Love is... tarmacing!

'Love is...' by Neil Burley

It's easy to be inspired when working with great images, and the digistamp from Bugaboo Digital Stamps that I chose this month is no exception. I decided to make a 12x12" background using canvas covered board, and after a little consideration, used a base coat of titanium white buff acrylic to create some texture to work on. I added a generous layer and brushed a basketweave-like pattern into the wet paint. After this dried I sponged metallic gold and red paints around the outer edges to create a vignette effect.

Once all that had dried, I used the so-called tarmac technique to highlight the textures and blend the colours together as well as enhancing the vignette effect - essentially the process is to use a bitumen coating that is brushed on, dried and then rubbed back.

Using the heart shape from the image, I cut a bespoke stencil for the hearts, sandwiching two sheets of 160gsm card together to get the depth I wanted. Using the stencil, I applied Apple Red Cosmic Shimmer Sparkle Texture Paste through and allowed it to dry overnight.

Finally, the image itself is coloured with ProMarkers and enhanced with Glossy Accents before mounting on the canvas with foam pads. A true mixed media piece!