COMPENDIUM OF CURIOSITIES III CHALLENGE NUMBER 5 ~ DISTRESS WATERCOLORING PART 1

Hello all of you Compendium of Curiosities III Challenge lovers! It's Saturday and time for a new challenge from Tim's Compendium of Curiosities III. If you are one of the very few who have not received your autographed copy of Tim's book, you can click HERE to order it now!

I totally LOVE doing these challenges with Linda and the rest of the Curiosity Crew. I want to thank EVERYONE who leaves such uplifting and sweet comments on my blog. You make my day with your thoughts! So, thank you so much!!

This challenge is taken from page 39.  It is all about Distress Watercoloring, Part 1.  The Curiosity Crew has some amazing art to share with you using this technique but we won't give away the actual technique. That is what this challenge is all about ... teaching you to use Tim's book as your reference guide to all sorts of fun techniques and use of his products.  So, get out your books, turn to page 39 for the actual technique instructions and we're off!

I created this 6x6 board that evolved into ...

 

  
into this wall hanging. 

 I began by stamping this beautiful nest from Tim's Bird Feather stamp set using a combination of mainly Coffee but with touches of Jet Black Archival Inks in the lower left hand corner of a piece of 6x6 Manila Cardstock. I used a secondary stamp of just the nest portion as a mask over the original one stamped onto the cardstock. Then I began creating the cloudy sky background using some cut out cloud patterns, some Broken China and Stormy Sky Distress Ink and my ink blending tools. I began at the top and one by one, randomly placed some cloud patterns and inked around each of them using the blue tones and my ink blending tools. The result is a pretty cool looking fluffy cloudy sky.

Next I added the three branch to the other side of my 6x6 background using the branch minus the bird from Tim's Urban Tapestry stamp set. Again, I stamped the image with Coffee Archival Ink. 

I created my own leaves on the bird branch using a Micro Pen in brown permanent ink and colored in all of the leaves on both stamped images using Tim's Detailer Water Brush and various shades of green Distress Ink: Peeled Paint, Shabby Shutters and a little Forest Moss. Then I heat set those.  Next I added some random black speckles to add some more depth to the piece by flicking a little watered down Pitch Black Paint Dabber paint onto the paper.  I used an old toothbrush to pick up the paint and then flicked it with my finger to create the random splattered pattern.

Here you see the end results of my adding the leaves to the branch on the right and then coloring all of them in using Tim's watercolor technique. I then sprayed this background with some Workable Fixative spray (clear sealer) to seal my work.  Distress Inks are water reactive so if I wanted my background to stay looking exactly like this, no matter what other layers of inks or fabric or whatever I might choose to add, I needed to seal it.

Next I stamped this sweet little winged girl from Tim's Winged Things stamp set onto a piece of Specialty Stamping Paper and using Tim's watercolor technique, I brought her to life. The colors of Distress Ink I used on her are:  Wild Honey, Peeled Paint, Tattered Rose, Scattered Straw, Antique Linen, and Worn Lipstick.  She is stamped with Jet Black Archival Ink.  After coloring her, I lightly went over her with Antique Linen and my ink applicator.  I love the way that Antique Linen seems to "set" the colors and give them a more soft, vintage look. Then I cut her out and edged all of my cut edges with a Gathered Twigs Distress Marker.

I cut a slit in the nest, using my Tim Holtz Tonic Craft Knife and slipped the winged girl in place in the nest. When I permamently put her in place, I glued her legs on the underside of the 6x6 paper and I used pop dots on her upper body to give her more dimension.

Next I stamped some of these lovely birds from Tim's Nature Walk stamp set onto a piece of Specialty Stamping Paper.  I combined predominantly Coffee Archival Ink with a touch of Jet Black onto the stamp before stamping the images.  The first bird on the lower left has too much Coffee Ink on the stamp and I lost some of the fine details of the bird's body.  So, I stamped two more images and I ended up using the bird at the center top in my piece. I used Tim's watercolor technique to color in the bird's body using Wild Honey and Worn Lipstick Distress Inks.  I cut him out and added him to the bird branch using pop dots on his upper body to give him more dimension.

Next I added a little more textural interest to the piece with a trick that Andrea Ockey Parr taught me.  She is the queen of using fabric in her art. I added some strips of black and white fabric to the 6x6 board using Matte Multi Medium.  Then I painted over them with white Gesso so that I could stamp a sentiment onto them and it would be seen easily. When the Gesso was dry, I stamped my sentiment from Tim's Just Thoughts stamp set onto a piece of white tissue paper and then tore around it.  I added the sentiment on top of the fabric strips using Matte Multi Medium.  The torn edges of the tissue paper just melt into the background. 

After the Matte Medium dried, I added some dark shadows around the sentiment using Black Soot Distress Ink and my Detailer Water Brush.  Here is the background before I permanently added my little winged girl to the nest. Once I had added the winged girl, I glued this background on top of a 6x6 piece of chipboard and distressed around the edges with Gathered Twigs and Black Soot Distress Inks. 

Then I added Tim's Symphony Tissue Tape in various places on the canvas. I love how all of the different black patterns work together in the background. Next I added the Word Band using a sort of twine like piece and finally I added to two Ideaology metal Foliage flowers.  I painted them with Scattered Straw (outer petals), Spiced Marmalade (inner petals) and Picked Raspberry (center) Distress Paints and let them dry before stacking them and adding them to the branch. I really liked this 6x6 board but I felt like it needed something else to really complete it.  So ...

I dug out an 8x8 stretched canvas, painted it with white Gesso, let it dry and repeated the cloudy background I'd originally done on the 6x6 Manila Cardstock background.  I added a little Antique Linen to the cloudy background to soften the white clouds.  Then I sprayed the canvas with Workable Fixative to seal the Distress Inks colors.

Next I added some random harlequin patterns from Tim's Harlequin Stencil using Wendy Vecchi's Black Embossing Paste. Then I distressed around all of the edges of the canvas using Gathered Twigs and Black Soot. 

I added the predominantly black Tissue Tape from Tim's Commute Tissue Tape collection around all of the sides of the canvas.

I wanted my 6x6 board to pop off of the 8x8 canvas so I added bottle caps underneath the 6x6 board and hot glued it in place on the center of the 8x8 canvas.

I found this 6" sort of rusty metal hanger in my stash of "stuff" and thought it would finish off my canvas perfectly.  So, I screwed two large metal eye screws, centered in the top of my canvas in place so that the hanging clamps could fit right over them. 

So...here is my finished Tim Holtz Distress Watercolor, Part 1 project. I hope you enjoyed seeing the step by step and that something here or that one of the other Curiosity Crew has made has inspired you to join in on our challenge. 

You could win a VERY generous prize package of all sorts of Tim Holtz goodies donated by Tim and Mario or win a

$50.00 gift certificate that the lovely people at Inspiration Emporium have waiting for you. Just create your art and link it up at the lovely Linda Ledbetter's Compendium of Curiosities III Challenge Blog. 

GOOD LUCK!!  I can't wait to see your watercolor wonders!