Birch Tree Mixed Media Tutorial

Hello everyone! We had a quite a week with an early winter snowstorm, which turned everything into a winter wonderland in just a day. The snow is quite deep and it is really pretty outdoors.

At the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge we have a Thanks/Thanksgiving theme. I hope you will have time to join us. Our guest designer during November is the very creative Anita Houston. 

I interpreted the theme a little differently and thought about thankfulness and people I am thankful for, which turned into a mixed media panel for my dad. It was Father's Day here in Sweden yesterday. I just love this photo of my dad as a kid, skiing with very long sticks. Birch trees are some of my favourite trees and I enjoyed creating a forest of them as my background. Last week for my Deer Winter Shadow Box, I wrote about how I like to depict snow in different ways on my projects, and here you'll find a couple of additional manners to do that. I took a few step photos. 

I worked on a canvas panel (7.5 x 9.5 in) and started out coating it in gesso. When that was dry, I painted it with Dina Wakley's white paint, because I wanted a really white surface to work on. Using Tim Holtz gorgeous Birch stencil, I sponged acrylic paint through the stencil, dabbing some of it off on scrap paper first. I mixed white into the Elephant and Sky paint to make lighter versions. Repeat to cover the whole panel. 

I built hills with torn text paper from Tim Holtz Tidings Mini Stash and adhered with Distress Medium Matte, applying it on top of the papers too. They were painted with a thin layer of gesso. When the paint was dry, I started adding the characteristic marks of birch trees, using Elephant and Night paint and a thin brush.

After that, I added shadows and shading to the trees, using the same two paints, but slightly watered down. The light is coming from the right, so most of the shadows are on the left-hand side of the trees. I also painted the hills with the same colours used for the sky, but not covering up all of the text.

 I wanted more snow, and splattered Picket Fence paint on the background with a splatter brush.

Next, I used Distress Grit-Paste, which gives a great snowy look and applied it here and there on the trees, using a tooth pick. It was applied more generously on the hills.

Here and there on the trees, I added a few pen marks. For more birch tree inspiration, check out my Winter Birch Trees tutorial and my Winter Journal tutorial, from last year.

As some final touches, I dry-brushed a little paint over the grit-paste, and also added a touch of silver with a Krylon marker. Since I love natural elements such as mica, I couldn't help myself but to add some mica flakes too, again using the Matte Medium.

The sentiment comes from Tim Holtz Scribble Woodland set and I also used one of his idea-ology Christmas Word Keys, with a little Picket Fence rubbed into it.

I like that you see some of the text through, while the direction of the brush strokes adds movement to the hills.

 The white paint splatters create lovely random looking snow.

I don't know if you see the areas of grit-paste on the trees better here, they were hard to capture on photo. It is the type of texture that you want to reach out and touch.

Here you might see the touches of silver a better, they are mainly on the ridges created by the paste.

I hope you will join us in our Thanks/Thanksgiving challenge. As every week, you have a chance to win a $50 gift voucher from Simon Says Stamp. You have until Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in.

If you want to, follow Simon Says Stamp on Instagram, they post great stuff daily. 

Do you use Instagram? If so please add #sssmchallenge so we can see your entries there too.

Thank you so much for stopping by today!

Happy stamping!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

Tim Holtz Stencil BIRCH	Tim Holtz SCRIBBLE WOODLAND	Stampendous PEARLIZED Mica Fragments	Tim Holtz Idea-ology TIDINGS Mini Stash 8 x 8	Tim Holtz Idea-ology CHRISTMAS Word Keys
Tim Holtz DISTRESS GRIT PASTE	Tim Holtz Distress Collage Medium MATTE	Dina Wakley Ranger WHITE GESSO	Tim Holtz Distress Paint PICKET FENCE	Dina Wakley Ranger ELEPHANT
Dina Wakley Ranger OCEAN	Dina Wakley Ranger NIGHT	Dina Wakley Ranger SKY	Dina Wakley Ranger WHITE	Dina Wakley Ranger PALETTE KNIFE
Ranger FUDE BALL 1.5 MM BLACK	Tim Holtz Distress SPLATTER BRUSH	Ranger MINI ROUND INK BLENDING TOOLS	Prima Flowers DOUBLE SIDED TEXTURE BRUSHES SET 2 Art Basics	Tim Holtz DISTRESS SPRAYER Ranger
Hero Arts SMALL BLOCK TRIO CLEAR ACRYLIC BLOCKS

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