Turquoise Crackle Bird Collage

Hi there.  I've got a fun little collage to show you.  It has tons of texture, turquoise, AND a bird.  How could you go wrong with that combo?!

It was a gift for my blog friend Mandy.  She won a drawing I had a little while back and I was so happy that she won.  She was with me from the very beginning of my blog and ever since then she's been one of my biggest cheerleaders.  I wanted to reward her with more than just the 4 greeting cards that she won, so I made this little birdie collage especially for her.  

I had enlarged and then printed out parts of my "Branching Out" painting onto watercolor paper for another project and had some left over.  I thought that it would be the perfect base to start a collage.  I glued down a small strip of a vintage dictionary page across the background.  I then drew out the bird silhouette onto paper and cut it out, then brushed Distress crackle paint onto it and set it aside to dry.  

What is that pretty strip of scalloped goodness going across the center you ask?  Sometimes I wipe excess paint from brush onto an index card, and if I like how it looks when it's all covered in paint I keep it to use in a collage.  Quite a while back after one was all covered and gritty with dark metallic grey and turquoise paint I used it to test out a new border punch that I bought.  I loved how it looked with the paint splotches so I put it aside in my scrap box to use later on a project.  I knew it would be perfect for this.

After that was glued down, I tinted heavy gel medium a dark metallic grey, then I troweled it through a stencil. The photo below was taken with my iphone while the gel was still wet to see where to place the bird.  It was a bit too busy so I wiped some of the stenciled gel away before it dried.  Then I glued down the bird, added a bit of paint here and there over the back ground bits and outlined the bird to make it stand out more.  Phew.  Done!

I'm linking up with Paint Party Friday for the first time!!  I've been wanting to join in the fun but haven't been able to until now.  Whatever shall I wear? ;-)  If you'd like to join in with your own paint projects or just see what everyone's doing what click on the link above.  See you there!