I was fooling around with a glue gun tracing the leaf transfers that I adhered on canvas with acrylic medium.  Canvas painted a very dark blue with the idea to manipulate pictures of leaves I had taken and scanned in the fall.

I thought about how the blowing leaves do not float down perfectly in the sky, but swirl and twirl all over the place before they land.  First using Microsoft PhotoDraw, Distort Effect Twirl and fine tuning or adjusting the setting or the amount of the twirl of the leaf I applied it to each leaf separately to create the desired effect.

I verified the size leaves needed for the canvas size of 16 x 20.  Wishing to show the effect of blowing leaves, but totally experimenting because I had not done these techniques before, I printed some of the leaves on regular printer paper, some on transfer paper and some on tracing paper just to see the finished look after fusing them to the canvas.  I carefully cut each leaf out and auditioned them around for a while until I was satisfied.  After the Liquitex Matte Medium dried thoroughly, I painted over each of the leaves with various shades of metallic harvest colors, enhancing the original color of the actual leaves.  The actual transfer paper had the most pronounced leaf veins show through the paint, followed by the ones I printed on high quality printer paper.  I actually preferred the effect that the tracing paper leaves had after painted.  The base is so thin that the canvas outline came through in spots giving it a more textured appearance, which I preferred.

Looked boring so I decided to jazz it up by outlining it with a glue gun, painting over the glue ridges with the same shades of metallic paint and once completely dried, used metallic rub in a lighter shade of gold over the leaves and some of the canvas leaving streaks, enhancing the idea of blowing wind.

It’s ok, still have a lot to learn, but practice makes perfect.  Please see the following slide show for more details.

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The next gallery shows a few shots from some other collages I’m working on including one created for Christmas to reflect all the freaking snow we keep having this year!

Deer silhouette with snowflakes, enhanced with glue and painted.

The lighter green is crushed eggshell for texture effect. Spotting effect was created by dropping alcohol 91% proof.

Leaf shapes enhanced with glue and paint

Leaf

Another leaf.

8×10 practice canvas board.

Glue gun enhanced wood frame, painted for altered photo of violas.