Welcome, Spring!

Hello! I am a TCW Brand Ambassador, and my name is Amy. I was asked to document my project for the TCW Spring Challenge. I am so excited to share my project with you!

We would love for you to participate in the challenge, and there’s even a prize – see the bottom of this post for details!

Dreamer of Dreams

To begin, I started with a 6×6 TCW9053 Mixed Media Board with the new winter release stencils. It’s so sturdy and I knew I wanted to use some watercolors, so I figured this substrate would be perfect! I added some TCW9001 White Gesso with a makeup sponge through one of my new favorite stencils – TCW904 Petal Burst by Rebekah Meier.

1. Add Gesso through stencil

I then grabbed two of my favorite blue Ecoline Watercolors to blend over the gesso which acts as a resist for the watercolor. I love to have a stenciled background texture even though it doesn’t always show in the final piece.

2. Watercolor over gesso

I knew I wanted to create a bird’s nest with eggs, and as I sorted through my stencils looking for inspiration, I came upon TCW870 Fir Branch by Carmen Medlin. I used the pine needles as sticks to “build” my nest. I’m always trying to envision new ways to see the stencils as different things.

3. Begin creating nest

A nest needs eggs, so I grabbed some watercolor paper and a few more Ecoline watercolor shades in green this time. I sketched the trio of eggs then colored them in. They definitely needed speckles, so I hunted down TCW359 Microbial by Jamie Echt to add some spots. True confession time – I never think anything is truly complete without a good splatter, so I splattered the eggs with both some Dina Wakley Media paint in Sand and some Finetec Gold watercolor.

4. Create speckled eggs

Then it was time to add the eggs to the nest! The nest needed a lot of work, and I decided to add a whimsical quality by incorporating some vintage music and book page strips as well as several more layers of the Fir Branch stencil.

5. Perfect the nest

In my mind, I saw the nest surrounded by lots of spring foliage, so the next step was to create the greenery. I reached for two of my favorite leafy stencils. Since I hate to play favorites, I decided to use them both! When stenciling on top of another color, I find it helpful to stencil first with gesso and then with the paint color I want to show. This keeps bleed through at a minimum since I’m usually mixing lots of supplies. I used TCW862 Maidenhair Fern by Carmen Medlin with both a darker and lighter shade of green.

6. Start adding foliage

The next set of leaves were added using the same technique of using gesso first then adding color. I used TCW831 Faithful Tree by Balzer Designs and the same two green shades for this layer.

7. More leaves

At this point, I was feeling disappointed in the project. I wasn’t sure why I didn’t love it, but then it came to me – I LOVE color. LOTS of color! My project just needed a color infusion! What better way to add color than to add flowers? I used TCW921 Word Stems by Gabrielle Pollacco to add some sweet pink flowers using Liquitex Basics paint and Dina Wakley Media in fuchsia. I also added a dark brown border with a Marabu Art Crayon to frame my piece.

8. Add flowers and dark border

The last thing I did was add gold splatters to the entire piece to give it a little magic and pop on the Dreamer of Dreams sticker from my Tim Holtz Chit Chat sticker book.

9. Splatters and sticker – Done!

I can’t wait to see what you create for this challenge – here are the Spring Challenge guidelines.

Please reach out on Instagram – I’d love to meet you! You can find me @craftygirl66

One thought on “Welcome, Spring!

  1. I loved the tip about using gesso before adding the color. I think that slight bit of raised texture would definitely enhance the piece instead of overpowering it like using modeling paste can sometimes. Thanks.

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