Becoming...

 

Hi friends!  Let's face it...I stink at consistently posting on the eP blog...LOL!  So...starting next week we're going to have a guest designer who will post a project each week!  Yeah!  Can't wait!  We're booked with guest designers through June, but if anyone is interested in posting from July throughout the rest of 2015, drop me an email at kim@eclecticpaperie.com. And now...on to my project! This was a canvas project that I created for a mixed media challenge, posted a few months ago.  Let's get going!

Since I can't imagine any canvas without texture, I started by applying embossing paste through a stencil.  

 

Notice that I didn't cover the entire canvas with paste...just a few areas.  Once the paste was dry, I used Dylusions Ink Sprays to add color.  The ink sprays are fabulous for creating drips!

  With this canvas I also opted to embrace the white space...a practice that I find difficult.  I love white and I love color, but boy do I have a hard time doing either option half way!  (What does that say about my personality?  Yup, it's all true! LOL!)

Next I added a bit more design using another stencil and more ink spray.  See that tiny bit of bright pink...I love it...

 

Now it was time for a contrast color.  Nothing makes me happier than a burst of color from the opposite side of the color wheel!  I opted for a turquoise color from PaperArtsy.  Now...what do you think happened when I added wet paint on top of Dylusions Ink Sprays?  Yup...the water from the paint activated the ink sprays and I got a decent amount of brown.  No worries...I waited for the paint to dry and applied more paint to intensify the turquoise color.

 

More drips...oh how I love the drips!  At this point, I broke out my stamps!  Nothing finishes off a piece like adding a neutral.  I used a few Dina Wakley stamps and black Archival Ink to add another design element.  (I love that crosshatch design!)

 

And since I can't live without text circles, I added a few and then used a Stabilo pencil to draw circles around the text.  Using a waterbrush activates the Stabilo pencil, allowing me to broaden the lines.  Once the pencil is dry...it's permanent.

 

I wanted butterflies to live in my text circles so I stamped a butterfly from Dina Wakley's Scribbly Insects stamp set three times on watercolor paper.  I used Peerless watercolors (have you tried these?  If not, you need them!) to paint each butterfly and then I used the She Script stamp from Christy Tomlinson to stamp, in white paint, on top of the butterflies.  I adore the white script across each butterfly...divine!

 

Each butterfly was fussy cut and attached with a glue dot.  I folded up all of the wings for great movement and dimension.  The last bit was the addition of the sentiment (also stamped and cut apart) and date stamp (ala Donna Downey...I love adding dates!)  And here is the completed canvas...

I hope you enjoyed today's project and stay tuned for a new project next week!!

Who You Are is Completely Up to You

Julia here today to share a canvas I made using lots of Dina Wakley products.  I recently attended 3 workshops Dina taught and subsequently ordered lots of her 'stuff' from eclectic Paperie!

 I have quite a few photos to share showing how I got from plain canvas to done! So far in my 'mixed media' career I've only made a couple of canvases - I'm still in the learning stage! I started by brushing Gesso over the canvas, laying a torn edge sheet of tissue wrap over the Gesso and brushing with Gesso again.  I smoothed out most of the wrinkles - but left the ones that wouldn't smooth out.  I left this to dry overnight.

Then I dry brushed Sky and Lemon Dina Wakley acrylic inks over the canvas.  The great thing about dry brushing is that it dries quickly! (I REALLY hate waiting for things to dry!)

I stenciled the women with Watering Can ink which is a little softer than black.

Love the look of them!

To add some texture to the piece,  I used Wendy's white embossing paste with Dina's Affirmations stencil

I stenciled one sentence in the top left corner

and another in the bottom right corner

I inked a sun stencil from Dina's The Basics with Archival Orange Blossom

I inked little sections of Plastic Canvas around the canvas using Cornflower Blue Ink and stamped some sentiments from Dina's Face in the Crowd stamp set around the sun.  A little hint for stamping on a canvas that only has the wooden frame around the edges with the canvas kind of bouncy in the middle -  I placed an ink pad under the canvas where I wanted to stamp to give me a firm smooth base to stamp on

To finish it off - I sponged around all the edges with Ranger Distress Frayed Burlap and stenciled some Leaves with Fern Green Ink.  I spritzed the canvas with Dylusions White Linen Ink Spray - but it washed it out too much - so I quickly dabbed most of it off with a paper towel!

Dina kept telling us to 'JOURNAL' on our projects in the classes I took -  so I could hear her telling me to do it on my canvas -  but I haven't developed a good scribble journaling technique yet - so I used some of her stamps from Hand Written Notes with Archival Jet Black ink to get it done! (see how much darker it is than the Watering can?!)

As with any mixed media project I attempt -  I always have difficulty knowing when to stop adding things!

I sponged over the stenciled sentiments with Cornflower Blue ink - but that didn't make the words show up enough - so I wrote over each letter with a black Stabilo All pencil.

Then I stopped.

My canvas is 12" x 9" and I think it will look nice on my wall - I just have to figure out which wall!

I hope I've inspired you to try 'painting' a canvas!!???

