The days of autumn - a canvas by Riikka

"The days of autumn are translucent

painted on the forest’s golden ground - -"

- Edith Södergran, "The Days of Autumn", 1916

Hello there! It's Riikka here today. I started this post with a quote from my favorite poet, Finnish Edith Södergran. She's a fascinating character and her poems are really beautiful and full of longing. These few words fitted my project so well that I wanted to include them here. 

Today I'm sharing an autumn canvas with you I did inspired by this month's challenge theme, triple embossing. The background holds two different ways of that technique. There's stamping to the triple embossed surface in two ways. I also treated some of the embellishments with embossing powders and created some sparkling roses to the piece as well. Want to know how I made it? Please see the steps below! 

 

This canvas celebrates the autumn. What I love about this season are the colors and also the anticipation. The winter is drawing nearer and after that comes a new spring. I really love the velvet nights of autumn, the crackle of the leaves under my step and golden glow of the last rays of the setting sun. This canvas consists some of those elements - the golden hues, the leaves and last flowers of the summer. 

But now to the steps!

Step 1. Create your background. Use the Wow Embossing Ink and coat the canvas with it. Emboss the canvas two times using brass powder. Add a third layer of brass to the center of the canvas and use a metal cog to press cog shapes to the hot powder. Use this technique (link) as your guide. Then ink your brick wall stamp from the "Wall Art" set and use black powder to emboss the stamped images around the edge. Use this technique as your guide (link). 

Step 2. Continue building layers to your piece. Ink the brick wall stamp with StazOn and stamp to the edges again. Also use the stripe-looking stamp in the set and create a couple of lines here and there. Paint the edges of the canvas using black gesso and also add a layer on top of the brass surface. Wipe the paint off so that it's only left behind in the grooves created with the cog.

Step 3. Create some roses to your piece using a silicone mold, the Melt-It powder and a color of your choice. I mixed the brass with "Unicorn Magic" in my roses. This way the roses have the lovely warm tone that the background has and also some sparkle from the embossing glitter. If you need assistance with this technique, please look here (link).

Step 4. To give the metals an extra touch and also to make them better a part of the piece and the background, add some embossing to them. Ink the metals using the Embossing Ink and then add the brass powder on top. You don't have to emboss the pieces totally, just an edge there or a rim here. Be careful, the metals get really hot when you use the heat tool! 

Step 5. Make a third set on powder treated embellishments. Ink the bottom of the Art Pebbles and then add "Unicorn Magic" powder to them. This way the globes have a sparkling finish and still a clear, smooth surface. Then it's time to put the piece together. Use gel medium and collage the embellishments and some leaves and flowers together. Let dry overnight - don't use a heat tool or you'll melt the background and the roses! 

Step 6. After the piece has dried, add some color to it. Naturally you could use matching colors to start with, but to me adding the colors and changing them a little gives the piece a whole other look. It lets me have my hand print, put my own touch to the things. Use watercolors or mists to tint the flowers and leafs and add rust shades to the edges of the canvas using acrylic paints. 

Step 7. Finish the canvas with some small details like golden thread and two different half pearls. Use the pearls to lock the thread in place and leave most of it loose and fluffy. 

As you can see from the project and the picture above, you can stamp into the hot, melted embossing powder with other items than stamps. Just be careful as the item might get stuck! Adding the embossing ink to the item before stamping eases a little but also bear in mind, that the item needs to stand the heat! 

I wish a colorful and fantastic autumn with this project! Until next month! 

xoxo Riikka

Materials from Wow:

Here's what Riikka used on this gorgeous project...