Simply Succulent

 Hey, hey, hey!

Look who's guest designing for Aurora Wings!!

I am thrilled to be playing along with the amazing DT and being

a part (if only temporarily) of one of the best design teams out there.

Mitzi is an amazing artist to design for.

      

I have the extreme pleasure of working with one of the newest sprites,

the Succulent Sprite!! Isn't she just too die for? 

So beautifully rendered and on trend right now.

The current challenge is a sketch, which I find so helpful with designing.

Takes most of the guess work out of it for me. I tend to get caught up in the 

minutia of laying out a design, more than anything.

I used quite a few reference photos of succulents to choose my palette,

which was nearly the death of me. Sooo many options, but not sure how to 

actually achieve what Mother Nature painted so beautifully with my

measly old Copic markers. I managed to pull it off pretty well, I think.

I love how the clear Nuvo Drops give such great texture to her String of Pearls.

After I finished coloring and embellishing her, I started working on the background.

I glued a sheet of burlap to a corrugated cardboard substrate, and gessoed the entire

piece. After it was dry I used a stencil and some crackle paste to add interest and depth.

Once dry, I spritzed it with Lindy's sprays hoping to capture some iridescence on 

the crackle. I think it looks like lace for the most part, which adds to the

shabby chic feel I was going for. 

Following the sketch, I arranged my flowers, doo-dads, and pearly bits

around the colorful focal image. With the addition of an easel back, this

creation is complete!

I do hope you'll pop over to the Aurora Wings Challenge blog to see all of the

inspiring projects on display for this challenge. You just might be inspired to play

along and possibly win yourself some AW gold!

I'd love to enter this project in the following challenges: