Step-by-step canvas instructions

I've been asked a few times how I put together a canvas so I thought I'd take some pictures of one that I created for a pal of mine.....Barb....stop reading this right now!!! You'll ruin the surprise!!! lol The pictures follow the instructions in each step.

I started with a 5" x 7" canvas, then I did some texture paste through the waste piece of that lovely scroll die from the cuttlebug. Let it dry overnight. Paint on a wash of Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold (I used Golden paints for all of this so I'll just say the colour).

I used this same colour to do a light wash of paint (paint mixed with water) over an image of Louise Brooks (actress - when they used to be called "actresses"!)

I then stamped onto the canvas using a decorative stamp (Green Pepper Press - Juliet sheet) and Timber Brown Stazon ink.

Next step was to glue down (with Golden soft gel medium matte) the image as well as a piece of Basic Grey scrapbook paper over the bottom for balance. I also gave the image & paper a coat of the gel medium as well for protection.

One thing I should mention at this point, at each step along the way I use my heat gun to dry the canvas. So dry after the Nickel Azo Gold, dry the image after painting, dry after stamping, dry after gluing images down, dry after coating images with gel medium. If you don't do this, the paints will mix together and that's not what you want.

Next was a light wash of Dioxazine Purple over the whole canvas which turns it this beautiful rusty sort of colour. I used a baby wipe to blot some of the purple off her face, rather her be looking a little orange/yellow than purple!

Using the gel medium again, I stuck down a little piece of white gauze (bandaging), just painted the gel medium onto the canvas and using the paint brush, smooshed the gauze into it and painted over the top of it as well.

The gauze was then painted with a wash of Quin Nickel Azo Gold, dried, Dioxazine purple, dried and then a light wash of Paynes Grey and dried again.

This is a piece of lovely white German Scrap that is sold at the store where I work (Scraptivate). We also have the white wings and another beautiful border that looks like a scallop (plus the standard gold, silver and black colours in borders & wings!).

The white German Scrap was painted with Quin Nickel Azo Gold and dried.

Next was a coat of the Dioxazine purple, then dried.

I attached the painted German Scrap to the canvas using Golden Extra Heavy gel matte and then coated it with the Golden soft gel medium.

I printed out a quote that I wanted to use from my computer and Epson printer (with Durabrite inks) and attached it to chipboard using double-sided adhesive.

This quote was then coloured using Ranger Distress inks on a little sponge, firstly Spiced Marmalade, then Dusty Concord (a purple colour). I edged the sides of the chipboard with a mustard coloured sharpie pen....have I mentioned I LOVE my sharpies??? lol

The next step was to use some Paynes Grey on my transdermal applicator (you know....the finger) to add some depth around the image and a little around the edges of the canvas so it's not just one colour right to the edges.

The top corners needed a little dressing up so I found two little metal embellishments (think they were meant for earrings?), added a little extra heavy gel medium to the back of them and for double insurance to make sure they stay put, I attached them with brads through the holes as well.

A close-up of these...

The final paint step is to dry-brush some Golden Interference Gold over sections of the canvas...this can't really be seen on the computer but when you tilt it to the light, that's when it shows up! I also rubbed some "White Diamond" Treasure Gold (a wax medium) over the texture paste scroll and the German Scrap and some of the edges.

The quote is added with a strong double-sided tape........and it's finished!

....and the winner is.......plus peeled paint atc's

I used a random number picker from google to find the winner of the canvas below......

..............and the winner is...............

Juanita Lanaux!!!!! Congratulations Juanita!!!!!!

Now you just need to email me via the email address on my blog and send me your snail mail address so I can post your canvas to you!

I've really enjoyed reading all the wonderful comments from you girls and have decided to give away some other little goodies to 5 other people as well......you won't know what you are getting until they arrive. So here they are:

Sarah Drayton

Arlene (@earthlink.net)

Michelle from Lexington, Kentucky

Lorna (Bad Baby)

Sandi (sugarbushfarm)

So girls, please send me your snail mail addy's and I'll get your goodies off to you in the post ;-)

The class last weekend that I taught at Scraptivate was peeled paint technique....(a Claudine Hellmuth technique). Firstly the images are added to a background (I used some book pages for a couple of them), then an image is added over this, then the whole lot is coated with gel medium. I like Golden Soft gel in matte. Then you add some streaks of Vaseline (petroleum jelly) to the atc in areas that you want to show. The layer of gel medium protects the paper from soaking up the Vaseline. After the Vaseline step, I painted on some acrylic paint. You need the paint to be kind of runny, a fluid paint works fine for this step. If you have a hard body paint (in tubes) then you can add a little water to thin it down a bit. The main reason for this is you don't want to drag the Vaseline all over the card.

After painting on the acrylic paint, let it dry or if you can't wait that long, do what I do....use a heat gun - but not too close as you don't want to "cook" the paint and cause bubbles! When the paint is dry, use a paper towel to wipe over the whole card, this will remove the paint from where the Vaseline was placed revealing the imagery and background underneath. I then wipe the whole thing over with a baby wipe to get rid of any excess Vaseline so you can continue to either stamp (using Stazon) or add more embellishments...ie German Scrap works great! Here are three samples.

