Canvas artwork

Hi all!  Well I have been working on canvas. My friend Dottie took a class at CREATE, NJ and she was showing us her works, which are currently on display in her school. So she gave me the basics and I created one. We had fun doing an online class of sorts, conferencing so we could work on them together.  

So here is my first attempt.  I found it interesting and it is a many-day process. First you prime the canvas with gesso. Then use papers to build your house or structure. You use gel medium to adhere the paper to the canvas.  Next paint with one color. I used red acrylic and watered it down a bit. I also added some black to differentiate the roof. 

When the paint is dry, apply a generous layer of gel medium. One thing is that I ran out of my Golden soft matte gel medium. So I purchased Liquitex (no mention of anything regarding soft, etc.) but just said matte medium. What I learned is that Liquitex is extremely white, which makes the next step difficult. Since the Golden is more translucent, I much prefer the Golden, which was also thicker and easier to layer. 

Once you have a layer that's wet, use a chop stick to outline the houses, or areas on the canvas you want to highlight. I also created clouds, since there was such a large open area int the sky. You could put birds, a sun, etc.  

Any areas in dark brown were drawn out/scraped with the chopstick. I did windows, roof lines, etc.

You have to allow a long time for the gel medium to dry. Once it does, use a contrasting color paint and fill in the scratched out areas. In the case of the clouds, you can paint directly on top of the gel medium. The last step, is the fun stuff embellishing. I added beads, metal pieces, a key, a paper dye-cut bird (put a bird on it) and a watch face. 

I love how it turned out and I am working on a few more which will be gifts for friends. So I can't let you peek yet. 

It's been a relaxing and creative weekend.  I am really enjoying myself.  I have to say that I feel I accomplished a lot and I was listening to Coldplay's latest Ghost Stories. It's a beautiful album and really is perfect music to create by. It's dreamy, and so ethereal.  

Do something creative every day!!