The Queen Bee

Mixed and multimedia art has been a fun hobby for me lately.  Combine that with my new Sizzix big shot and it's practically a dream come true.  I used to be an avid painter.  I would sit and paint all the time, then turn around and sell most of it at craft fairs.  It was all completely from scratch and just base painting a large piece would take me nearly all day.

Now, thanks to the idea of taking decopauge and mixing it with my painting, I have a great fun craft that I can finish in almost no time at all.  So much of the texture and background painting is taken up by the paper that I choose.

First I started my art with some leftover sizzix flowers that I had from another project.  I was having so much fun cutting that day I just kept making more and more flowers.  Because I knew I would be able to use them for some other project, I saved them...

On a basic piece of Bristol Paper (the thin canvas works great too), I started by laying out my sizzix flowers.  Next, I simply cut wavy lines out of brown scrapbook paper, then trimmed them to fit under the flowers.  This should be pretty random.

Next I used Aleene's Collage Pauge to decoupage my flowers and stems to my paper.

Next, I covered the surface with Collage Pauge and laid white tissue paper over the entire piece.  Let the wrinkles happen.  You want them.  Carefully smooth the surface so that the glue is holding down all of the tissue.  If you accidentally tear an area, don't worry, just decoupage some more tissue over it.

Let this dry and cut away the excess paper on the edges.

next you'll want to float colors, highlights and lowlights along the stems, outside petals and inner parts of the flowers.

To float, dip your brush (I like an angle brush, though I know most prefer a flat brush) into a cup of water.

Laying your brush against a paper towel, let most of the water wick into the paper towel so that it is slightly damp.

Next, dip the corner (tip) of the brush into your paint.

 (I like to use deli paper, over a wet paper towel, on a styrofoam meat tray for my floating palette)  Using a floating palette, pull your brush in a small stripe so that the paint can float across your brush.

The more you go back and forth the widder your stripe becomes.  Try not to do this too often, or your effect will be what really good painters call ribboning. It's not the preferred look, though I confess I tend to do it quite frequently.

Also, too much water here and it gets really muddy.  

Work your way around your all the stems, petals and anywhere you want to add more color or intensity.  

Adding white will make it seem as the sun is hitting that part of the flower. 

I did decide to add some punched butterflies too... you know, for a little extra dimension.