The Background Is More Than Paper - Pj

 

This month's Scrapping Clearly challenge is Gothic Orchard: dark, witchy and deliciously moody, in shades of wine, ink black, rotten apple green and bone. The technique is gothic foundations, and that got me thinking about what a foundation really is. So today I'm sharing my apothecary tag, and the many layers of background underneath it.

Ask most people what the background of a mixed media piece is and they'll point straight at the paper. And yes, the paper is a very important part of it. But for me, the background is so much more than one sheet. It's everything I lay down and then build off. On this little apothecary tag, the background took layer after layer of fun before a single witch got to move in. 

Layer 1: the base

I started with a big laser-cut wooden tag, a lovely sturdy canvas to play on. Then I reached for my LuMania mixed media pad (24x30cm, 140gsm, acid and lignin free). This pad is a dream for backgrounds, with 11 ephemera pages and 39 pattern pages, so there's always something that suits your mood. I picked a gorgeous green page, tore it by hand, scrunched it into a crinkly little ball, smoothed it back out, and glued it down with 13arts Multipurpose Medium. The paper is sturdy enough to handle all that tearing, crumpling and wet glue without falling apart, and every crease becomes a tiny valley that holds colour later. I left a few gaps so the wood peeks through, because those gaps give the next layers something to grab onto, and they stop it looking like a neat sheet stuck on a board. 

Layer 3: stories and ephemera

For a bit of vintage charm I inked a Tim Holtz / Stampers Anonymous background stamp with Ranger Archival Ink in Jet Black. It's permanent and waterproof, so it stays crisp no matter how many wet layers go over it. I stamped onto thin paper, tore it into ragged pieces, and collaged them over the top. Now there are clocks, postal marks, dragonflies and alphabets peeking through, like old layers of a weathered wall that's been papered over a hundred times.

Working the palette

I kept the challenge colours in mind at every layer.

Rotten apple green: the scrunched LuMania page, plus the Pearl Olive Green and Olivin mists

Wine: Chalk Dirty Pink and Prima Antique Brilliance in Fire Ruby, which pooled in the bottles

Ink black: the Ranger Archival Ink stamping, plus the black owl and witches before they got their finishes

Bone: the white resin pieces, and the skulls and bones on the shelves 

Layer 4: the resin foundations

This is the part I'm most excited to share, because it's where my idea of "background" gets a little bigger. I put my cast resin bottles and witches down early, before anything was final, and stuck them down with the same 13arts Multipurpose Medium I used on the paper. Their shapes left marks and edges in the surface, and cardboard strips became the shelves. From there I built everything else around them with Ranger Dina Wakley Media sprays and paint, plus Prima Art Alchemy Antique Brilliance and wax for those warm, glowing, aged-metal finishes. They might look like the stars of the show, but they're really foundation, giving me the landmarks I built the whole piece from.

The glue that holds it all together 

Here's a little secret: this whole tag is held together with one product. The paper, the stamped collage, the resin bottles, the witches and the owl all went down with 13arts Multipurpose Medium. It glues, it seals, and it's the quiet hero of every background I make. I love that I don't have to juggle five different adhesives. One pot does the lot.

The big idea

So here's my golden rule: if I build off it, it's background. Paper, colour, stamping, texture, even the bits that look like decoration. Every layer talks to the one underneath, and the finished tag, with its shelves of potions and a very wise owl, only works because the foundation was doing so much quiet work in the background.

I'd love to see what layers you build into your next background!