"Finally Fall!"

As fall is my favourite season of the year, I was already hopefully looking forward to challenges that required autumnal colours and themes. Well, here they come: DragonsDream Tag It On want to see "Misty Autumn Glaze" and Frilly and Funkie ask to "Fall into Fall" and last but not least the gorgeous "Fairy tale challengeblog" that celebrates the beginning of fall as I do. Well, they would not have needed to ask ME, as I love to fall into MY season after a long and (too) hot summer anyway. ;)

So here is my project for them:

I think I have not mentioned yet, that I am interested in children's books and illustrations too (according to my art studies AND my education as a school librarian). Good illustrations in books for children are really hard to find, as they imho should not only visualize a scene from a story to cut off an intimidating long text, but capture the spirit of the essence of the story and create something behind the shown action, that drags the reader in. (I hope, this makes some sense to you and I have explained that right).

So in this tag, I tried to create a scene that would show all the things and sensations I so love about autumn - the especially clear air and lighting, the earthtoned colours, the textures and the contrast of still warm, vibrant colours forming a contrast to rotting and decay. Metamorphosis at it's best!

I punched a stencil out of card for the leaves on the ground and did them with Distress inks "mustard seed", "spiced marmalade", "rusty hinge", "barn door" and "vintage photo". Then I tore stripes from masking tape to cover the upper part, as I wanted to create a glossy and bright space between the trees that were to come later. These spaces I inked with "broken china" and "shabby shutters" and embossed them later with clear embossing powder as a resist to the stamping of the bark and the shading of the trees.

Some of the punched out leaves were embossed in red, copper and gold. I stamped a pine cone, some mushrooms and a snail onto the forest ground and did the bark with my small texture stamp, which I only partially inked with walnut stain to get that fading structure.

Then I carefully sprayed GlimmerMists "Mustard Seed" and "Marmalade" and MayaMist "Espresso Brown" onto some areas (mainly at the edges to create a kind of frame for the scenery). At least I added the stamped owl and the banner on top.

I hope, the close-ups show the glimmer and glaze, that can be seen when you look at the tag from various angles: