Monday 21 September 2015

Mixed Media Birthday Card on Canvas Board

Last year I created a giant scrapbook-style birthday card from recycled Amazon packaging to mark my son's 10th birthday. You can see it here if you missed it. This year I wanted to do something different, so I settled an a small size canvas board instead.

I didn't really have a plan, I just went along with my insticts and used pretty much what I happened to put my hands on in my stash. The only thing I kept in mind is that it had to be something cool, suitable for an eleven-year-old boy. And what could be cooler than a dragonfly, hey?

I first painted the entire canvas with flourescent orange paint. Whoa, that was way too bright, but then I distressed it with some black stamping and purple paint, removing it from places to let the orange shine through. It looked something like this:


Next, I added collage pieces from napkins and printed and stamped words on tissue paper, which I glued down with gel medium. The 921 label is a raffle ticket and signifies my son's birth date. After I had glued all the bits down, I did some shading and splattered some white paint over the entire canvas to brighten it up a bit.

I really hope I managed to make something cool enough for an 11-year-old to display in his room! I'll give it to him whe he comes home from school today. Happy birthday kiddo!









Incidentally, right after I made this canvas I had a close encounter with a real dragonfly. Some of you may have seen these photos on Facebook already, but I really wanted to share them on my blog as well. The funny thing is, the dragonfly just presented itself and stayed absolutely still for long minutes, allowing me to take these photos. I'd been trying to capture dragonflies for years without any success. This just goes to show, when things are supposed to happen, they happen easily and naturally, without any fuss or too much effort. I'll have to keep reminding myself of that!





I'm linking this post to Roses of Inspiration #38

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