The Bat Sitter Mixed Media Canvas

Hello, Deb here to welcome you back to another Mixed Media Wednesday here at Mixed Media Mojo.  Today I have a Halloween canvas to share with you for our current challenge, Spookiness with the twist of adding Bats.

I'd like you to meet Zebediah Zombie, he's currently bat sitting for his friend Vladula Von Peckering who is away visiting his cousins and here you can see Zebediah taking Vlad's bats for a walk (or is that a fly?!)

I had so much fun making this, grab a goblet of potion and read on to see how I put it together!

I started out by cutting Tim Holtz's Lost Zombie and Gothic Gate from manila cardstock.

I then cut the zombie 3 more times from some packaging and cut one of them apart to layer together for some dimension.

The manila zombie was coloured with Distress inks and cut apart so I could add the clothes to the layered zombie.

I coloured the layered zombie with Old Paper Distress paint before adding the clothes and added Distress Crackle paint to give a lovely zombie-like skin texture to Zebediah.

The Gothic Gate was embossed with black embossing powder and then I sprinkled on bronze, silver and a green embossing powders here and there for an aged patina.  I ended up die cutting another gate and embossing it in the same way to form a fence.

A 1 1/2" circle was stenciled onto a 6" x 8" flat artists canvas with various colours of yellow Distress inks and then the circle was stenciled again with the Speckles layering stencil and Hickory Smoke DI to make the moon.

The stenciled moon was masked off and the entire canvas coloured with various shades of blue and purple DI for the sky and shades of brown for the ground.

The colours were intensified with Distress crayons and then some creepy vines were stenciled along the bottom with the Twisted mini layering stencil and Ground Espresso DI.

Ground walnut shells were mixed with Transparent texture medium and applied along the bottom with a palette knife.  A couple of the 'extra' zombie bits were adhered underneath the shells :O)

The haunted house from Tim Holtz's Mini Halloween #5 was stamped onto manila cardstock, fussy cut and adhered to the canvas.  The house was shaded around the edges with Black Soot Distress marker.

The Gothic Gate was cut in half and one hinge on each side snipped so that the gates looked like they were broken and falling down.  The second gate was cut down and adhered to each side to form the fence. A couple of tombstone images found on the internet were fussy cut and adhered to the canvas along with 1/2 of a Tim Holtz Pumpkin Piece and a couple of his Boneyard bones.

I had one of these bats that a friend had sent me (it's a die cut but not sure who makes it, sorry) and used the one bat as a pattern to cut a couple more of varying sizes from black cardstock.  I adhered each of the bats to some thin rusted wire and twisted all three together.

The zombie was mounted onto some black fun foam for dimension and the bats positioned so he was holding their 'leashes' in his hand.  Here are a few closeups of the finished canvas.

Thanks so much for stopping by today and I hope that you have enjoyed seeing my bat sitting zombie Halloween canvas!

Hope you have been inspired to join in our October challenge, can't wait to see what you link up,  Happy creating!

Deb xo

Fruits Of Our Labours Mixed Media Canvas

Hello and welcome, Deb here today for Mixed Media Wednesday to share a project with you that was inspired by our August challenge, Harvest with the twist of adding Fruit.

I have a quick tutorial on how I made my 'Fruits Of Our Labours' mixed media canvas, hope you will enjoy it.

I started out with a 5" x 7" flat artists canvas and added die cut letters to spell out my words.  I have A LOT of die cut letters from previous projects that I hoard keep in my stash so I used them and didn't worry about what material or colour they'd been die cut from as I intended to cover everything with gesso.  I layered three of each letter together for some dimension and adhered them to the canvas.

The wide serif letters are from Tim Holtz's Boardwalk die and the narrow sans serif letters are from his Alphanumeric dies.  I gave the whole canvas a coat of gesso and let it dry.

Sprays and drips with Distress spray stain in shades of yellow and orange came next along with some spritzes of water to blend the colours.

After the stain had dried, I sealed the whole canvas with Distress Matte collage medium and then intensified the colours by scribbling with Distress crayons and blending with my fingers.  I added some shading to the lettering with shades of brown Distress crayons and then gave each letter a dusting of Perfect Pearls.  The edges of the canvas were also shaded with brown Distress crayons.

