Lifebook: Playfull layering

This week Lifebook continued with a great, inspiring lesson by Mystele. First she showed us how to create a background with a lot of layers. Ok, that wasn't new to me, but the next step was so inspiring: she created a portrait based on the shapes she found in her background. I love this technique!!! The fun thing is that there are no rules while creating this portrait, so the eyes don't have to be exact halfway the head and the nose can be completely out of proportion.
I thought it would be fun to show you the different layers, before showing you the final result.
The first layer, scribbling/writing words and/or doodles:

Next, a layer of gesso and a layer of colorwash with some stencils:

Next, a layer of some collaged pieces of scrapbookpaper and a layer of acrylic paint:

Next, time to sketch a portrait (or any figure) based on the shapes in the background that appeal to me:

Hm...I suppose this is the visualisation of my little devilish inner voice, which is always telling me to do things the other way instead of following the rules....
I didn't feel like going on with this creep so I erased him....(lol)..and then this woman appeared:

I love her much more, so I grabbed my paint....
Almost finished:

After adding a final layer with rubons, stamps, distressink and some more acrylic paint, this is the final result:

I think she is both ugly and sweet...I'm not completely satisfied about her eyes but I love how the shading of her face turned out...It took me lots of layers to get that right!

TFL!

Sandra