November is one of those strange months that has five weekends. It is time for our Five challenge at Anything but a card blog today. The magical five goes for a set of five ATCs this time. 
Last time I promised to show how I am creating my pan pastel whitewashed backgrounds, so here we go. First I colour my ATC with pan pastel, I use different colours and I blend them together. 
Then I mist some gesso with water: 
and I simply dip my ATC into the gesso, don’t worry when it dries the pan pastels are coming through. 
Plus your pan pastel is fixed so no worry, nothing can happen any more. I aligned the set and I was beginning to stamp using different Stampers Anonymous stamps and archival ink. 
I added some more texture with texture paste. 
Then I was beginning to work on them one by one, each one of them is unique. There is an additional black cord applied and 5s that I hand cut from old book page and gelli plate mono prints. Here you can see the individual pieces of the set, one by one: 
Hope you enjoyed the Fives on a set of Five. Why don’t you come and play with us at Anything but a card challenges? What five inspires you this time?
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Love the stacked up 5s from different papers. It goes without saying (except I’m going to say it!) that the backgrounds are superb.
Thanks Lisette 😉
wow! These are really special. I enjoyed seeing your step by step process. Thanks or sharing…
Thanks Maron 🙂
Love these ATC’s, and very much enjoyed your process. For some strange reason (?) I never think to line up ATC’s and stamp them together, but it’s a great way to tie them down. 😀
Win, I can’t work on one only, I guess the surface is to small for me, so I always create a set and for a while I work on them as connected pieces. 🙂
love your handcut 5s, thought they were die cuts
No Vicky, I don’t think that you have exact size for that, so I just tried to draw the first one and then cut one by one with good old-fashioned scissors 🙂
Hi Ruth… oh I just love your ATC’s and so glad you posted a tutorial on how you used your Pan Pastels… I just got a few and am going to use them in a project soon and have never tried them out… This is a wonderful technique. I love what the gesso does to the colors ! And my favorite part is the chord… Love how it provides that bit of texture … Great job !
I love working with pan pastels Toni, they blend together perfectly and you can apply them on any surface. One important things with pan pastel to fixate them, you can use gesso (in an older post you can see it in action even with black gesso), or with mediums or fixatives, otherwise if you work on top without fixing you can get a pretty mud bath. But if you have any other question happy to help or answer 🙂
I like how you create the backgrounds all at once. I’ll have to remember that!
Thanks Zsuzsa 🙂
These are really fantastic Ruth…such good ideas!
Thank you Roz xox
Ruth, I got several inspirations…putting the pan pastel layer into the gesso seals it with no smearing, and lining the cards up for mark making. Good way to create a series. Are the five cutouts raised from the tag? Sure look like it! If not, great job creating the illusion
Vicki they are, each layer has foam tapes that are lifting them apart 🙂
Your use of gesso to set the pan pastels is INGENIOUS. I learned after the first time I used a pan pastel that they had to be set, and you have incorporated the setting with the background. Lovely art, great hand cut 5s, and a perfect way to set the pan pastels..
Thank you Elizabeth 🙂
Well done Ruth! Number 5 reminds me of the Beatles tune – (but I think they say 9-heehee)
Love the dimension on these! xo
Thanks Jackie 🙂 xox
Beautiful ATC’s, loving the Pan Pastel colours. Great tip about the watered down Gesso thank you! 🙂 xxx
Thanks for visiting 😉 xox
Dearest Ruth, I meant to comment on this the other day and have been so busy trying to close things out here at work before going on holiday. I LOVE these ATC’s!!!!!! First of all of LOVE how you did the 5 Theme with the 5’s and the five ATC’s! You clever girl! I simply love everything about all of these! The textures are fabulous and how you incorporated all together. I also love the subtle color, yet it’s just perfect! I have never worked with pan pastels…they are on my list…LOL! AWESOME Ruth, but I wouldn’t expect anything less! Blessings my friend! 🙂
Thanks Felicia, I am always thankful for your support and sweet words. Hope you are going to have a fabulous vacation and a great Thanksgiving time! xox