A few weeks ago, a group of friends got together to create altered art canvas'. This art is rapidly becoming my favorite type of 'play'. I love how you can mix stamps, stencils, paint, mist, and mod podge to create a stunning art piece... and each one is unique (I'm not sure I could re-create any of my pieces exactly the same if I tried!!!)
Supplies used:
green tissue paper with white dots
text tissue paper
Mod Podge
Ranger Glossy Accents
Dylusions misters (various colors)
stencils: Letter Jumble and brick wall
Sissix Roses and Window diecuts
Girl stamp
India ink black
waterbrush pen
water mister
Ranger white crackle paint
Tim Holtz Easter Blueprint butterfly stamp
It's a little intimidating at first - such a blank canvas... what if I make a mistake? What colors should I use? How much? How do I lay it out? Honestly, you could talk yourself out of even starting! So instead, I just start.
First things first: use Mod Podge to coat the canvas and the back of the tissue papers. Randomly add these pieces to your canvas. It's okay if there are creases but watch out for any air bubbles! Next add the roses to your canvas - I wanted it to look like the roses were growing on a building... so I have them 'climbing' along the side. My friend, Angela Collingwood, had pre-cut the
roses, the
windows, and the girl so that made it faster to create our actual art piece. She has such a great eye for creating!
Now for some color play! I wanted my canvas to be bright - so I started with a teal blue in the center and then used red and yellow on the sides. It was a bit too orange for me (red and yellow make orange of course!) so I added more red... then some green to try to green up the leaves... and before you know it - I had a BROWN MESS! Ugh! So I wiped off the roses with paper towels (lots and lots of paper towels!) and started again. Some of the color remained from before, but mostly it wiped right off - as long as you work fast. I finally got the colors close to the idea in my head - so I set it aside to let it dry.
Now I could work on the girl and the window while my ink was drying on my canvas. I used the Tim Holtz
distress crackle paint in white to coat my window and window frames (a thick coating is best to increase the crackles). Then I used nips to color my girl and her clothing - I messed up one before settling on this one. The face shading takes a light hand and a good eye - I was struggling to have both in harmony!!!
Finally, I used the waterbrush with water and distress re-inkers to color my
butterfly and set it aside to dry. I moved back to working on my canvas while these pieces were drying.
I used a stencil and a new gravel product to create a brick wall across the middle of my canvas. It really did look just like grout - so fun! My next step was to add some acrylic white paint (mixed with pink mist) over a
Dylusions stencil called Letter Jumble in a few places like graffiti.
Now that my windows were dry, I used a teal distress ink around the edges to add a little color. I adhered my window pieces and my girl using my favorite glue:
Glossy Accents leaving the top right corner of the window loose so I could add the ink around the butterfly. I drew two wide circles around my butterfly, then stood the canvas up vertical over a box to allow the ink to run down the side of the canvas. This was WAY OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE! I loved it!!!
I have to say that this was a fun experience - especially when you share it with friends! We laughed, screamed, groaned, cried, and laughed some more as we created our canvas art! The possibilities are endless and I look forward to my next adventure...
