Three Wishes

I guess you could say that I took a little liberty with Fran's AB theme this month. Her theme is really about a Magic Lamp that grants you three wishes. My own wishes were too difficult to illustrate. Instead, I thought of Dorothy and her three friends who went to see the Wizard so they could have their wishes granted.

You all know the story. The Scarecrow wished for a brain. The Tinman asked for a heart and the Cowardly Lion longed for courage. Of course, Dorothy only wanted to return home to Kansas.

For the right side of my spread, I experimented with a technique from Bernie Berlin's book entitled Artist Trading Card Workshop. It is intended for people like me who are not comfortable drawing. So you begin with an image. Then you apply gesso very, very lightly with a dry brush. You want to be careful not to obliterate the underlying image. You want only light coverage so the image still shows through.

Next, you take a marker (I used a Sharpie) to outline your image. You can experiment by adding elements or changing them--be creative. Finish the piece by using markers or paints to add color and shading.

I had trouble getting a light enough coat of gesso. After I had outlined and painted my image, it looked "cartoon-ish" to me. Not exactly the look I was going for, but I suppose with a little more practice (and a lesson or two on shading), this could be a great technique. I embellished the ruby red slippers with red glitter and red rhinestones. And of course, I blinged out the fairy godmother's wand with assorted rhinestones and what else--more glitter!

I ended up cutting out the background of my original image and kept only the legs and the wand. I added a strip of gingham printed paper and lace trim to Dorothy's dress to complete the spread on the right side.

The yellow brick road background is created with yellow inkpad (smeared in streaks) topped with yellow glitter glue. I used pastels to draw some brick forms at the bottom of the page. The left side spread is pretty self-explanatory.