Tuesday 22 January 2013

An update on the canvas–LOTS of photos!

Hi everyone :)

Well my hands are a bit grubby… but it was oh so worth it!  After doing so much digital stuff lately it was a total ‘feel good’ to be in the craft room with tangible things to work with. 

I’ve painted… I’ve glued… I’ve arranged… I’ve changed my mind… and I’ve had an absolute blast!  I’ve also learned a couple of lessons along the way that I’ll share with you just in case you decide to try a canvas for yourself.

This morning Mum had a look at my blog and she was pleased to see a bit of colour appearing on the canvas.  I wouldn’t tell her what my next step was… but Mum you NEED to SIT DOWN for the next bit!

My first step this morning was to take my canvas from this:

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To this:

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Sorry Mum… but I did warn you!  Yes I painted the entire thing with white gesso.  Which brings me to my first ‘lesson’ of the day!

When I opened my gesso this morning it was THICK!  Really thick… whipped cream thick!  So… I added a little bit of water… and it looked better… so I added a little bit more water… and it looked better again… so I figured that just a little bit more water couldn’t hurt right??? WRONG!  Just so you know… if you add too much water then it won’t cover what you’re trying to cover!

I decided to whip down to Bunnings and buy another pot of gesso… and guess what… it’s thick!  Not as thick as mine started out this morning… but more like it was when I added the first little bit of water!

I decided to take a photo to remind myself to LEAVE THE WATER ALONE!  The top of the canvas was done with my watered down gesso and the bottom was done with my new gesso:

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The photo is a bit crappy because of the lighting at the time but you get the picture.  Once I’d been over the entire canvas it looked pretty darn good.  Here’s a few more photos:

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After I’d done the gesso I left the canvas to completely dry.  I’m loving this hot weather because it’s means that I can carry on with the canvas on the same day instead of having to leave it overnight.

By this afternoon I was ready to start ‘embellishing it’.  My first idea was to keep it relatively simple by adding a few things that mean a lot either to myself or the girls.

Here’s a few close up shots of the various sections":IMG_5878

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And here’s the overall look:

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It wasn’t quite grabbing me and I couldn’t figure out why not so I went back to my ‘idea folder’ and had another look at the projects that inspired this idea in the first place and straight away I knew what was wrong. 

It needed ‘something’… actually it needed a lot of ‘something’!  As I thought about it and wondered if I’d actually have the courage to do it Mikayla walked into the craft room to show me a ‘cool quote’… and it was the ‘push’ I needed to give it a go!

Here’s the quote:

I have gotten to that age where my brain has gone from 'you probably shouldn't do that'... to... 'what the hell, see what happens'

Well this is what happened:

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Here’s some close up’s so you can see what I did:

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Am I happy with it?  YOU BET I AM!

I’m certainly not finished yet but I’m not going to be adding any more embellishments!  Which brings me to my second lesson of the day… hot glue on metal embellishments is HOT!!  I’ve burnt several of my fingers today!

There is a real story to the embellishments that I have used though… I’m sure Mum and the girls will pick up on lots of them.

So tonight I’m going to sit in front of the TV and do the next step which I suspect is going to involve several hours… but I’ve got a vision in my head of how this is going to look so I’ve got to give it a try!

So that’s my day… and I’m in a very happy creative place right now :)

Happy Tuesday xx

1 comment:

  1. this is quite awesome. what a treasure it will be. You've inspired my to mess with some canvases.

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