Thinking of backgrounds…..

Since I now have the “Henna Girl” (working title) body completed, it is time to think about the background and rest of the picture.

As I showed a couple of posts back…….

…….. she and her mother were sitting in the middle of a large street market….literally IN the street!!! They block that particular street off for a certain time each day and the market moves in for the few hours.

I decided that I wanted the background to look something like an asphalt street and figured that sponge painting was the fastest way to go.

I started looking thru my stash and came across this piece of fabric…..

You may remember it from the “less-than-successful” dyeing session that I had this past summer. As I looked at this fabric, I decided that it would be the perfect base for the background, but it was going to need a lot of highlights added!!!

I cut the fabric in half to give myself a second try (if needed) and got set up on Michael’s workbench…..

I started out by mixing several brownish paints and began sponging my way across the fabric……

Next I added some greens and kept going with the same sponge…..

As time went on, I kept adding new colors, but mixing them in with whatever paint was left from the previous round.

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I ended off by sponging a jet black over everything else.

The final product looked good……

Next, I glued all of the body pieces together to make her all one piece and excitedly added her to the background……..

I covered it with the tulle and am super happy with how it looks. Although the tulle deadens the colors some, it really does help with blending the fabrics……

I have also started working on the two background elements….. part of the basket in front of her and a bag of fruit in the back.

She’s coming along!!!!!