Wild Roses by Jennie

Hello everyone and welcome to my second post of the month here at Calico Craft Parts. A gentle project for you today which I found very relaxing and quite absorbing.

Although I am not great with a paintbrush (more a splat it on with a palette knife sort of person!) I just adored this Flowering Dogwood Sprig and just felt I had to have a go at painting it.

I decided to give the whole piece a light coat of watered down gesso first just to give it a "bit of tooth" and then gradually built up my layers of colours using chalk finish paints. I do find chalk paints give a lovely finish but I did use them very lightly and with a little water in order not to lose the lovely markings.

I don't have any photographs of the process but here you can see how I have used two colours of green for the leaves to give a little depth.

The white looks a little bland against the green so it did get a couple of coats and then once the yellow buds were dry I covered the whole sprig with a satin glaze. It is not really possible to see it in the photograph but it really does make a difference.

For this project I used the Large Sprig (measuring 120mm x 100mm) and it fits perfectly onto one of the 125mm x 125mm square Birch Plywood Blank Plaques. 

I used the darker green chalk paint as my base and then used DecoArt Weathered Wood Crackle in White - I just love watching it crackle right in front of your eyes! I then rubbed a little brown ink around the edges to give it a more worn look.

And finally there was just enough space to add some of the copperplate letters.

I love Roses but they are not easy to grow here in Shetland (especially in the wind battered valley where I live), so I have to rely on the Rosa Rugosa Shrub Roses, which do look a little like this Flowering Dogwood. I have both white and red growing in the garden but my favourites are always the white blooms which always look so spectacular against the surrounding greenery (and anything else I might manage to grow!)

I hope this little plaque will remind me of my summer garden when in the depths of winter.

As always thank  you for joining me today and happy crafting!

Jennie x

Calico Craft Parts Used:

Flowering Dogwood Sprig and Leaves (large)

Birch Plywood Blank Plaques (125mm x 125mm)

Mini Copperplate Gothic Alphabet Letters