Stamping came next, I used a variety of script and mixed media stamps from my stash and stamped them onto the canvas with Black Soot Distress Archival ink.

I still felt I needed some interest on my background so spattered the canvas with white and then black thinned acrylic paint, masking off the lettering before doing so.  Here's a close up picture of the spattered and stamped background.

I then fussy cut some vintage peach and apple images from my stash (courtesy of Magic Moonlit Studio) and adhered some of them to the background.  I sealed the background images with Distress Matte collage medium and then used a Black Soot Distress marker to add some shading.

The two foreground images were mounted onto black fun foam and adhered over top to add a bit more dimension to my canvas.

I love the addition of the Perfect Pearls to the lettering, I must remember to use it more often!

Hope you have enjoyed my quick little tutorial, this is a great way to make use of those hoarded surplus die cut letters you have in your stash!

I also hope it has inspired you to join in our August challenge, I can't wait to see what you create.

Thanks again for stopping by today and happy creating!

Deb xo

Mini canvas Kate Crane style

Well hello there!

I recently signed up for Kate Crane's online art journaling classes, called
Art Journal Soup 1&2.

Here's a mini canvas I made from one of the lessons:

The canvas is 10 x 10 cm (about 4"x4").

I've used Dina Wakley's paints, black gesso, Stabilo All pencil and black and white markers.

I've also used a Dylusions stencil in the background. The house and fence are hand drawn, and the red dots on the house are made with a painted piece of Lego.

Thanks for stopping by Mixed Media Mojo!
Siv xx

How Did She Make That Sunflower?

I am totally in love with the sunflower I created for this canvas.  I will walk through the steps with instructions and pictures so you can create your own sunflower. 

To create the sunflower, I used my Silhouette Cameo to make my patterns.  I then traced the patterns onto lunch bags.  I cut them out by hand.  I was not overly particular if I cut exactly on the lines because Mother Nature is not perfect when she is creating flower petals.

I wanted to add layers of color to the flower.  I mixed acrylic and water and did a wash.  I let it dry and then added another color mixed with just a little less water. 

I then stamped a background stamp on all the leaves with some distress ink.  This adds more depth of color and texture.

Now comes the fun part.  It is time to release all your frustrations from the day.  You need to take each petal and scrunch and crumple it up.  I usually let them sit crumpled up for a few hours so that the texture is embedded in the petals.  The picture shows petals crumpled and then how they look uncrumpled. (I think I invented a new mixed media word.)

The layers of the flower were put together with glue dots.  I had some dimensional glue dots and I used several in the center for each layer.  The glue dots added a little space between each layer and made the flower look more dimensional.

I needed to have a center for my flower and also leaves and stems.  For the center of the flower I cut a circle of brown felt and then a circle of a brown plaid.  I used some lightweight yarn and made French dots on top of the circles.  The French dots resembled the seeds that appear in the middle of the sunflower. 

For the stems, I decided to go with fabric again to add more dimension and texture to the canvas.  I tore strips of the green fabric.  For the stem, I just loosely rolled it and used a needle and thread to loosely tack it in a rounded dimensional shape.  The leaves were done the same way but just used a smaller strip of fabric.  I tacked the leaf together at the bottom and molded it into the shape of a leaf.  The stem and leaves were applied to the canvas with double sticky tape.  The center of the sunflower was added with the dimensional glue dots.

As I put the flower together, I decided it needed something extra.  I was looking through my “stuff” and I looked at a wreath I had taken off the wall.  It was a grapevine wreath and it had those little twiggies sticking out.  I clipped some off and added them in the layers of the sunflower.  I just stuck them into the dimensional glue dots.  These twiggies (another new mixed media word) added more color and interest to the flower.  Here is the close up of the flower so you can see all the layers. 

I think you could use these basic ideas to make any flower.  I don't think you would need a Silhouette to cut your pattern - you could draw it free hand.  I think a poinsettia is next on my list of flowers to create.