Back to the drawing board!

I was invited to be a guest DT member for Quoth The Raven this month,

and the challenge for October is to use this colour palette ...

and a little Poe of course...

I have wanted a small drawing board for a while now, and got this one from Hobby craft on sale at £1.50!!!

But it wasn't very inspiring, *I think we sometimes take our tools for granted* so I decided to decorate one side...

 First a thin coat of matt medium to seal the mdf surface(always a good idea)

 Now to gather suplies..including the awesome stamps I won in August!!!

 Even though these layers will be mostly covered I chose things that seemed appropriate to Poe,

dark brooding story pages/snippets of poetry/stamped Poe quote and ravens...

 cut out "words and phrases" about art and imagination and creativity/ stamped images of pen nibs.

Then thin glaze layers of colour Green/orange /purple...

 A coat of clear gesso to fix the background layers and now for a little Poe!

 Rather than add a printed image I decided to try painting my own tribute...

 Don't be afraid...portrait always start of scary and messy...

 We are made up of layers, just keep adding ...

Let the paint rest occasionally so as not to overwork spots and use the time to add more ephemera.

 And maybe a quoth or two...

 *found a stamp of a nibbed pen!!*(Graphics 45)

 Almost done now, but I wasn't happy with his hair on the left side...

 so I painted over and reworked it...it's only paint...don't worry about it!

 Much happier now :D

 Resting waiting for a coat of varnish...

Who'd have thought going back to the drawing board would be so much fun :D

Enjoy XXX