Paint It Up. . . . . .

The challenge at Simon Says Stamp and Show this week is to use paint. I'm really starting to love using acrylic paints and recently I made a mini canvas for a swap with some crafty friends. I used a combination of paints, spray inks, chalky ink and metallic paste to create my little canvas - with a little bling thrown in for good measure!

The theme for the canvas was nature and I had to go with flowers as I love using them in a rather grungy way. I included die cut flowers, a flourish (cut up a little)  and some texture paste through a stencil. See if you like what I made:

The completed canvas.

These are the elements used: mini canvas prepared with stuck on die cut flourish parts, texture paste flowers and colour created from gesso, acrylic washes and dylusion inks. The flowers at the bottom are die cut and  some have been glued together to give a little more depth.

The die cuts were glued on and the texture paste was added through a dylusion stencil.You can see that several layers of paint and ink have been applied to achieve the multi coloured background! Once dry, metallic paste was added randomly to edges and some flat surfaces in the design. You may also see a slight shadow around the die cut - this was achieved using a graphite stick and later some exposed areas were shaded using the stick in a subtle way.

You can see that this die cut flower was sprayed with dylusion ink, stamped with chalky ink and metallic paste was added roughly to the edges. The flower petals were manipulated with a paintbrush handle to give them some dimension before they were glued on. Stick on gems in toning colours were added for the centre of each flower.

The smaller flowers were all constructed using the method outlined above although not all  were stamped. I like the way the texture paste adds detail and dimension to the background.

Hope you like this little piece - I do seem to be using these colours a lot lately but I  love them!! I'll have to put them to the back of the drawer and make myself use something else! Thanks for visiting and a big hello to my new followers: I will visit you to say hello, just give me a little time to get there!  

A Little Extra Post 

Can I also share some images of a gorgeous little envelope that dropped on my mat a few weeks ago? My beloved moggy Frankie was diagnosed as having some kind of bone marrow problem and it would seem that he wouldn't last out the week - I'm pleased to say he's still with us and amazingly seems a bit better! My blog friend Alie from Holland knew of this so sent me a little something to cheer me up - people are so kind and even though I've only been blogging since January 2012 I feel that I have made some really lovely friends. Alie is incredibly talented and creative and if you don't know her work yet I would suggest you pop over to her blog and have a look. Here's the card and tag she sent me - even the envelope was decorated:

                                                                                      The gorgeous tag!!

Beautiful envelope and little card!