New Canvas Experiment with Text

Since I am out of a clay studio at the moment, I am having to find other ways to keep me happy!  I've been doing some art journaling, and that has helped, but then I saw a blog post from Alisa Burke one night, and I was inspired to get out of the journal and play with some canvas instead!  My natural inclination when I create is to be rather tight, and controlled, so this inspired me to be loose and free and just have fun, which is what I did.  And it felt GREAT!!  Feel free to let me know what you think of this canvas :)  I did this one for me, as practice, and if I like the results enough, I'm going to make a larger one (with a different phrase) for our new house!

Collaging brown paper bags

So I ordered some canvases, 10" x 30" and turned it on it's side, for a horizontal orientation.  I didn't feel like I wanted the canvas texture, so I decided to collage it.  All my beautiful papers are packed up somewhere, so I attacked the brown paper bags in my pantry :)  I ripped it into pieces and used gel medium to adhere it.  


After that, I wanted to cover it in gesso to make it sort of white again, and I decided to add in some texture in the gesso, just for giggles.

stamping into wet gesso

I purposely did not make it all perfect and pretty at this point.  I was slapping it on!  Next came adding a bit of color, and my Pan Pastels were sitting next to me, so I decided to use those instead of paint.  I have to say, I really love my Pan Pastels!!  I did add a layer of matte medium to set the pastels, so they wouldn't smudge so much.  The pastels just went with the whole idea of this canvas, just having fun and not getting caught up in perfection.  It felt so good, especially since there isn't much control or perfection happening in my life right now anyway!  Working this way just sort of suited my mood at the moment.

adding color and doodles

After adding color, I wanted to doodle late one night, and so I grabbed my PITT pen (a light gray) and just had fun.  I don't always love my doodles, but I was just trying to have a little fun and keep my brain out of it, for once.  Next I had to decide how I wanted to do the text.  Alisa Burke used shoe polish, and after I scoured the town to find the right shoe polish, I decided it was too big for this size canvas.  So I went to Wal-Mart and got some squeeze bottles and decided that I'd do the text in a more fluid, loose way.  When I was feeling brave the next day, I dumped in paint and matte medium, stirred it all up and added the text!  What fun to not worry about drips, spills and such!  Here's where I forgot to take a picture :) 

detail

another detail

I let the canvas sit for a day or two while I thought about it, and then today I added some oil pastels to the corners and some circles of a turquoise pastel.  I outlined the circles in black and white circles, splattered some white and black and called it done!  Now I need to find my varnish and then I'll really be done.  It was a fun, fun thing to try out, and now I'm ready to do a bigger one, if my hubby is okay with it.  :)  The only problem is that the time I spent working on the canvas was time I should have spent unpacking boxes!  Oh well.  Gotta do things to keep me happy, right???  The final color is more golden, rather than lemony like in the photo, and I am pleased with the outcome.

Final Piece, 10" h x 30"w.  The actual color is more golden and less lemon-y yellow.

So that's it.  I hope you all have a creative weekend.  I guess I'll go unpack a box now :)  Either that or organize baby clothes some more, as my due date is tomorrow!!


xoxo
~Kelly