Crafty Animal: February 2018

Sunday, February 18, 2018

Cat Canvas

International Art & Soul, a challenge which has been put together to incorporate any type of craft, paper, wood, flowers, recycling, glass - the world is your oyster :). Come on over an join us with you artwork :)

Challenge #27
Use Stuff You Already Own

This fortnights challenge them has been chosen by Chriss, a cracking good theme that sure made me hunt through all my supplies and digital stamps. This 30cmx30cm canvas has been made as a thank you pressie to the lovely lady we are getting our kittens from tomorrow. At the time of writing this blog post tomorrow is January 27th hahaha and yep, I am one super excited soon to be a fur baby mummy again. I lost my beautiful cat Boss 11 years ago, just as I was moving to Saudi to join my hubby, all plans to bring him over were throw out the window when he got outside through an opened window and ran into the road, I am sure you can guess the rest of the story so I say no more. Hubby and I decided on no more house pets while we were overseas and so it is just now that we are retired and back in the UK we can have fur babies again. We are getting 2 Russian Blue kittens, a boy who we are calling Jeeves and a girl who we are calling Bree. This time tomorrow we will be in the car heading off to collect them :) :) :) :).

OK so now you know the background of the canvas the next thing is to mention what I did. I used a Sheena Douglas stencil and green acrylic paint for the background. The image of the two cats is 'Swirly Whirlie Cats' by Little Claire, a digi I won many moons ago in a challenge and was perfect I was hoping to print out over three A4 pages and then colour with acrylic paint. The printing was so large so I could cut the image in acceptable place and have the full height of around 28cm. The next bit was to cut the sections out and then paint each as required As the acrylic paint covered some of the black lines I then when over all of them with my faithful black Promarker. I then glued my three sections together to remake the full image and used a strong spray adhesive to stick the images to the canvas. Next was to add the gems to the cats and sit back and admire lol. I designed my text and cut with my Silver Bullet, these letters were then painted in the same mauve I had used for the cats and then sponged with black acrylic paint and finally gold gilding to match what I had just added to the border of the picture. The letters shone beautifully when the light caught them but otherwise the text pretty much vanished into the background to to get around that issue I outlined each in black. The quote 'One cat just leads to another' is by Earnest Hemmingway and so appropriate for the lady we are getting out kittens from :) :) :). To protect the canvas I gave it a few blast with acrylic sealer and there we are, all done. Nothing new bought for this challenge and so much fun getting out all my old supplies again, thanks Chriss for a fab challenge theme.

As this post was created before we got the wee fur babies I can now let you know we have had them for a couple of weeks and they are settling in wonderfully, so full of fun and bringing us so many smiles and laughs every day. Jeeves is on the left and Bree on the right :) :) :)

Challenges entered:-

We Love 2 Create - 2W (ends Tuesday) - Always Anything Creative/Mixed Media Goes
Alphabet Challenge - 2W, 1E - X for "Xtra Special Occasion" (W2 of 2) (WE GOT OUR KITTENS :) )
Aud Sentiments Challenge 2W,E5 #197 For A Friend (W1 of 2)
2 Crafty Critter Crazies (M, P1, E5, must have a critter) #10 - Anything Goes with a Critter
Show us Your Pussies - M, Cat Only Challenge, February - Furrything Goes/ Love

Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Hidden Desires

IKEsWORLD

Challenge 105
Hidden Desires

Welcome back to the IKEsWORLD challenges :) do pop on over to IKEsWORLD to join in the challenge, it is always so much fun and Ike produces the most amazing stamps, everything from off the wall to cute and fluffy :) :) :)

I am giving cards a rest for a while and going to play around with canvasses so you are on a bit of a journey with me experimenting with different mediums and seeing how they work. On this canvass I used the image 'Look of Love' a stunning image and one that gives me a chance to practice painting eyes with acrylic paint (I am happiest with watercolour and only really used acrylics to paint block cover on boxes in the past).

For this 20cm x 20 cm canvass I first started printing the image on 120 gms paper which I hope, with the help of gesso will take the tints and paints I want to use. Next I glued the image onto the canvass and used gesso over the whole lot. Fingers crossed as now I am committed :) :) :). Once dry I then added texture paste and let that dry. Die cutting was next on the agenda, the words are Tim Holts dies and the hearts from another company. The words were cut twice and mounted together to give more height and then all the die cuts were glued to the surface. Now more waiting time for the glue to dry, I am not very patient when I get an urge and this waiting is a killer, maybe I need to try to have more than one project on the go at once but there again I can see the confused brain I would end up with. Oh well, maybe I will just have to drink more coffee. Once dry, I then used Spectrum Noir mauve tint and brushed this all over the canvass, I was trying to get the tint to seep into nooks and crannies and use the different ways the textures absorbed the tint to do most of the work for me. I then moved onto the eyes and painted these with acrylic paint. It was then out with the Distress Oxides to see how these worked on the gesso, would they still react as they do on paper and now I know they don't so probably won't be using them in this way again. To finish off I used some bronze and gold gilding paste and then added a bronze metal heart. To be honest, I am not sure about this canvass, I had so much fun doing it but when I step back and look it is not one that appeals to me, right out of my comfort zone in the final appearance, certainly not my usual thing but maybe it will grow on me :) :) :)

Ingredients:-

image - Look of Love by IKEsART
colouring medium - SN tints, acrylic paint, Distress Oxides, gilding pastes
other items - canvass, gesso, die cuts, bronze heart

I am entering this project into the following challenges:-

Everybody-Art-Challenge 2W - #418 - Circle or Square (week 2)
Colouring in Scrapland - M 1st Monday, E2, winner + Top 3, No digital coloring, must have hand-colored image - LOVE WITHOUT BORDERS/LOVE WITHOUT BOUNDARIES
A Gem of a Challenge 2W - Have a Heart (feature a heart) (W1 of 2)
Crazy 4 Challenges W,1E - #420 - Add a Heart

Sunday, February 4, 2018

Textured Canvass

Challenge #26
TEXTURE

This fortnights theme has been chosen by Hazel :). I love the theme of this challenge but it seems my crafting mojo has gone on vacation grrrrrrr. I spent 2 days making a card for this challenge, a struggle and a half and although the end result was OK I was not a very happy bunny. Time to try something totally different. I have wanted to have a go at mixed media on canvass for a long time but have not got round to it until now, yes, it seemed the perfect time to try to inspire myself. My daughter loves owls and it is her birthday in a few days so this 30cm x 30cm canvass is for her to hang in her bedroom. Now I have to cross all my fingers and toes and hope she likes it.

I used Gesso on the canvas first as it was just a cheapie and I was not sure if it had been primed or not. Next was the texture paste and a stencil by Sheena Douglas available from Crafters Companion. When all that was dry I attacked the canvas with acrylic paint, a mixture of turquoise and pearl white. I then die cut the text twice onto thick card and stuck the letters together, these were then added to the canvas. Next was the owl, again die cut and I embossed the components, after all this is a texture challenge. Lace was added to the wings to give the impression of a second layer of feathers. I used shells for the claws and some small flower beads above the beak. Pretty chuffed with the way he turned out or maybe it is a she as there is a fair bit of pink going on there hahaha. Feather metal charms, small metal dimensional bead holders along with three metal double hearts, two chipboard hearts and a chipboard owl were also added. To finish off I added some flower soft and then painted over all these components with left over bits of paint I had and my finger lol.