Crayon/Colored Pencil background

As I mentioned in Wednesday's post, Nance had an interesting background technique in her archives (specifically this one) that I wanted to try, but wasn't sure about whether it could be written over. So I left her a comment asking her and she said she hasn't done it in awhile, but thinks she remembers being able to at least use a Pitt brush pen on it ... she's going to try it and get back to me, but in the meantime, I just had to try it anyway LOL! I'll worry about writing on it later ....

After gluing down the images, I got in touch with my kindergarten self and raided the girls' crayon box (shhh!). The first picture shows the background all colored with a yellow-green crayon (notice the border left around the woman ... we'll get to that later). Then I took a peacock blue Prismacolor pencil and colored over the crayon ... you can see the difference it makes in the second picture. Ooh, pretty!! Then I went back over it with another Prismacolor pencil (chartreuse this time), which didn't change it too much, but gave it a little something ... not sure how to describe it ... highlights? It was a very subtle change. Now I'm wondering what would happen if I chose a totally different color for the third layer ... well, there's always next time.

Now we get back to that border around the woman ... I colored it with a pink crayon, then went over it with a pink colored pencil to smooth it out. You can see the final product in the third picture ... what do you think? I love the pencil strokes ... you could get really creative and color it this way and that for different effects. My 9yo really likes this one, says it looks like hair LOL!

I definitely will try this technique again ... it's a very relaxing technique, just coloring with pretty crayons and pencils and not much stressful thinking involved. And if it can't be written on, that's okay ... there's always magazine words and letters that can be glued. Let me know if you try it ... I wanna see!!