Peeling Paper Technique

I pulled out Claudine Hellmuth's Collage Discovery Workshop book the other day and saw a peeling paper technique I wanted to try.

Before I went to Vintage Lady's summer celebration this morning, I stopped at the thrift store across the street and picked up three shadow boxes that had flowers glued into each of them. I could see that they would be easy to pull out, so I purchased the boxes for $1 each.

Here's what I've done so far

1. Sanded the box
2. Applied a couple of coats of white gesso
3. Brushed a thin layer of Golden's Gel Medium to the inside
4. Cut a piece of vintage sheet music to fit
5. Placed sheet music on top of gel medium and smoothed it down
   

I waited a couple of minutes and then I tore small pieces of masking tape and stuck it down firmly to the surface of the sheet music.

Using a bone folder, I burnished the tape to various parts of the paper.

This is a photo of me pulling the masking tape from the paper. At this point, the backside of the sheet music isn't showing because I probably didn't burnish enough. Only one layer (the solid color) is exposed

So I took a paint brush and dipped it in water and applied it over the solid colored pieces and then took my finger and rubbed the paper until I could see the backside of the sheet music showing through.

Oh oh! . . . I put the paper in the box the wrong way. There are wall hangers on the back of the shadow box, and they are now on the side instead of the top. Darn it. Oh well, this peeling paper technique should work with 2 sheets right? So before the next step, I had to do all of the steps above again.

We're back in business . . . (smiles)

I watered down some Titan Buff and applied it over the entire piece of sheet music.

This is what it looked like . . . see how the paint is darker on the exposed paper areas?


I painted some of the edges using watered-down Yello Ochre


Then I added some watered-down Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold. While the paint was still wet, I took a towel and wiped some of the paint off.


I painted the frame with layers of Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold and Yellow Ochre and then wiped some of the paint off before both layers dried


Once the paint had dried, I lightly sanded the framed area

To be continued . . . It is now almost midnight, so I'm going to step away from the shadow box and go to bed!

By the way, I'm *planning* on this being a bird-themed shadow box.