After spending a few hours on an angel - I finally admitted defeat and started a totally different piece of art.
Firstly I chose a few images and then focussed on this one.
A lovely picture of a Japanese young lady.
I decided to age her by painting her with acrylics - to give a vintage oil painting feel to her. I cut out butterfly wings and colour washed them the same colour as I had painted her shawl.
Next I cut a small gothic arch and painted the background with acrylics - then collaged on top of it the wings and the lady. I painted her hair to fall down her back and wings to ensure that they looked part of her rather than added. I put that to one side and cut out a larger arch and covered it with a sheet of a Japanese newspaper.
I coloured this with TH distressed inks to match the colour scheme of the small arch. Then stamped a few small butterflies on top.
I mounted the small arch onto the top one and added gold leaf (which unfortunately is showing up quite bright in the flash light). In natural light the gold leaf gives it an aged effect - like peeled gold on wood.
I have photographed this at an angle to try and show the small arch edged to give an illusion that the girl is in a room looking out through an arched window.
More pieces of aged gold leaf, and textured with clear embossing highlighting some areas to add to the aged look and give it more depth as on the fan etc - it feels wonderful and looks so much better in real life.