Here are the supplies I used that you'll find at eclectic Paperie

Dina Wakley Stamps:  Face in the Crowd, Hand Written Notes

Dina Wakley Stencils: Affirmations, Stenciled Women, The Basics, Plastic Canvas, Leaves

Dina Wakley Paints: Lemon, Sky

Dina Wakley Brushes

Accessories: Pallette knife,  Wendy Vecchi White Embossing paste, Gesso, Stabilo All Black pencil, Dylusions Ink Spray - White Linen,  Archival Inks - Watering Can, Orange Blossom, Fern Green, Jet Black, Cornflower Blue, Ranger Distress Frayed Burlap, Tissue Wrap/Melange, Blending Tool.

Free Spirit

Hello eP friends,  Micki here to share my project using Prima's Free Spirit stencil.  Or to be more accurate, perhaps I should say my multiple attempts of creating this mixed media piece:

My original idea was to create a background using doing a PanPastel Resist, which I had done on a smaller birchpanel board and had turned out great.  So first thing first I applied a thin layer of gesso, followed by adding Distress Embossing ink through several stencils:

Next I swiped the stenciled area withPanPastel:

I continued to add stencil layers using embossing ink and more PanPastel colors,  making sure to leave the center because I knew that's where the Free Spirit stencil would end up. 

 At this point, I wasn't happy, it didn't "speak" to me so I started to go over the sections with Dina Wakley paints and stenciled Prima's Free Spirit on the board in white:

I didn't like the harsh lines from the added paint, but decided to focus on the face next. By the way, were you wondering why I used white paint with the Prima's Free Spirit?  My idea was to color her so that she looked more painterly.   Taking a pencil, I sketched in the lines.

Next I added paint, mixing some White, Umber, Lemon and Magenta on my Craft Sheet for the skin and a little Black Gesso and Umber for the hair. And Blackberry for the headband and flowers.

Well, I decided that this wasn't going to work for me, especially with those harsh lines from the blocks of color I had added earlier and the hair was completely wrong.  What does one do now?  More paint!   I added more blocks of color.  Only  I would add more color, then painting with white over the still wet color paint.  I was going for a variegated look.  And because we are in our first heat wave of the summer here in Kansas, I was having major issues with the paint staying wet, so I solved that by adding a little Liquitex Glazing Acrylic Fluid Medium and mixed it in while applying the paint on the board.  
Because of adding all these blocks of varigated color, I had completely lost most of the inked stencil design, particularily the two Decor I stencils in the two corners.   I wanted more texture and decided to add Studio 490 White Embossing Paste with Prima's 6x6 Decor I stencil.  For the bottom corner stencil I mixed a teeny bit of Blackberry with the embossing paste and for the upper corner stencil, a little Tangerine was added. 
Next I stenciled Free Spirit again, lining the stencil up and re-stenciling her with black gesso.

In hind sight, I probably should have left the colors showing through the stenciled image.  But I filled her in with paint, coloring the headband, flowers and stems with Splash of Color-Silks Acrylic Paints.  

At this point I almost decided to completely walk away from my project. Start over - completely over, but I had been working on this for over a week and I was determined to finish it (plus I didn't have enough time to start from scratch, lo)
By coloring the hair in Umber, the feathers were completely lost in her hair.  To fix that, I re-positioned the stencil and added white embossing paste over the feathers.  While that was drying I decided to add a darker color around the front of the face.  Just like before, I added Dina Wakley's Heavy Body Acrylic Paint -Night, mixing it with white to blend.  

At this point I added more stencils and stamps for texture (and hoping it would bring this project together).  Next the Free Spirit stencil was ligned up for the third time and black gesso was very carefully pounced around the outline and the face detail because I had lost that when I filled her in with paint.

I used a brown gelato under the feathers which I blended with my fingers to help give some depth.  Distress Stickles were added to the flowers and on the embossed feathers. 

I added some detail with my Fude Ball Pen, filling in where I had missed with paint.  
You know how I always use gelatos or big brush markers to add depth, well, this time I used Prismacolor Watercolor Pencils, only instead of activating them with water, I used a blending stump to burnish the color.  
Found some old alpha die cuts which were painted and glued to spell out "Free Spirit".  And still not completely happy, I decided to stick my finger into white paint and randomly adding paint wherever my finger hit, along the edges, over the embossed corner stencils, etc.

 

I'm not sure if this is completely finished.  It doesn't feel complete yet but I do like how Prima's Free Spirit stencil turned out.  I think it's the background.  I may still change it, but for now she is sitting across from my craft table.

If you are still with me and my lengthy explanation, I wanted to show you what happened when I cleaned the Free Spirit stencil by laying it on a brayered background (my granddaughter had created).  I layed the stencil down, spritzed a lot of water over the stencil, I wiped using a baby wipe and this was the result:

Is that not awesome?  Looks kind of watercolorish, doesn't it?  Problem is I tried to recreate this result with no success, noooooooooo!!!!  

Anyway, thanks for letting me share.  I hope I made sense, sometimes it's hard to remember which step I did first, know what I mean?   As for me, even when a project does not give me that "finished" feeling, or doesn't turn out like I had hoped, I always come away from my craft table feeling I've accomplished something and that is the beauty and therapy of art for me.

I hope you were inspired to create!

Supplies used:

InLinkz.com