Three Little Birdies !

A few posts back I recommended the "Art Journal Freedom" book by Dina Wakley - it's full of good stuff about mixing colours and composition with lots of suggestions for journal page design, challenges and techniques. I was taken especially with one particular technique for an "artsy bird" design, so decided to have a go. This is the result and I tentatively gave it to Lindsay for her birthday last Friday - she seemed to like it a lot and has hung it on her wall anyway, so I guess it's okay - it's so hard to judge your own stuff objectively! - but I did enjoy making it and that's what counts.

I used an 8" x 8" canvas, gessoed and then painted with acrylic paints.  The trio of birds were a copyright-free image from The Graphics Fairy, traced onto the canvas, then outlined again with a Stabilo All black pencil, some of the lines wet-brushed over and painted.  Various stencils added with Dylusions Ink Sprays.  A little quote written onto the bird bodies - "Wherever There are Birds There is Hope" - and embellishments added to the top left-hand corner.

"Life is the Flower for which Love is the Honey"

Feeling ambitious - hmm - I had a go at another smaller 5" x 7" canvas using the same technique.  I'd been really drawn to this vintage bee image, again on The Graphics Fairy website, and knew I wanted to use it.  I used a flower stencil in the background, then rather overdid adding painty details to them, so I'm not very happy with the result.  But I may well  use the bee image again on another canvas.

A Secret Canvas

If you ever get the opportunity to attend one of Lindsay's workshops then grab it ..... you'll really enjoy yourself, learn a variety of techniques and have a great time.  Yesterday I joined Lindsay's workshop over at Topaz Crafts/Dawn Bibby Studio in Oswaldtwistle to make a "Secret Canvas Shrine".

Doesn't everyone look very serious here?  I think everyone was just concentrating really intently on what Lindsay had to say about the canvas, because I can assure you we all had a lot of fun and there was a huge amount of laughter all afternoon!  It was lovely to at last meet up with Sheila (in the foreground), who does some beautiful creative work and gave me her "fairy themed" ATCs for my Midsummer swap - look forward to meeting up with you again, Sheila, at Lindsay's Ranger Techniques class in July!  Behind Sheila you may spot Amy Shaw (Dawn Bibby's niece and a regular craft presenter now on QVC), another lovely and friendly lady with a great sense of humour!

Here are photos of Lindsay's sample "secret canvas" to show what we had to aspire to!

The front of the canvas - I love the look of this and those beautiful blue colours are gorgeous!

The back of the canvas contains a variety of ephemera (including an altered matchbox), to reveal a secret tale or mystery

  

This is the first stage of making my canvas, using acrylic washes and tissue paper

  

 Next, I dabbed on gold acrylic and created a word from grungeboard letters, painted with distress crackle paint 

Here is as far as I've gone with my secret canvas - beeswaxed images, stamping, embellishments

We were all having such a good time that the workshop ran over - I still have to complete the back of the canvas as I need to decide what images and words I want to add to it, plus I'll be adding flowers, maybe other things, to the front as well, but I'm really pleased with the way it's turned out so far - and I'm getting more comfortable using the Meltpot and beeswax now too.  I'll post pics of the finished canvas when it's done.