Vintage Beauty

Hello and thanks for stopping by!  I'm so excited about this technique I'm showcasing today, it is really fun to do and leaves room for lots of creative possibilities.  The backgrounds for both of these below are from napkins.  Be sure and separate the layers of the napkins before adhering to your paper!  Most napkins have at least 2-3 layers, and if you don't separate them, the top layer will peel off while you are working on your piece.

After your napkin layer has dried (which you can speed up with a heat gun or hairdryer), your image comes next.  You can either cut out a face from a magazine page and glue it to your piece, or you can print out faces from your computer...this leads to all kinds of possibilities, from printing a face of a friend or family member, a famous singer or celebrity, or, as I have done, using actresses from the 1940's and 50's.  I confess I don't remember who this actress is, if you recognize her, let me know!  

                                                   After gluing down your face image, it's time to gesso a bit.  I used gesso around her face and her shirt.  Next I painted her face, hair, and shirt. Honestly I pretended to be a make up artist while painting her face!    I added the bottom banner using stickers and patterned paper.     Her hair is accented with clip art (butterfly and flowers) as well as faux flowers.             

Do you recognize this actress?  I completed this piece in pretty much the same way as the other, except I added trim to her sweater and used a stencil on her sweater to add a bit of depth.  

I hope you try this technique if you haven't already.  It was lots of fun and opens the door to using a variety of mediums.  As always, I'd love to hear your comments!  Thanks for visiting!