"What?!?!," I can hear you asking...... "Did I miss attempt number two?"

No, attempt number two did not work out well enough to even finish it. It found its way to the round file, if you know what I mean!

But here is attempt number 3. I have to get these little ideas figured out, because I plan on teaching a mixed media class this January. Let's see what you think of this one.

(I apologize in advance for the photo quality! These pics were taken over several days with a variety of poor lighting.)

Step One. Paint your canvas.

Once the initial coat of paint is dry, you can go in with some stamping. I didn't like how this was turning out and decided to start over. I went back with another coat of my base color.

The snowflakes were stamped with ink that was water-based. The paint over the top of it made them smear, softening the edges, which I loved....... another happy, little accident!

I added in some snow for the ground.

Then I cut out my snowman from the 12" paper. I cut his scarf from the mini deck, just following the lines that are designed on the paper. I used acrylic medium to glue these down and seal over the top.

I love adding texture to paintings with pumice gel. Just think of frosting a cake. When this dries, there will be lots of ridges that will be perfect for collecting the dark antiquing wash.

Make an antiquing stain and coat the whole surface. To make your stain, there are a couple of options. The easiest is to use burnt umber (that's the name of the color) acrylic paint and a retarder medium (that's something you add to the pain to slow down the drying time).

I prefer an oil based stain, although it's more a pain to clean up. I make this by mixing linseed oil with turpentine and burnt umber oil paint. Only mix enough for your current project since it doesn't store well.

After you coat the whole surface, take a rag and wipe off as much as you like.

 
Can you see how it is a little bit dirty now? This makes all your colors a bit warmer/vintage-y and it really brings out the texture. If you saw it in person, you would know what I mean!