Day of the Dead Triptych

Hi all, today I show you how to make this Day of the Dead Triptych.


Supplies:

Sin City stamps Sugar Skull Floral Flourish and Praying kneeling skeleton
flower flourish from the Day of the dead sugar Skull sheet

Die Artfull Dwellings, but these shapes are also easy to handcut
Black ribbon
Paints in  blue, quinacridone gold , red, dark grey, yellow iron oxide.
Antiquing cream in white (or white paint)
Gesso
Matte Varnish
Chipboard (I used the back of a paperpad)
Black waterproof stamp ink
Arylic block
Unmounted rubber stamp  about the same size as the kneeling skeleton stamp
Glue


Instructions:

1)  Cut out house shapes of chipboard ; 4 smaller and 2 larger (or use the Artfull dwellings die) and gesso both sides  (size needs to match the stamps you will be using)

2)  Paint all 6 shapes with the grey paint.

3) Add a layer of antiquing cream over the grey, let it dry and wipe back using a baby wipe to give it a worn look. (This can be done with acrylic white paint too, it's just a bit harder. If you use paint  make sure it has not dried completely before you wipe it off)

Brush the edges with the ink pad to create a distressed look.

4)  Now we will do a technique that is called "Mirror stamping" As you can see on the picture of the Triptych the Praying kneeling skeleton are both facing the middel pannel, so we have to do a little trick to make one of  the skellies face the other way using the same stamp.

Take an unmounted rubber stamp , here the Sugar Skull Floral Flourish that 's on the middle pannel is used, lay it on the work surface face down.
Ink up the Praying kneeling skeleton and make an impression on the back side of the unmounted Skull stamp.
Take the left pannel of the triptych and press it (white side down) onto the impression you just made on the back of the skull stamp. See picture below

 Make sure to press firm and evenly to make a good impression, work fast so the ink will not dry before you can stamp.

 Here is the result, on the left the mirrored image and on the right the image as it is on the stamp.

 5) Make an impression of the Sugar Skull Floral Flourish on the middle panel, and add the flower flourish stamp on the top of each panel.

6)  Because the antiquing cream will keep reacting with water add a layer of matte varnish (be carefull the antiquing cream will react with the varnish too). If you used acrylic paint you will not have this problem so no need to varnish then.
When varnish is dry add  iron oxide yellow paint  thinned with water to the edges

 7) Next add some quinacridon gold, with every layer of paint you want the image and background to shine though. Therefor you need to thin all thepaints used with water.

 8) Use some red an blue to make the Triptych a bit more colorful but make sure you will be able to see the stamps shine through the paint layers. Adding paint over the stamped image will give a more aged look as stamping over the paint. and as you can see- the imperfections of the mirror stamped skeleton are not noticeable anymore.

9) Cut two pieces of ribbon to use as hinges.  Take the 3 panels, line them up with some space between the panels, add a layer of glue and attache the ribbons as shown in the picture above.

10 ) Next put the stamped pannels in their right place.

Thanks for visiting.

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