Hello my crafty friends, I have been asked to do a tutorial on how I made my Peacock canvas using Sheenas Create a Flower dies so here it finally is...
First cut out the small balloon petals from about four sheets of A4 card, I used Centura Pearl and used 47 small petals. I also cut one large Balloon petal, 7 medium Pointed Petals and 6 small Pointed Petals.
I painted the background of my canvas using Matt navy Blue & Matt Fir Green once dry I placed the petals on top how I wanted them to sit for a rough idea where to stencil my leaves, its a good idea to take a photo to refer back to later on. I cut the round bits off the end of all petals before gluing them onto the canvas.
I decided to change my background to a teal colour by mixing together Pebeo Creme Paints Matt Navy Blue & Matt Fir Green. Once dry you can start stenciling on some leaves, I mixed a little Yellow to the Green to lighten the colour, here I used Sheena's Create a Flower Stencil Take Your Leaf. Using a White watercolor pencil I drew a column for the Peacock to sit on, other ideas were a wall, fence or bench.
I continued to stencil more leaves where I wanted them using the light green mix as well as the Fir Green over the top of some petals to add depth and some leaves using just Fir Green to look like they were at the back in the shadow.
Using the Matt Glazier & Matt Mine colour paints I painted the Column, using a little of the Matt Mine and Matt Glazier to add shadow.
I then painted over parts of the column with the Matt Mine to add more depth.
Once the background is all finished I drew some feet on the top of the column and painted them flesh colour then gradually added the petals to make up the body of the Peacock first, for the petal used as the head I pinched the ends together and stuck together with hot glue to form a beak. I decided to add feathers as a base for the petals to make the tail of the Peacock more realistic, so I glued the feathers onto the canvas first, using a hot glue gun, bringing them round the bottom to add shape to the tail. Take your time doing this as a lot of feathers can get ruined by the glue, just glue the back of the quiff part of the feathers not the feathers themselves. I then hot glued the petals one by one on top of the feathers spacing them out like a basket weave effect. Put plenty of glue on these as they are sticking mainly to the feathers and not the canvas, I held them down for a few seconds to give them chance to take hold and even then had to re-glue some the next day as they came loose. I added a small feather to the top of the Peacocks head and a Black gem for its eye.
A close up of the petals on top of the feathers, let some feather come over the petals for a natural look. I obtained the feather online, you will need quite a lot, I used around 50-60 large fluffy feathers but it depends on how big you want to make it.
If there is any other information you require please do not hesitate to ask in the comments box or by email.
Thank you for looking, Jacquie xxx
