Blue Fern Studios August Sketch Challenge

August is the most beautiful month of the year where I live. We typically get a couple weeks of scorching hot weather (by our standards, at least), with long, pleasant evenings spent in the backyard, BBQs, birthday parties - it is the quintessential summer month for us. This month's Blue Fern Studios Sketch Challenge with its seaside elements seemed perfect for a summery layout, and though I did change up the chippies to suit a stunning picture of my sister's wedding, the Ombre Dreams papers I used are absolutely perfect for summer. Yes, my sister happens to have been married in February (on the 29th, no less), but February in Cancun is pretty close to August in Vancouver, so we'll call it square, shall we?

This layout is extra special to me because it was a (somewhat) joint effort with my 10 year old nephew who was vacationing with us when I was putting the layout together. He picked the papers from my stock of Blue Fern Studios papers, and had consulting privileges on the rest of the piece, though Auntie maintained the final veto. He was not best pleased with the misting I added, but aside from that the final product passed muster.

Here is the original sketch by Michele Singh:

I flipped the sketch around but other than that kept pretty true to the design.

I loaded on the chipboard, and love the multi-dimensional look that resulted. I began by priming everything with a coat of white gesso.

For the words from the All Natural Set I wanted an ombre effect, and used several colours of Faber-Castell Aquarelles to achieve the gradient look, blending with water.

I cut the Wild Flourish Frame into 4 pieces for layering (sorry the picture quality isn't great - I was photographing at night by the light of 2 propane lanterns at the cabin - not ideal conditions LOL).

I treated each piece with gesso, For the greenery and flowers I used Twinkling H2Os, while I used a gold Aquarelle pencil on the half circles.

Here's a closeup of the final product:

I layered the half circle pieces to either side of my photo mats, using it as a bit of sunshine behind the clouds in my montage on the right. The Layering Stems were also painted with Twinkling H2Os. For the Cloudy Skies, I applied gesso in a thicker, uneven layer, then applied two colours of Aquarelles over the details for a dimensional appearance.

The chain of the Charmed Page Dangle was coloured with a gold Aquarelle, while the hearts were coloured with the same pink Aquarelles used on the All Natural words.

For both the word Love and the hearts, I blended the Aquarelles with water and dabbed some off for a weathered look, while the gold chippies were left as is. I added a little bling to the chain as a finishing touch.

Blue Fern Studios Products Used:

Paper

- Ombre Dreams: Ginger's Dream

- Obre Dreams: Julianna's Dream

- Blue Fern Garden: Parlour, Calling Cards, Timeless

Chipboard

- Wild Fourish Frame

- Layering Stems

- Cloudy Skies

- All Natural Set

- Charmed Page Dangles

Thank you for your visit today! I hope you will consider playing along with us at Blue Fern Studios this month for your chance to win some amazing chipboard!