The Art of Cardboard Tutorial
Have I mentioned how much I LOVE cardboard!?! It's such a fantastic surface and my go to for many of my crafting projects. My inspiration for this piece, if you can believe it, was a new line of yarn at work. Though I'm not a knitter or crocheter I am extremely fond of color! Especially when it's in eye catching combos.
So the other day when this particular skein caught my attention I gave the colors a lot of consideration. Incase you haven't noticed I'm particularly fond of blues, they're my favorite and I find I do a great deal of my art in these colors....it's not often that I branch out. With fall slowly creeping its way in and our store getting ready to put out our Christmas stuff (Gag! It's way too early) I found the idea of creating something fallish intriguing.
I'd created the cardboard base weeks ago but it's just been sitting in my studio waiting for the right inspiration and here it was. I was finally ready to make it into art! All I did was grab a stencil and gel medium to create a full texture pattern across my cardboard, then covered it with gesso once it was dry. Finally came the color!
I started with a coat of vibrant orange and raw umber, making sure to blend the colors in some areas and leave the others separate. Once dry I used my brayer (one of my favorite texturing tools) with a tiny bit of metallic purple. This technique allows just a small bit of color pop on the raised surfaces. And of course, there had to be my signature blue, so I spritzed a small amount across the whole area.
After everything dried I mixed a small bit of copper with iridescent medium and gel medium then spread it over one of my favorite floral stencils to create my flowers. Now we wait again...boy if drying could just be instantaneous! For the finishing touch I again used my blue and my favorite word stencils to create the phrases.
And there you have it! Simple yet beautiful; you'd never even know it was cardboard. I love how wonderful the colors turned out and hope to be continuously inspired as fall finds its way into my days.
Happy Crafting,
Misty
If you loved this free tutorial look into booking one of my creative workshops.
