Bleached Blossoms

Woohoo! This green paper really responded to the bleach brushed on it!

The image comes from a photo I took just a couple of weeks ago, when my crabapple tree was blossoming. Bless her, she's getting old. Nearly half of her branches have died and been removed, but she put on a glorious show for us this year. 

I'm sharing here the strips of colored paper on which I experimented. (The top color is the paper from the last post of my cat.) 

The first square on each strip is one coat of bleach. The second square is 2 coats of bleach. The third square is 2 coats of bleach with white colored pencil (pressed down firmly on the paper once it had dried). The last square is as light as I could make it using only colored pencil. 

The top strip is the only one that is actually drawing paper. The other colors were more or less good quality construction paper used for scrapbooking. I was so disappointed in the red! I had already seen how well the blue and green responded to the bleach, and was imagining the potential for a really nice Christmas drawing. That may yet work with a different quality paper. I'll have to do more experimenting.

Below are a few of the steps I took as I progressed across the page. 

Another thing I did (because I'm an artist, and have a license to do this) is outlined the leaves and blossoms with a black colored pencil. I liked the effect. The image did even more popping off the page. It's really a matter of style - to outline or not to outline.  

See you next Wednesday!