owl canvas

Wednesday I promised to reveal the owl canvas.
And if you promise something...
So without further ado, here it is

I was inspired by an owl I saw here.
I started by printing out an owl, tracing it on a piece of carboard and cutting him out.

Next I punched a bunch of circles out of gelli prints and glued them in layers on the owl.
Some trimming and then my husband pointed out the fact that the feathers were going from bottom to top instead of the other way around. 

So I started over, not only because of that but also because I wanted to use other colors, more brown tones. 

This is more realistic and fitted better with the background I was creating with my gelatos. 
I handcarved a leaf stamp for this project

And cut leafs with my cameo silhouette.
I also cut a flower with the cameo.

And the sentiment

I so love my cameo, the possibilities are really endless I believe.

This was a present for a colleague who went on pension, that's why I wasn't able to show it earlier.

Carloyne Dube hosts a weekly let's play party, find all details here
I will be linking this project as this is also a perfect illustration of what she says about inspiring each other.

to owl or not?

I really liked the process of creating the background on the blossom page and remember I had a few options to go with that page, I eventually choose the flowers, but the owl was also a possibility. So I thought I would redo it, but this time on a canvas. I actually took 3 canvases and used 3 different colors and different media: gel sticks, inktense pencils and Dylusions paint.

Next I grabbed a dozen of my self made stencils and started stenciling away.

I got so caught up in the moment I forgot to take a picture of the green-yellow one but I think you get the picture.

Then I started fiddling with the focal images for each canvas, and guess what the owl didn't make it again. 

Once I've figured out how the set up an online store, these will be up for sale.

I think the princess and mermaid would be perfect for a girl's room.

happiness

Prompt 55 in the Embrace your art365 challenge is happiness.

What makes me happy?

Being able to express myself through art.

So paint, stamps, inks, sprayinks and off course butterflies make me very happy.

So I used all these ingredients on my canvas. Yes for this prompt I didn’t work on a small ICAD but on a 40 by 30 cm canvas, because I had a MDF happy word I really wanted to use.

This canvas also doubles up for this week’s Craft Barn challenge where the theme is to use something from Tando.

Okay, small problem, I do not own anything Tando, but got permission to create something that looks like something from Tando.

Okay, I have a couple of things that seem to fit.

For example my homemade splatter stencil

Added some stamping with different shaped hearts ( because I love art)

Made up a batch of homemade texture paste and used it through a new stencil, which is  just amazing.

Sprayed some Dylusions over the textures.

Scraped some acrylic paint along the edges with an old credit card.

And added the butterflies with black acrylic paint through a stencil. You might say black for butterflies?? but the canvas on it’s whole is already so vibrant I thought it would be better, I believe they pop now and make the background even more vibrant.

Next I needed to decorate my MDF word (there is also a Happy word in the tando collection), I started by applying a layer of white gesso, followed by a mauve color in between the letters. Some green tissue paper on top of the letters, stamped a pattern of circles on it and added some more butterflies. The edges got distressed with some black stazon ink.

As finishing touches I cut a heart out of burlap and added a flower. Doodled a bit on the butterflies and turned the word happy in the quote Be happy and smile.

If I would win this challenge I definitely would spent it on some Tando stuff :-)
I just browsed through the Catalogue and noticed that in fact I do own something from Tando, a stencil, this is what I made with it in the past
(for the hurt Q&L challenge)

canvas hearts

While sitting with my son helping him sorting the colors of iron beads for his project he suddenly gave me an assignement. I needed to make something for him with hearts and glitter.
So I made this for him

I started out by prepping the canvas with some gesso and scribbling some yellow and green gelsticks on it

which I smooshed out with a wet babywipe. Love the magic of seeing the dry crayon-marks turn into paint. I sprinkled some salt on to the canvas while it was still wet and let it dry, but I didn't achieve the desired effect. O well, so be it, it did however add a glimpse of glitter so that was good as that was part of my briefing. 

I cut some hearts out of bookpages which I also colored with the gelsticks and added a black border with a babywipe which I rubbed over the black gel stick. Some washitape and text stamping and I was pleased with how the background turned out.

I knew the focal point would be the hearts my son had made with the iron beads but it needed something more, while browsing my box with collage material I found these cute birds thorn from a kids book and another bird from a magazine add.

I like how it appears that they are looking at each other or even how  it seems that the bird is serenading the 2 birds up in the tree.

monochrome canvas

I joined the Journal Workshopssite from Jennibellie already in March but was too overwhelmed by everything at that time and was too scared to dive into.

But last week I gave it another go and I am hooked now.

She hosts a monthly challenge and April’s challenge was messy monochrome.

After watching the video, the ideas seeped in my mind and yesterday I sat myself down and executed my thoughts on a canvas.

My Step by step:

• Collage of black and white gelli prints
• Stamping (footprints, hearts, text and dots) with jet black Stazon
• Cut out heart shapes out of the black and white gelli transfer film I made a couple of weeks back, I added some red acrylic paint to the edges to let them stand out more
• I stenciled a flourish heart on some tissuepaper and glued that to the canvas
• Printed out the quote In art as in love instinct is enough (I found this quote inside a chocolate wrapper), cut it out and glued down, the words art and love I wrote on a piece of fabric (ones used to be a pillow cover)
• Some paper flowers in just the wright colors and some washi tape to finish it all of

 Here are some detailed pictures

rainbow shower canvas

Today we, me and my 4,5 year old son, made a canvas to hang in his new playroom.
I had seen this technique a while ago and definitely wanted to try this.
What technique you are wondering, well melting crayons.
Super easy (even my son is able to do it), cheap and so much fun.
All you need is a canvas, a whole bunch of crayons, something to glue them on to the canvas (I used a hot glue gun) and a hairdryer, that's all.

step 1: choose your colors (we choose all the colors of the rainbow)
step 2 (optional): remove the wrappers around the crayons, my son opted for this, but o boy, did this take forever.
step 3: glue the sticks to the canvas

step 4: very important step!!! do not forget to protect the floor and wall because everything gets splattered (even my hairdryer had suddenly turned artisticJ)
step 5: LET THE FUN BEGIN, just heat up the crayons with your hairdryer and see it drip until you're satisfied with the result.

I painted a silhouette of a boy happily stepping in the rainbow shower

mixed media canvas

After watching a video from Peggy from CropStop I was intrigued by mixed media. I never really attempted a mixed media project, so I gave it a go. I did a similar project, but with materials I already had in my stash. I’m quite pleased with the result, although my son (aged 3.5) doesn’t like the butterflies, got to love a child’s honesty :-)

canvas with layers of paper, stamps, die cuts, modelling paste...

 

detail of butterfly stamps.