A Couple of Canvases

This morning as I read friends' blogs, I realized I hadn't done anything with my own in some time.  So, here I am to share a couple of canvases I've worked on recently.  The first is of my granddaughter, Mia.  I kept the canvas pretty light but somehow managed to grunge it up lots!  Lots of flowers (wrong kind, I might add), metal bits, mists, stenciled gesso, lace, and even some eggshells.  The eggshells were a mistake, in hindsight, but I had to try.  That's the thing with jumping in without a plan...you don't know what will work and what won't until AFTER the fact.  I tried to minimize the eggshells by placing a rhinestone blingy flourish over it....think I drew more attention to it instead...lol  Oh, well.  The flowers were not conducive to painting since they were manufactured with big chunks of "glitter" on the petals.  It made it quite difficult to paint and the stamens? in the center of the flowers made in that much more difficult.  Next time I'll use smooth, plain flowers.  Overall, I do like the shabby sort of look I ended up with....it's a cross between shabby meets grunge feel.

My next canvas I am actually teaching at my LSS in a few weeks.  I used Silks Glazes for almost all the color.  I started out with some leaves from my yard, adhering them to the canvas with heavy gel medium.  Once they were dry, I gesso'd the entire canvas, and then gesso'd with stencils, stamped, and added some drywall tape as well.  I then applied the Silks over the entire canvas using Emperor's Gold, Olive Green, Ginger Peach, and Pomegranate.  They have a wonderful rich shimmer to them.  I kept the area where the leaves are darker.  The arch I created by making my own stencil on my Silhouette Cameo.  I added gesso with this stencil at the same time I did my other stenciling.  The leaves I created with a Stampendous Jumbo Leaves stamp.  I embossed with copper powder, and painted with Silks Glazes.  The twig is from Michael's and the acorns from my stash.  I added a ribbon to hang my canvas.  I was amazed at where my efforts and the techniques guided me but I like it!  Definitely has a richness to it.  Sorry for the bad pic.

















When I set out to create these canvases, I thought I should start small so I made this tiny little 4x4 canvas to sort of get my feet wet...lol

My background started out with bits of scrapbook papers with some stencils using molding paste, gelatos, and stamping.  I added some embossing powder and added Frantage elements over it.  Because Frantage is chunkier and does not melt, I needed the embossing powder as an "adhesive".  The bird was an image from the Internet that I printed out in grayscale and colored over with gelatos.  I then took some black Gelato and darkened around the bird and the word.  Finally, I put a tiny black bead for the birds eye and painted the edges of my canvas blue.  I love how he turned out!

So, that's it for me.  I've got to come up with two card designs for Demo Day at my LSS and so far I'm drawing a blank.  Demo Day is Oct 19 so...no pressure!