I love using photos that show little moments in life. This photo of my grandson Noah exploring nature when he was out with his mum.
I wanted to use chipboard in a way that bought the nature on the page that featured in the photo. I painted the fence palings with a mixture of browns and added texture with rust paste and wood grain stencil. Once dry, paint on various different brown inks to add the wood grain colour to the chipboard. Tip – I cut the palings to size to fit behind the photo. Trace the ends onto the cut end to have the shaped top of the other pieces.
Paper base – I used a page from the 49 and Market Tattered Garden paper range. Randomly spread modeling paste with the Dusty Attic burlap stencil. When dry, add various Lindy Stamp Gang madicals in green and brown to added colour to the dried paste.
Using the larger leafy pieces, cut so that you have 4 pieces (2 larger) and add a green texture. For the pieces that will be laid on top, paint with a lighter green so that there is depth to the layers. (I didn’t use the smaller leafy pieces in the 12 in chipboard – save them for another layout).
Once dry, build up the layout and if needed, slightly bend the leafy pieces and glue to make them curve around and under the layout.
Add the birds (painted brown with a fine line of black on the edges to help define against the other chiboard) behind and using one of the longer ones, glue on so that it supports the work ‘everyday’. Painting the words – paint smaller words in brown and add a fine line of white around the edge to define the letters when is sits on top of the other chipboard. For the larger word – paint in Dusty Attic – jungle green – and paint a fine edge in dark brown around the edge of the letters.
Tip – As this layout has several layers of chipboard, you will need to add some smaller pieces of spare chipboard pieces glued in underneath to help stabilise the layout.
The finished effect should show differnt layers of chipboard and have a layered effect that represents looking through the leaves/brancjes of the forest.
