you are a blessing

Hi friends.  Friday is the day for mixability challenges on SCS -- or mixed media.  I have intentions to do them all, but have not been very faithful.  Today's challenge was no paper.  In other words, your card base could be paper, but all other layers had to be something other than paper. 

I started with a piece of tan canvas, on which I put two coats of gesso.  I didn't want to  completely cover it, just enough to get a lighter background to work with. 

Then I got out one of my handmade stencils and used distress paints to make the flower.  I then sprayed some brown and blue spray paint (which also was DIY). 

I stamped the sentiment (alias smith & rowe) and the butterfly (hero arts) with jet black archival ink.  There were a couple of spots that didn't stamp well on the canvas, so I just used a pigma marker to fill in any missed lines.  Then I used a copic marker to color the butterfly.  I was really careful with that, because it was picking up some of the black ink, and I didn't want it to be all muddy.

I inked the edges with vintage photo distress ink. 

Thanks so much for stopping by. 

my first canvas ever

Hello friends.  This week I've been busy creating cards for my class on Thursday.  Once I finished, I decided to play a little bit.  There's a challenge to make something with the technique (masking on collage) that was presented last week at our OWSE Art Techniques Club meeting, so I made a canvas, my first ever.  It's 14"x11", much larger than anything I normally create.  Nothing like stepping out of my little box.  I'm glad I did it though.  It wasn't nearly as intimidating as I thought it would be, and was rather fun to work on a much larger space. 

I started by forming a collage with a bunch of different pattern papers.  Then I used a Sizzix butterfly die to make two masks from some recycled chipboard boxes. 

Then came paint, removing some of the paint to allow some of the papers to show through, spray inks and stencils, modeling paste with a stencil, and some stamping. 

Then I removed the masks.  I stamped some buttons from a SU set called button, button.  I punched them out, pierced the holes and used a Pitt pen to draw on thread.  I used the buttons for the butterfly bodies. 

I printed the sentiment on my computer, cut it apart, and added some ink before gluing the words to the canvas. 

I don't think it's fabulous, but neither do I dislike it.  I would prefer that the butterflies were a single paper and that they stood out more, but since they were part of the technique, I really couldn't change them for the challenge. 

Creating on a canvas was definitely a learning experience for me, and I know I'll be doing more of these.

Thank you so much for stopping by.