then apply gesso using thick piece of paper or an old credit card or something like that.

When the background is dry, it’s time to start painting using watercolours and watercolour media. Here I used one of my favourites lately – Mister Huey’s Watercolor Set from Studio Calico.

When our painting is finished we start adding some splashes and embellishments. I was in love with these cork, botanical shapes and lovely brads with gold print.

This wooden element from the embellish add-on ‘Pip‘ kit was to bold in my opinion for this composition so I decided to use it as a stencil. I put the ampersand and start to prick the papers already sticked to the background. Be careful and try not to move the stencil.

Now we’re working the same as always while embroidering. I used beautiful, silk orange thread which looks fabulous with the palette of this project.

At the end of my work I added some stamps, pencil doodlings, black tiny splashes made by india ink and… I added a little bit of tangled, silk thread under the secret envelope (inside the envelope there’s a hidden message :) I think that this idea of using wooden elements as stencils so good and recommendable. Using them this way give us more possibilities to use them more than once and it’s really important especially whan you love the design – and I adore the designs on the wooden stencils from ‘Pip’ add-on this month.

If you like my courses and would like to get know more about mixing watercolour media with other, permanent techniques. If you are a beginer and want to know-how or if you are already introduced to mixed-media but want to enrich your knowledge and add something new to your toolbox we can meet eachother at the MIXED MEDIA classes at Studio Calico when me and Celine Navarro and our beloved contributors will give you 5 WEEKS of mixed-media wonderland.

We start just in a few days – at the 1st of April so if you still on the fence to make a decision… you know – we are waiting for you there to share our knowledge and experiende with you! See you at the MIXED MEDIA classes soon.



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