At the seaside -

- and under the sea. Rubber Dance Art has a wonderful June challenge with three colors: sand yellow, blue and sea green.

The background was done with Rubber Dance stamps. I watched a very inspirational technique video. It uses grunge paste and stencils, but here I used gesso and stamping. With a deep etched rubber stamp it is easy to press into the wet gesso and achieve a similar look. The bubble stamps are from the set Round in circles.
(I love texture, but I am very timid in layering color over color - that's why I love watching videos where they do that. I would never have done this kind of work purely on my own.)

So this is what I did:
I pressed a bubble stamp into wet gesso. When it was dry I laid out three colors: sand, blue and green. I sponged them well in looking to get them into the cracks created by the stamping. When it had dried I applied a second layer of colors. Before the next step the surface has to be absolutely dry - for now it gets sanded - but just lightly. Where the bubble stamp had created a higher ridge this was now sanded off and the white gesso came through creating a nice dimensional look.

Next I stamped clear bubbles with blue water soluble ink and lightly painted the stamped images with water, smudging them.
I stamped some darker green bubbles, added more yellow (now mixed with gold paint). Bottom seaweed was done with a freebie stamp with geometric shapes, the prints were lightly touched up with a felt pen.

Also posting this in Simon Says Wednesday challenge (favorite technique or product) - I love wet stamping onto gesso!