Old Forest Road

This piece of artwork is another in my series of homages to Tolkein's Middle Earth.  In this piece I wanted to create a dark, sinister  woodland to represent Mirkwood with a lone hobbit or elven child walking through it.  I'm really pleased with the result; although the stamp used for focal character was not necessarily designed to be a hobbit, I think it works really well in this piece.  I have used stamps by Sheena Douglass and Creative Expressions; a couple of Sheena Douglass stencils; some dies by Tattered Lace and Spellbinders, Aqua Tints, Distress Inks, Lumier Silks, and gold gilding wax.  The main panel started as a piece of white card.  I stamped the 'Little Red' image in the centre using black Versafine ink, then heat embossed with clear powder.  I then painted the image with Pebeo Drawing Gum to mask it.  I stamped some branches up one side and across the top of the panel, heat embossed them then painted them with the gum.  Next I covered the whole panel with Aqua Tints from the 'Beautifully Grunge' set, blending each colour into the next.  I added a path for my hobbit to walk along.  Using a stencil of sunrays I sponged water through it and dried with kitchen paper to create faux bleached rays of light emanating from the lantern.  Using Vintage Photo DI I stencilled the forest across the top two thirds of the panel.  I then stamped images of branches around the the edges of the panel in black ink and heat embossed them.  In the bottom two corners I stamped images of brambles in the same way.  I coloured the flowers and leaves of the brambles with Silk paints  in dark rich shades.  Using the sunrays stencil again I placed it over the faux bleached rays, then slightly offset it  and sponged gold Aqua Tint through it.  I rubbed the drawing gum off the branches and painted them with Silk paint.  Finally it was time to reveal my focal character by removing the drawing gum.  I wanted a very muted green for the cloak so I added some black.  Using a fine black liner pen I turned 'Little Red's' skirt into breeches and coloured the gap as part of the path.  I used Pro-marker pens for the skin, adding grey to give a muted, shaded effect.  When all the colouring was finished I added Black Soot DI around the outer edges of the panel to make it even darker and draw the eye in.  Using die cuts and black card I cut two leafy corners, several different leaves and pine cones.  I added gilding wax to the die cuts and assembled them on to the panel to frame the artwork.  I really love this piece of artwork as it enables me to pay my own tribute to my favourite literary classic.