Nestled Amongst The Leaves - by Lesley

Its my most favest time of the year.....Autumn!
Love the colours, love that we get to wear boots again! Love that its still warm enough to go for long walks and its not chilly-willies outside!

With all that in mind.....i wanted to do something autumnal this week, and this is what i did.......

I started off by painting one the printers trays (with no compartments) with black gesso and glued it together.

I used lots of different wood leaves from the shop. There is a massive selection to choose from. The little bubby ones were snipped of the branches so they fitted into the tray ok. Using Decoart paints, i mixed colours together to get some nice rich Autumnish hues. 

Whilst they were drying, i applied a layer of sand texture medium mixed with a smidge of black and applied it to the tray. I then arranged the leaves and the face, pressing down gently in the sand. To fill in the gaps, i used chipped ballast.

I then drizzled on the leaves with crackle glaze. Some of the ballast got picked up along the way and got stuck to the leaves, but i kinda like that.

The resin face was painted a rusty colour with some crackle glaze dabbed on in places, and then some antiquing cream in white rubbed into the glaze.

The piece was finished off by adding a couple of words to one of the leaves.

Thanks for reading.
L.x

Ingredients used
Printers tray
Holly Leaf Sprig
Chestnut Leaf and Twig
Maple Leaf and Twig
Sugar Maple Leaf