Blog Candy!

Draw on Wednesday 15th August.....

A freebie.......

I've always loved how generous a lot of arty people are, with their advice, inspiration, and just general good-heartedness! In this vein, as a thankyou for all the people who've visited my blog and inspired me........ I've decided to give away some "Blog Candy". Thanks Michelle for telling me what this was actually called....something ELSE I didn't know!!! lol

If you'd like to have this piece of artwork, just leave a comment and please make sure that you leave your email address for me in the comments section....(or you can email your email address to me via the link on this page - just make sure you leave a comment too so I can keep track!).

I'll leave this page up for a week or so as I know not everyone is as blog-addicted as me and simply MUST check out everyones blog at least every couple of days!

The canvas is a 4" x 4" size.

Domino atc's

I taught Domino atc's yesterday at Scraptivate, basically the various ways of colouring them and incorporating them as an element on atc's. Of course, I only touched the surface of what you can do and I'm sure as the girls in the class will continue to play with these at home they will come up with their own ideas. Personally, I think that's the best thing about coming to a class, it's a jump-off point for you to create your own little "aha!!!" moments.

I showed the girls how to use that much under-rated pen, the humble sharpie, for colouring the domino, then use some of the Ranger blending solution (that's normally used with the alcohol inks) on the little felt pad and also a touch of colour from one of the Krylon Metal Leafing pens. You are virtually doing the same thing as you do with the alcohol inks except instead of adding the drops of colour to the felt pad along with the blending solution, you merely scribble on the surface of the domino with the sharpie, then use the blending solution (& Krylon if you wish - optional), to blend the colour. Like the alcohol inks, the more blending you do, the lighter the colour becomes.....perfect for stamping on then!

Alcohol inks are also perfect to use on dominoes for adding colour and images can be stuck down with a little DM (dimensional magic) then coated with the DM for protection and gloss. Wire or metallic threads can be wrapped around them. As I said, I just touched the surface of what can be done with dominoes.


Here is the raffle atc......





As you can see from the close-up above, I coloured the domino in an aqua colour sharpie, stamped with Stazon black (another of Michelle Ward's gpp stamps), then wrapped silver metallic thread around the domino, attached it to the atc with double sided tape, then a coat of Dimensional Magic was applied to give it a shiny finish. I don't always use DM, sometimes I use a coat of Pledge One Go (yes....floor polish), this is the Australian equivalent of what is used in the States called Future Floor Finish. Great little product, it adds a shiny finish to your work without the really high layer of the dimensional magic....sort of like the "magic" without the "dimensional" bit....hehehe....okay, so it's early Sunday morning.....what did you expect....Robin Williams????? By the way, the image was added to the book page using a transparency transfer and matte Golden gel medium....love that stuff!

Remember I said we had issues with Netta and the raffle atc? By issues I mean the person sitting NEXT to Netta has won each week for several weeks. Well yesterday made the 4th week in a row where it happened again.....absolutely unbelievable!!!! I was prepared this time though, I made an atc to give to Netta just in case it happened again....not expecting it would though! Here's Netta's atc ....

Going into the studio now to do some work on the 2 canvases I should've already finished by now.....promise Barb.....you'll have it soon!

First & Last scrapbook layout!!!

Well, guess it had to happen, you work in a scrapbook/papercraft store and eventually you'll succumb....though I do have a REALLY GOOD excuse for making my first (and last!) scrapbook layout page...really I do! A girl I have worked with since late last year is leaving to have her 4th baby so the girls in the shop decided what a great idea it would be to do a baby-themed scrapbook album for her so she has something to remember us by. We all were to contribute a double layout (2 pages), including me! Those of you who know me, know I don't do cute and I did tell them I was only going to do the one page and there was going to be no place for a photo on it....hehehehehe....did I get "around" the whole scrapbook thing or what!!! Are ya proud??? lol Anyway, the album was 8" x 8" rather than the normal full size of 12" x 12" so THAT was a bonus to start with....just had to convince myself it was a "double-chunky" (a chunky page is 4" x 4") and to start work.

I had an image in mind that I wanted to use (a woman with a cabbage in her stomach and baby in the cabbage...how non-cute can you get!!!), I even had a rubber stamp of a baby in a womb...it was in a grab bag that I got ages ago and always wondered why on earth I kept it, not my style at all, but as things go, it worked fine for this page. So the lady/baby/cabbage image was added to some watercolour paper via a Sheer Heaven transfer, as well as another image of Venus up the top left by the same method. Some watercolour crayons next with some water spritzing for colour, some stamping in a soft grey, then some Moon Shadow Mist sprays, a couple of crosses stamped & embossed in 2 different colours were added, as was some copper german scrap and some swarovski crystals.....almost finished! I wanted to have somewhere for the baby's details so I printed out a sheet with Baby's Name, Date of birth, Baby's Weight, Baby's Length....all in Italian (just looked better and suited the Renaissance feel a little more). I'm going to ask a friend (are you there Charmaine B????) to write the details in calligraphy after the birth, a nice touch to finish it off. Stop typing and stick the pictures in.....okay.....

