Red Red Robin by Helen Chilton

I'm still a bit Christmassy here with my robin and holly leaves, but I just couldn't resist!

This uses the same technique as for the background in my last post only it didn't quite come out as expected!

Start with the small bird stencil on your Gel Press...

And brayer in white. Remember you're working back to front.

Let dry and then add holly.

Then twigs when dry.

Finally brayer over a layer of Midnight Blue, followed by a layer of white when dry.

When it's dry peel it off. This is what I got which was not at all clear, but I still liked it, especially the way the background was crackled.

I coloured in the central bird so I could see where it was.

Then I stencilled in some more holly...

...and twigs.

I added a touch of colour to some of the background to warm it up.

This background paper comes from the 13Arts Industrial Zone collection. It's got wonderful crackles on it.

I added some blue and red to coordinate with the background. At this point I also made another bird as I felt the original was a bit lost. 

You can also see I've added some foiled holly to help the bird stand out even more. Just stencil the holly with the Rich Hobby Foil Relief  Paste, let it dry 'til it's just sticky and apply the gold foil.

I then layered it onto a roughly torn piece of calico and added some machine stitching.

I enjoyed making this - it presented various problems on the way in that the original print wasn't as I expected and my robin disappeared into the trees, but I like a challenge and had fun solving those issues.

I hope you've enjoyed all the processes on the way!

Happy New Year!

Helen