JUST US GIRLS #358 Photo Week

Hello and welcome crafty peeps! Judy is your hostess for Photo Week at JUST US GIRLS! She's found this amazing picture for you to be inspired by! What jumps out at you when you look at it? The fairy woman? The feathers? The birds? The butterflies? The colors? Soooo much eye candy! I was compelled to make a mixed media canvas for my project:

This is gonna be a photo heavy post, so get your favorite beverage and get comfy. I started with a 5" x 7" canvas and applied Gesso over it. Once that dried, I painted acrylic paints over it, using the colors in the photo. (Luckily, I already had most of them in my stash of paints) 

As much as I loved how this came out, I knew I wanted to try adding a stencil and mask over this. (Andy was not happy that I covered the colors up, but he just doesn't get mixed media. LOL!)  My inspiration was this art journal by Lynne Mizera. Her art journal pages look so amazing! I loved how she used the circle stencil and the butterfly mask. Since I had that same mask, I knew butterflies were going to be a major element on my canvas. I also liked the gold touches, and I thought stenciling in the next layer in gold paint would look cool. I was right! (Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the canvas after stenciling the gold. DOH!) 

After that dried, I went over it using the butterfly mask.

While this was drying, I stamped, colored and fussy cut Tess Girl. At this point, I thought I was also going to incorporate feathers onto my canvas. I experimented with using die cut feathers, colored to look like the feathers in the photo. Obviously, I took another road. *wink*

So when this dried, I outlined the butterflies with a waterproof black marker. (Make sure it's a waterproof marker, otherwise, any future layers you add will smear the marker ink) 

I couldn't handle all the white space, so I stamped some texture using archival ink.

Sorry for the blurry picture. (I was using my cell phone camera while creating, since I was too lazy to go downstairs to get my good camera.) At this point, I wasn't sure if I should stamp the sentiment directly to the canvas. Well, I was terrified to do that, since I didn't want to screw it up. That's when I called Lynne for advice, and she gave me a tip on how she gets around that: you stamp onto tissue paper using archival ink, and adhere it using gel medium, or glossy medium. She goes into detail about this on her blog here. 

Another tip that Lynne gave me is that not all tissue papers are created equal. She suggested using the tissue paper that comes from a shoe box. It's more durable. That Lynne, she's brilliant!! Thank you for all your help! I rooted around trying to find shoe box tissue paper that didn't have printing already on it, or at least enough space around the pre-printed paper to stamp around it. This was the best I found. I took a wet paintbrush and went around the sentiment, then carefully ripped it out. At this point I decided I wasn't going to use feathers at all, and decided to punch tiny butterflies from coordinating card stock. The next picture shows my placement before adhering everything down.

I didn't have glossy or gel medium, just matte medium, so that's what I used. Note to self: get glossy medium, as matte will cover the 'glossy' of the acrylic paints. (Hey, I'm a rookie at this mixed media shtuff! I'm still learning!)

I did wind up lining up the stencil and carefully adding more gold paint around the sentiment. I also carefully added more brown paint around the sentiment, and redrew some of the outlines of the butterflies when that was dry. It's not perfect, but I'm pleased with how it came out. It still needed something so I added rhinestones to all the punched butterflies. That's when my inner muse said I was done. Shew!

Here are some side views, because you need to paint all the sides too! (And yes, I stenciled them also) If you look, you'll see the feathers that I colored, and Stickled, then decided not to use. There's also another die cut butterfly I thought to use, but didn't.

Congrats to you for making it til the end of my photo heavy post! I hope that you find some time to play along for Photo Week at Just Us Girls! For more inspiration, please visit the blogs of my teammates, and Colleen, our guest designer, and leave them some bloggy love! 

Just a reminder that if you are picked as Chic of the Week for any of our August challenges, you'll be in the running to be our Guest Designer for the month of October! Have fun and happy crafting!

I'd like to enter this at:

Unity Girl challenge

Spectrum Noir August 2016 challenge - ATG 

STAMPlorations Mixed Media challenge #58

STAMPlorations - Anything Goes Challenge

Spectrum Noir markers used:

Skin: FS2, FS3, TN2,CR3

Hair: DR5, TN9, DR7

Jeans: BT5-7-9

Shirt: GB3-7-9

nails/heart/bangle: PL1-2-3

Shoes: TN3, TN6, EB4

Ground: LG5, JG1, JG3

Supplies:

Stamps: Unity Stamps - Tess Girl; Raisin Boat - Edgy Accents

Ink: Staz On - Jet Black; Memento - Tuxedo Black

Paint: Adirondack - Terra Cotta, Stream, Butterscotch, Cloudy Blue; Delta - Gleams 14K Gold; Plaid - Wicker White; Plaid - Stencil Gel - Russet

Stencils: ARTplorations - Shower of Flutters; Dylusions - Triangles

Spectrum Noir markers; PrismaColor pencil - 70% warm grey

Golden - Gesso, Matte Medium

Nicole/Recollections - rhinestones

various paint brushes, foam brush, stencil brush

Martha Stewart - butterfly punch

shoe box tissue paper

AC Moore - canvas