Newsprint Japanese Arch

I decided to have a go at the Wednesday Stamper Challenge this week.

The challenge is to use newspaper in your art work, but also include some stamping.

The page I used came from a 2003 Japanese newspaper that was used for packing - which Haruko my daughter in law saved for me.

I covered the whole arch with a sheet of newspaper - then painted Guesso over it then painted it with distressed green ink.

Next I pasted on torn sheets of newspaper and stamped the bottom left hand corner and added another coat of distressed green ink, adding shades to emphasise the torn scraps.

I stamped a bit of calligraphy to tie it all in, and embossed the left hand side strip.

Next I added an image, and painted it with inks, watercolours and acrylics. I painted long hair, and her face white, with the pink flannel with white make up on it. I wanted her to look like a worn out Geisha, cleaning her white Geisha make up off.

The white is slightly textured with Gesso as is the white makeup on her face.

Across the bottom and the right hand side I used several layers of texture paste.

On the first layer I used Pine Needles - alcohol ink to make a dark base colour. The next layer of texture paste was bubbled up on top and I added some embossing gold and bronze.

When that was dry I added a little bit more paste here and there, and rubbed some metallic pink acrylic paint on it - then bubbled it all up again with a heat gun, including the clear embossed edge.

I finished it off with an Oriental colour co-ordinated bead threaded with gold wire to make a loop to hang it up by.

I hope they like it!