Whimsical Girl Collage

Last night I worked on a project I saw in the book, Taking Flight by Kelly Rae Roberts.  I love her work!  I've been practicing my drawing by having her book open and trying to draw the ways she does.  I know that is kind of copying but I need to figure out how to draw things first before I can make them my own.  Hopefully that will come in time.  She has this project in her book that starts with a blank canvas and then you collage the entire surface and add a white wash on top of that to make the colors a little more subdued.  After I did those things I inked up spots here and there with distress inks to give it a little more interest and worn out look.  I then sketched the girl on top of that and painted her with watered down paints.  I love that part (the watered down paints) because you can see the collage underneath and it really makes it look very interesting.  I went back and outlined her a bit more with black pencil and touched up her face a bit.  She turned out so pretty!  I just love, love, love this project!!  It  turned out just as I hoped it would.  I even went out to the craft store to buy more canvases to do another girl because it was so much fun!!  Take a look:

I can't wait for my Mom to see this painting.  My son, Ben, told me that it was really nice and that it looked like something Grandma would make!  She is very talented so I thought that was a wonderful compliment!!