The Art House Studio

Hello Blog People!

If you are my friend on Facebook, you will know that I got creative in the studio today. :)

My father has been going through a lot of "testing" lately and my mind has been drawn to him a lot so... I decided to channel that into something creative. My mom always said that my dad (no matter what he got himself into) came up smelling roses (or smelling like them LOL) so I took that inspiration and created this canvas - Keep On Smelling the Roses. It is a mixed media piece using acrylics, pastel, paper, beeswax, stamps and even a little bling!

I figured you might want to see the process so -- here it goes:

I gave a canvas a wash using 3 different paint colours - pink, white and brown. I mixed the paint right on the canvas (yes, Sheri... I did! :) ) and I really liked how it turned out. Such a great base.

I then collaged some handmade pattern papers to the canvas using matte medium. I love using matte medium over decoupage paste -- not nearly as messy or cloudy. Dries faster too...

Once that was dry I took my black Identipen and hand wrote a "letter" to my Dad all over the face of the canvas making sure that I covered the entire piece. I love doing this as a background on my projects. This project was :easy: to write -- I have in the past written "I don't know what else to say" over and over again just to fill the space. We will be covering and layering the piece so the writing itself isn't all that important. If you do have a piece where you find you can write coherently :) I encourage you to re-write it on another piece of paper and attach it to the back of your work so that you have it for future reads. I will do this for my letter. Not sure if I will show anyone what I wrote though ...

Once I finished writing on it, I covered the canvas with a white wash to dull the printing.

I then took a pastel pencil and sketched a rose image on the piece and brushed a nice layer of white gesso over the image to prep it for painting (so you wont be able to see the papers and the writing underneath.)

Then came more fun with acrylic paints. Once the gesso was dry, I painted the rose image and then outlined it with the pastel crayon/pencil. This was a leap for me... I don't normally free-hand with paint. I think I did okay :) Phew!! Take my advise ... just do it!!

I sped up the drying process with my heat gun and then applied beeswax over the entire image with a paint brush. I did a few layers of this, fusing the wax with my heat gun between layers. Super cool.

I attached more pattern paper pieces to the wax and kept building the layers. -- Lay the paper on top of the wax and embed it in the wax using a hot Wax Stylus tool. It will give a nice smooth finish if you do it that way ;)

I stamped a butterfly image into the wax and created texture throughout the piece by embedding the wax into a screen (you know... the type of screen you will find on your screen door :) -- you can get some at you local hardware store :) ) and then removing the screen to show the pattern. Final steps? Get out your perfect pearls.... buff the wax with your pearls. I used copper and bronze ... and interference red and perfect green. lots of powders but WOW what an effect! I love it! :)

To finish the piece off... I cut up and adhered some Prima "Say it in Crystals" flourishes and then fused them into the wax using the stylus.

I wanted to highlight the picture to the left... Use a palette knife or a scraper and etch highlights into the wax to highlight your elements. I did it here on the flower and loved how it turned out... especially when augmented with pearls... ooooohhhh glimmery! :)

Well - that's it. Have fun.

The studio is open until 3pm on Friday this week ... We are closed for the long weekend.

Contact me in the studio if you would like to learn more about this style of canvas making... or -- if you want to try yourself -- come and use the melting pots and stylus in the studio or ask how you can rent them out on a nightly basis. It's all good!!!

Happy Creating everyone!