Cover Me (& panpastel tutorial 2)

I finished the last page in my most recent art journal the other night. While I loved the size of the journal I hated the cover. The journal was a gift...and a good one. Just ugly. But I can work with ugly. Originally I planned on covering it immediately, but then Coffee Break Designs sent over their new heart shrines and I knew that was going to be my cover.


The only problem was that it was dimensional and that would cause problems with writing and drawing in my journal. So I waited....

To start off, I sprayed my heart shrine pieces with silver spray paint. I've talked about treating the Masonite before. You can read about it here. I wanted a metallic base and spray paint is fast. Here are my pieces all painted:
Once it was dry, I broke out my copic ABS and sprayed them a variety of red, orange and purples. I did several coats, letting it dry for a few minutes in between. Yes, the ABS tends to dry almost on contact, but it's been my experience that due to spray paint's extremely smooth nonporous surface the ink can stay slightly wet for a while.
Here they are all airbrushed:
Now, I love the look of airbrushing, but adding Panpastels helps create depth. One of the things I adore about the pastels is that some shades are pretty translucent so they show the undercolor, while still adding depth. I added some shading, and then I decided I wanted to add a pattern, so I pulled out a stencil and my perfect-medium. This is a stamp ink designed by Ranger for use with their perfect pearls. It acts as a fixative.

Here is a close-up of the heart before hand.
I laid down my stencil and using a sponge, sponged the medium on:I then lifted off the stencil and brushed the pastels on. Now, obviously, I could have just brushed them on without the medium using the stencil, but this way I don't have to set them with anything. The perfect medium can be used with stamps, which I did for the middle heart.

One of the problems however, is that the pastels will get all over your piece, not just on the medium. No FEAR! There is an easy fix. Let it dry completely, then lightly spritz it with water. Place it face down on a paper-towel. Don't move it around just lift it off. If there's still pastels in places you don't want, repeat. It gets the other areas nice and clean!

Here is the little heart:
And lastly, here is the finished shrine on the cover of my journal, you can see the text stamp on the red heart here too:
I covered the photo with a small piece of mica to protect and give it that vintage feel. Oh and the map paper? It was brand-new, but a little ripping and some brown panpastels and viola! Perfectly aged.

That's it for me today. Hope everyone is well!