A Self Portrait-Dabbling in Mixed Media

 

For the last couple weeks I've been working on this project.  I was inspired by a post on one of my favorite blogs to visit http://trace-elementz.blogspot.com/.  Tracey is so talented and a while ago she posted a canvas and it got my wheels turning.  So I pulled out three small canvases I picked up somewhere along the way with intentions of doing something with them... lol... my drawers are full of stuff like that.  I purchased a few items, like some texture paste, a couple stencils and some gesso.  I picked up a few paints in the colors I thought I wanted to use; pink, turquoise and gold.   One great tip I got from Tracey was that it was easy to use chipboard letters of all kinds together on a project like this.  Even if they were in varying colors and sizes.  I'll try to tell you some of the things I  learned along the way.

 

I knew I wanted to add some texture to my piece, so I used a grid stencil and swiped some texture paste over it, lifted the stencil and let it dry and then it sat... for days.  I had some heart stencils so I decided to add a few hearts with texture paste as well and let that dry... for a few more days.  Not that it takes days for the stuff to dry... but I was having a hard time deciding what words I wanted to use.  In the end, my two favorite words would do.  I went through my chipboard drawers to find the letters I needed and I didn't worry about patterns, colors or sizes.  I adhered my letters to the canvas using liquid glass.  I did have to hold them down for a little bit, but once they took hold I was good.  After that was dry, I painted over the whole thing with Gesso (which is a primer and allowed me to not have to worry about what chipboard letters I was using).  Then.... the piece sat while I tried to figure out what colors I wanted to use... for days... lol...

I finally kind of decided on color and one of the supplies I bought were some little Heidi Swapp sprays I found on clearance (the green and the turquoise) so I sprayed them on.  Then I was digging through some old acrylic paints I had and threw most of them out because they had dried up and I came across some pearl.  I got out a paint brush and liked the look of the pearl and so I started brushing it over the whole thing which worked out great because I really didn't like the spatter I had created so I started blending the blue and green and loved the look of it much better.  Then I added the pink to the hearts and dry brushed some gold on the letters and here and there.  While I let that dry, I knew what owl stamp I wanted to use.  I stamped it on some paper and embossed it in gold and cut it out... but alas, it was not "right".  So I set that aside to possibly use on a card and decided to stamp the owl directly on my piece in black.  That was scary... but what I've learned is if you don't like it; paint over it and do something else!  Then I pulled out these old definition stamps from CTMH and placed them in various places as well.  More days of sitting.  Finally today I decided I was going to finish.  I used a music background stamp and embossed the images very deliberately imperfectly onto the letters.  The blue flowers were painted gold and then embossed with a light turquoise embossing powder.  The reddish pink flowers were painted with the pink paint I put on the hearts and then when that dried I dry brushed some gold paint on them.  The butterflies were inked on the edges with Lagoon ink, lightly painted with the gold paint and then while it was wet I sprinkled holographic embossing powder all over it and heated.  The ribbon is Lagoon dyed seam binding ribbon which I sponged some Pear on after it dried.  I added embellishments and used some gold Wink of Stella in various areas... the best part was I didn't have to be neat!  Lastly I will spray the whole thing to protect it... but I haven't done that yet.

 

 

 

So... sorry for all the words, but some wanted to know how I did it... and there you go.  It was a long process but what I learned is.... if you're not sure how it will look... try it!  You can always change it!  Use STRONG adhesive.  My new favorite product... Texture Paste!  Look at everything you own in a different way.   Use what you love and don't be afraid... there are no rules.  Thanks to Tracey for the inspiration and bearing with my silly beginner questions.  So much fun... definitely going to do this again!