GESSO, GEL PENS AND EMBOSSING

 

This is a hybrid card but you could make something very similar without your computer. To make the background, I embossed lightweight black card with the Cuttlebug Owl Flourish folder. I roughly coloured in parts of the owl and swirly bits with gold and silver pens and then covered the lot with a thin coating of gesso. After it was completely dry I gave it a light sanding. I was a bit disappointed that the gold and silver didn't show up quite as well as I'd hoped, but was still pleased with the overall result. (See small picture) From this point on, I scanned the result and added the border (stroke in dark grey sampled from the image), greeting (in the same colour), moon (highly feathered circular selection filled with light gold on a separate layer so a little could be removed with the eraser from the owl) and eye highlights (oval selections filled with white) with digital effects.  You could easily achieve similar results by mounting the owl on a dark grey card, stamping and embossing a greeting, sponging on gold ink for the moon, and finally adding eye highlights with a white gel pen.