The one with the 80's vibe.....

Hi everyone!

Hope you are having a good week.  Hard to believe it is half over, isn't it? Over the last couple of weeks, I have been working on my first mixed media canvas.  I started with an inspiration piece that I found online here.  I really liked the Long Live Love freebie.  I printed it, and colored it, and pulled some photos to go with it, and tried and tried to turn it all into a canvas.... Didn't work!

Instead, I used the photos I had pulled and lots of other things, but NOT the original inspiration piece, to make this canvas:

 

 

I had used pinks and turquoise to color some of the lettering in the "Long  Live Love" inspiration, so I used those colors to start layering my background.  By the time I stood back and looked at my work, it had a decidedly "Punky Brewster/Full House/Golden Girls color theme going on.  I decided to go with that flow, and added the tar gel drizzles, which I colored with Worn Lipstick Distrss Reinker.  Remember all of the paint splattered prints in the 80's? 

 

Here are some close ups of the canvas:

 

 

I added Distress Paints and Stains to this ribbon from Really Reasonable Ribbon.  I love how it "grunged up".  I used alcohol inks to distress the button a bit as well.

 

 

 

To build up the background layers, I used Distress Stains, Tim Holtz Stamps and Archival Ink in Black.  I grabbed a Tim Holtzian Die Cut (Confession- I traced an online image of a ViewMaster disk and cut it with my electronic cutter.)  and used it as both a mask and a stamp on the background.  Later, I used the actual die cut as well.  

 

 



 





I brought some recent photos of my family into Make the Cut software using the Pixel Trace feature.   I got different effects by turning 3 of the photos into textures, for a typical photo image, and leaving 2 of the photos untexturized for really graphic black and white images.  I used some  brown Distress Inks to knock down the harsh black and white on the photos.   

 

I layered the photos  over a strip of parchment paper that I pressure embossed and attached using tissue tape.  I love how the background peeks through. 





To make my compostion visually pleasing, I focused on placing all of my elements in groups of three or five, and triangulating the arrangement.  I used a lot of Picket Fence Distress Stain and Paint to blend the background elements, and lighten some of the bolder colors.   Finally, I added the hand lettered text.  (I think that I should practice that a bit next time, instead of going direct to canvas!)

Thanks for bearing with me through this long post (see, I'm assuming you are still here, LOL!)

This weekend, I will be posting some Pinterest inspired projects for a virtual Pinterest Party I am hosting over on the That's Scrap, Inc. Forum.  I'm looking forward to having some fun with my forum friends!

Have a terrific weekend, Everyone!

Elizabeth