Two Birds

I picked up this pair of Kaisercraft wooden birds from Spotlight for $5 each. I knew straight away I wanted to use the doily stencil I'd also seen at Spotlight, costing $4.

I saw the colour scheme clearly in my mind too but when it came to the doing...things just didn't go to plan. 

I did a base coat with spray white. I didn't want to have to mess around with fiddly bits like when I did my 1st wooden word thing.

For the colour & stencil I made up a spray bottle of paint and water, but the solution was too thin and it ran everywhere after I sprayed it :-/ 

I washed the first attempt off.

Take two was not much better, after making a thicker solution, but it gave the nice watercolour effect you can see above.

I thought it'd be pretty to use a bubble technique my daughter had done at Kindy, but even after googling it I couldn't get THAT to work either...! :-(  And that was when I had my 'blowing paint with a straw' fail ALSO seen in the picture above...

For my next attempt I switched to undiluted paint & a roller. The paint still bled beneath the stencil but it was pretty.

There was excess paint all over the top of the stencil so I flipped it onto the other bird & pressed it down like a stamp several times...

After that I struggled for a bit. I envisaged rubb ons but after applying them the birds still looked unfinished. I added some Kindy Glitz but still wasn't feeling it.

I felt the birds needed more depth. I flicked gold paint on them but felt like flicking paint is my fall back move...I wanted to develop my technique past flicking paint all the time. :-/ 

I used the stencil again & a slate ink pad to stamp the pattern but because the white spray paint was glossy the ink wouldn't dry & it was smudging :-(

I lay awake last night thinking about it...yes seriously...and I hoped if I washed off the slate ink it may leave a stain behind. So first thing this morning that's what I did, and it had :-) 

During my nighttime pondering I also thought about more colours & how I could add them. I came up with the plan of adding coloured dots to the doily pattern. Finally things were coming together and they birds were really brightened up!

Looking at the pictures now I can see there is room to take the accentuating of the stencilled pattern, with additional colours, further.

Anyway considering how bad it seemed to be going  after the whole running paint thing I started with, I am thrilled with the final results :-)