Flower card...mixed media + Pan Pastels

So in my last post I showed you how I have been experimenting with adding some mixed media to my projects.  I used items from the Pink Flower Kit which includes some more products I'll be using today. I reached for the dictionary page which has Gesso and modeling past on it + a manila tag, a small white tag, a paper doily and one of the floral Instagram photos.  I also pulled a few of my favorite papers from the March Gossamer Blue kits.  

I trimmed the patterned papers down to a workable size then just started experimenting some more with Gesso.  I wanted my mini Instagram to be the focus of my card for today so I wanted the papers to be more muted.  I applied Gesso with my palette knife, just like you would if you were spreading frosting on a cake.  I let these dry and helped the process along with my heat tool.  When working with these mixed media products your paper may tend to warp and bend a little.  Since I like my papers to be as flat as possible I have been ironing my papers with an old cotton tea towel and a hot setting on my iron.  Works good.  

Pencil drawing was always my strong suit in art classes so I loved adding some sketching over my patterned papers.  I love a soft pencil lead and this Derwent 4B pencil works great, from Dick Blick but you can find art pencils at any craft shop.  I also got out some watercolors and added some pinks and greens around the circles.  I was careful not to let the colors bleed into each other as mixing the two complementary colors would have made brown.  The watercolor set you see on the left is a cheap set from Target. Works okay for now but I definitely want a better quality set.  

So here's the lineup of what I want to possibly use on my card for today. You can compare this photo to my first photo to see what a difference the Gesso makes.  Whatever I don't end up using will be tossed in my scrap basket to use for art journal pages, tags, or other projects.  

I then decided to add some color to the dictionary sheet.  I reached for my new Pan Pastels.  Aren't they beautiful?  I'll be doing a post dedicated all to Pan Pastels in the future but if you're wondering about them....Pan Pastels were developed by a couple of artists who wanted to make pastels easier for artists to work with.  They created these wonderful pans of ultra soft, low dust, pressed pastels that you can apply like paint with the Sofft tools which act like your paint brushes.  There are 80 colors available and the concentrated quality of the Pan Pastels is amazing.  They are super-blendable, paintable, instant dry time, erasable, mixable, and very compatible with other art mediums. You can purchase the pans individually, in small sets, in sets of 20 or the whole shabang of 80.  Now there are these wonderful plastic trays available too which can hold 20 pans.  Awesome.  I love them and can't wait to create with these more. You can find Pan Pastels at Dick Blick, Amazon and other shops if you care to google them.  There are some amazing videos out there too if you just do an online search.  

So here's a little sampling of the Pan Pastels in action.  I definitely need to experiment more but the learning process is so much fun.

Here's my card I created using all of my stash.  I kept the card very  light in nature, just adding layers that I stitched down.  

To tie in all the elements to my base card I added some more Gesso with my palette knife.  I even added a sprinkling of glitter to the wet medium.

Totally fun, totally an experiment in using my new art products.  I'm thinking I might use my this card and my previous card to place near my little vases of flowers around the house.

Thanks for stopping by.  Feel free to ask questions....although I've just barely gotten familiar with the Pan Pastels.  :)  Also, I've got some new items up in the shop.  It's junkin' season and I love it!