Mixed Media Canvas with Suzi

Good Day All, I hope you are keeping safe and well, Today I'd like to share with you a Mixed Media Canvas I've created using DesignIt Paste, Brusho Crystal Colour Powders, Eco Acrylic Paint and Gold Wax Crayons.

I had no idea where I was going with this canvas when I started it, I just wanted to play and see what would appear.

Here's the finished Canvas;

 

Here's how I went about making it;

First of all I took an 10 x 14 inch canvas and applied a layer of Pearl DesignIt paste through a stencil.

I then selected three colours of Brusho Crystal Colour Powders, Gamboge, Sea Green and Purple and sprinkled them over the DesignIt Paste.  To be honest I was a little heavy handed which leads to me having to add a clean up stage to this project.

I then left the canvas to dry overnight.

As you can see the Pearl DesignIt Paste has dried to a lovely pearl finish, but there is alot of excess powder.  So the next thing I did was using damp kitchen towel I removed as much of the excess powder as I could, really focusing on the blank canvas areas as I wanted to add some paint into those areas.

As you can see the blank canvas areas are now nice and clean, and the Pearl DesignIt paste is still nicely coloured.  I then painted all the areas of blank canvas with Eco Acrylic Paint in Paynes Grey.

I liked the contrast between the Grey and the coloured areas but wanted a bit more, so I added some Gold Wax Crayon to the Grey areas.

At this point I really liked the contrast between the areas, but it all seemed way to busy.  To be honest I hated it at this point.  I was seriously considering binning it and starting all over again, but then I thought I could paint over it with Gesso, which led me to decide to get the Black Gesso out.  

After a little thought I realised that I could cover some of the canvas with the Black Gesso but leave some of the patterned area as focal points.  I created a Heart shaped mask out of a piece of white card stock, and painted around it with Black Gesso.

I loved the result, it really highlighted the design and no longer looked too busy.  When applying the Black Gesso, I'd left it patchy in places, so you'd get some of the texture coming through from the background.

To finish the canvas I decided I wanted to add a sentiment, and a little doodling and frame the hearts.  I chose to used the Gold Wax Crayons again as this would tie the whole thing together.  After a little thought I decided on 'You and Me Always' for my sentiment as it filled the space nicely, and connected to the heart theme of the canvas. As a final element I added a little doodling with white pen.

I'm pretty pleased with the finished canvas, It's still not one of the my favourite projects but i'm happy with the end result and glad I didn't give up on it halfway through.  We can't love everything we create, but some project are more about learning what works and what doesn't, and just seeing where the project wants to go itself, it's organic and raw.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing how my project came together and reading about the turmoil it caused me.  I think it's important to share projects that don't work the way we want, It helps to show that none of us are perfect, and that our projects don't always turn out how we planned.  We are all still learning, and that is part of the fun.

Thanks for visiting with us today

Stay Safe and Well

Bye for now

Suzi

xxx