For The Love Of Colour

All colour mediums have one thing in common; they allow us to truly customize our creations and this week Simon Says Stamp and Show has a simple challenge for you this time around, simply use any colour medium in your creations and share. What could be more fun, time to get those fingers inky, pull out those pencils, markers, distress paints, alcohol inks or whatever takes your fancy and join in the fun this week.

A mixed media canvas held my attention this week, using sprays, kitchen towel, charcoal pencil and more.

There are so many colour mediums to use but Dylusions Inks Sprays were my colour choice this week using fresh lime and vibrant turquoise. Looks can be deceiving, there are many layers to this project adding into the mix Wendy Vecchi's White Embossing Paste, PaperArtsy Beach Hut Fresco Finish Paint, silver Paint Dabber and a charcoal pencil. When creating these type of pieces I always find it as easy to make two as I do one piece of art, so I have created an extra little piece to give away to inspire our readers too.

I have added a few step by steps to showcase the layers that were involved in creating my mixed media canvas.

1. Colour canvas (I decorated two) with Dylusions Ink sprays. Spray the canvas with water first then spray the inks, the colour blends beautifully this way. Mop up any excess colour with kitchen towel. Repeat with more spays of colour if desired and mop up the colour once again. Do not throw away any kitchen towel that is now coloured with ink, we can use this later. Nothing wasted here!
2. Place Wendy Vecchi's Lovely Leaves stencil onto the canvas and spritz with water and remove, dab with kitchen towl and you will be left with a shadow, the water gives a bleached out effect, removing colour from the sprayed area.

Now time to use that coloured kitchen towel that we now have from all the mopping up of colour from the canvas.

1. Tear a heart from scrap paper. Adhere the heart to the canvas using multi medium matt.
2. Take the coloured kitchen towel and tear into small pieces and scrunch up each piece, this will add further texture to the heart. Mix PVA glue with water (appox. a 50/50 mix) and adhere the pieces of kitchen towl to the heart. Once completely covered set aside to dry overnight. Be warned you will have extremely inky fingers lol.

 

The next step is to add yet another layer of interest. Apply a little PaperArtsy beach hut Fresco Finish Paint to a non-stick craft sheet, place the background stamp from the Birds Of A Feather Stamp plate uppermost onto a flat surface. Using cut 'n' dry foam apply beach hut paint to the text area of the stamp. Please note you do not want to overload the stamp with paint.

Add the text randomly around the canvas. Use the stamp as is, do not mount onto an acrylic block, this way you achieve a more random effect, perfect for a mixed media canvas.

From this picture you can see the subtle stamping from the Fresco Finish Paint, adding yet another layer of interest to draw the eye into the canvas.

I continued the random stamping around my canvas until I was happy with the arrangement.

Now for my next layer, I used Wendy Vecchi's Wildflowers and A Bird stencil, applied embossing paste through the stencil, applying with a palette knife. If you are not too confident with applying the paste you could cut the flowers so that you have two separate stencils.

I love the texture this adds to my canvas, creates such a tactile piece.

I decided on two flowers, I felt they fitted perfectly in the bottom corner of my canvas.

I added a further layer of stamping, adding more random text using black Archival Ink this time around.

There was still something missing for me and after much thought I decided that I needed a little definition around the edges of my canvas so I added black charcoal around the edges using a pencil and smudging with my finger.

This is my completed canvas, I added more charcoal around my flowers along with a touch of random stamped text to the flower heads.

I added charcoal around my heart to lift from my background, adding silver Paint Dabber to the raised textural areas on my heart, to highlight further how tactile and textural the heart really is.

I stamped "Spring is here" onto white card, coloured with salty ocean Distress Ink, adding more charcoal pencil around my sentiments for definition. I also added one of Wendy Vecchi's black crows, highlighting with silver Paint Dabber.

To complete I added more charcoal pencil around the flowers for added definition and added a touch of salty ocean Distress Ink to the flower heads.

I have created this mini canvas as a giveaway to anyone who would like to give it a home. Simply leave a comment saying you would like the canvas and I will draw a winner at the end of the week.

For more great ideas please pop over to the Simon Says Stamp and Show blog and take a look at my fellow team members they have created some inspirational projects. Remember there is also the chance to win a $50 prize from Simon Says Stamp.  I always look forward to seeing your creations each week.

Thanks so much for stopping by and leaving a comment, much appreciated.  Enjoy your week. Tracy x x 

Products Used:

Dyan Reaveley Dylusions Ink Sprays - Fresh Lime, Vibrant Turquoise
Artistic Outpost Birds Of A Feather Stamp Plate
PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Paint - Beach Hut
Paint Dabber - Silver
Claudine Hellmuth Multi Medium Matt
Wendy Vecchi Stencils For Art - Lovely Leaves, Wildflowers and  A Bird
Wendy Vecchi Embellish Your Art - Crow
Wendy Vecchi White Embossing Paste 
Non-Stick Craft Sheet
Cut 'n' Dry Foam
Archival Ink - Black
Distress Ink - Salty Ocean