• Introduction
• Drawing
• Oil painting
• Tempera
• Watercolour
• Decoration
• Examples

Step by step example:
The border of the pond - Pictorial decoupage - Kjara

I report here the step by step work sequence to realize the decorative panel "The border of the pond". I used a plywood panel, pictures regarding birds and ducks, decoupage papers and photocopies...

How to prepare the panel:: Vinyl glue, which works as woodfiller and white water paint.

Acrylic colours: Lefranc, Maimeri e Deka

Dimensions of the panel: 50 X 70 cm

Of course you can click on the pictures to see them enlarged.

	The base I spread a coat of watered down vinyl, that works as woodfiller, I let it dry then I gave two coats of white water paint, and then I smoothed down the dried surface using abrasive paper. You'd better do this work both on the front and back and border of the panel in order to prevent it from warping. Then I gave a coat or two of white acrylic colour.
	The background The subject of my decorative panel is a pond. I decided where to put the horizon line; and I decided the colours: pink for the sky and bright azure for the water. I built the structure of the pond: in the background there will be some reeds and trees, in the foreground I sketched a small fiord, where the main scene will be.
	Decoupage: geese If you want to make pictorial decoupage, you have to clear very well in your mind which objects will be overlapping, and start from the farthest ones to get to the nearest, the ones in foreground; that is to organize the objects in subsequent levels, and overlap them according to the rules of perspective so that coming from far to near the dimensions grow gradually. Let's start with the flying geese. Before gluing the geese, I must decide where to put them and eventually make some marks by pencil.
	Paint the next level: grass and weeds Before the flying geese I painted some blades and weeds and some waterlily. I don't make them too much detailed, because they are far from the observer and the eyes will see them faded.
	Paint rushes and reeds On the left side I painted some rushes and reeds with its peculiar seeds which looks like golden cigars.
	Decoupage: water Iris As I did before with the ducks, I glued the water iris. I set it on purpose a little higher and its roots don't reach the water, because I had planned to overlap a duck on it, so the mistake won't be visible and the iris will appear higher.
	Decoupage: the duck Before the iris plant I glued the duck.
	Paint the next level: flowers and reed Before the duck I painted some plants set on a level nearer to the observer, that is slightly bigger, thus creating the illusion of perspective.
	Decoupage: Iris I stepped forward toward the observer, I wanted to place some irises almost in the foreground. So I used a bigger figure. Unfortunately I didn't have a complete figure of the plant of this size, but just the flower, a piece of the stem and some leaves, so I had to paint the part which were missing myself...
	Paint some weeds and reeds on the right side Let's leave for a moment the left side, and let's start working at the right one: paint the reeds and some water plant and the waterlily. I also glue some small birds and a swimming duck.
	Painting more water plants I stepped forward again toward the observer and I painted some more water plants. I didn't care about making details: I just paint the fill-in, while the details were done by decoupage.
	Decoupage: Iris and waterlilies I pasted a plant of water iris, it's not yet the foreground, so I faded the colour with some white acrylic tapped on it. On the left side of the fiord I put waterlilies of growing dimensions as I stepped forward toward the observer. The waterlilies were cut out and pasted using the decoupage technique.
	Decoupage: duck in foreground I pasted another duck on the foreground on the left, thus hiding the step between the stems which are painted and the stems which are pasted, and all appear equally levelled.
	Painting the water The duck's feet are plunged into the water, and so are the stems of the waterlilies. So I put a shade of watered white on the feet and on the stems and let it dry. Then I painted the border of the waves using a thin brush.
	Decoupage: Iris I pasted the big iris flowers on the right side, and as I did before, I painted the parts of leaves and stems which were missing. Of course I put another flower figure overlapping the step between the scrap and the painted surface.
	Decoupage: the foreground The foreground: I pasted the last big pink iris in order to hide the step between the painted surface and the scraps (as I said before). As last touch I pasted a small flowered branch with some birds on it. The composition is over. Proceed in varnishing it with a water varnish as you usually do in classic decoupage.

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