So now this one is out of the way, next project for me is to finish off my Forensics chunky pages and make a canvas for a swap with another good friend....hiya Barb.....then think about the next chunky pages, think the theme is gothic??? Going to love that one too!

Take a look at a fantastic little atc that the very lovely Dot sent to me this week. There's so much texture & dimension in it with the little crystals, the fluffy fibre bits, the bulgy eyes, the black german scrap wings.....gorgeous....and I LOVE that tree image on the egg body, just wonderful!!! Thanks Dot, it's very much appreciated ;-)

Fold-out atc's & Collections arch thingy (???)

Finally getting myself out of the illness doldrums...feeling a little more "normal" now. Why is it when I hear the word "normal" I immediately think of the B & W movie Young Frankenstein with Gene Wilder & Marty Feldman and Marty's collection of a brain for use in the Frankenstein that Gene Wilder (as Dr Frankenstein) was building. Marty dropped the correct brain...a Dr or something, and chose one with the label "abnormal". When questioned about this acquisition AFTER it was put into the monster, he admitted it wasn't the correct one, it was called...."Abby, Abby something???"...."Abnormal?"..."yes, that was it"!!! lol So I'm abby-normal now ;-)

Tomorrow's atc class is on Fold-out atc's. Not a normal sort of style that I do but something I think the girls will like as it gives them a bigger area to work on - normal atc's are 3-1/2" tall by 2-1/2" wide, fold-out atc's are 3-1/2" tall by 5" wide. Below are a few of them that I've made for samples and one for the raffle. There's two different styles, one that opens up with doors on the front and the other two have the right hand side that fold outwards to reveal the full size.

First one - closed...

..now open...

Second one - closed...

now - open....(don't you love Dorothy Parker's quote on this one!)

Third one with the "doors" - closed...

Third one...open...

Today was our atc (Art Tarts Club) monthly get-together day. We decided to do a little mini project and settled on the mini arch pack from Collections (Julie van Oosten). Not sure what to call it....it's not really a book as it's just a cover and a back but it's also not an atc, so it's just an "arch thingy". It's using the same product that the lovely Sulea made for me that was pictured in a previous post from the stamp camp thread.

Here's a close-up of the transparency that's on the front cover.

Inside....
Below is the back cover....you can just see some of the texture but you really need to feel how lumpy & bumpy it is. This will be another future technique coming up in the atc classes....sssshhhhhhhhh!!!!!

Another Sheer Heaven class

I dragged my sick, sorry self off to teach my regular Tuesday night atc class last night and must admit, did feel better for being there with the girls, having a laugh as usual. Something about being with others and even if you're not creating yourself, just watching others have fun and turn out some arty stuff that they are chuffed over is really good for the soul. It was the Tuesday night girl's turn to learn the wonders of Sheer Heaven transfers and think I have some more converts. I did tell them they learnt the more difficult transfers first, gel medium transfers and transparency transfers (though the transparency one is only 2nd in ease-factor to the Sheer Heaven technique!). So the Sheer Heaven transfers were a hit! Here's the raffle one that I made....congrats Megan....did your Mum mind you winning??? lol (Megan's Mum, Netta, comes to the Saturday atc classes and the last few weeks in a row has sat next to the winner though hasn't won herself for an age.)

This next one is also a Sheer Heaven transfer but I also used one of the chipboard shapes (my favourite!!!) from the cuttlebug, which I first painted with Linen coloured acrylic paint, dried, then rubbed embossing ink over the whole thing and embossed it in a colour called Antiquities. Loved how the embossing turned out! I also coloured the diamond-shaped brads in this embossing powder too.

I had a play with some of the Helmar's 2-step crackle medium the other day. Wanted to see how it compared to a couple of other crackle's I've tried (Jo Sonja 1 step crackle & the Ranger Crackle Accents). I was quite happy with how it worked, though being impatient as I am, I forced the 2nd layer to dry with the heat gun and probably over-heated it a little. Will try to have more patience next time....yeah...right!!! I know that crackle medium is dependent on several things, your paint stroke style, thickness, drying time etc so I'd be happy enough to recommend this particular one, though I will have more of a play with it in the future.

Hmmm....you can't really see the crackle well on this atc as the suits are so dark, might have to try it on a lighter image and see if it scans better. Trust me, there are cracks there!!!

I thought I'd post some pics of my previous obsession....fabric art dolls. If you call them "cloth dolls" people think of cabbage patch dolls or raggedy ann, but these are more "look at, not to play with" type dolls. I have posted a few pics previously but I have loads of them so it'll take a while before I run out.

Meet Fabio....(a pattern from the fabulously talented West Aussie designer, Rhonda McGinnity)

Next one is a Patti Culea pattern (US pattern designer). See....I CAN do cute if I put my mind to it!!! hahaha I should clarify, I made these dolls, I didn't buy them and the faces are hand-drawn with watercolour pencils, gel pens & zig pens. These dolls can take 25 hours to do, now do you see why I switched to paperarts???

No art done today, chest infection and bung leg (just a pulled muscle) so my muse is taking a break....probably holidaying somewhere warmer than it is here! lol