Mixed Media - With Brave Wings Color Challenge...

Hello, again! I know I've been gone more than a week, but I've got a fun Mixed Media Monday canvas to share today with LOTS of photos, so I hope that makes up a bit for my unscheduled absence. :)

At the start of the month I made note of this month's color challenge over at Lindy's Stamp Gang. But then I got distracted by life, and this became a project completed in small bits of time, with many starts and stops, and I lost track of the fact I was following a color board inspiration! Thankfully, when I finished, I realized I still had the ingredients of the color challenge board front and center.

Here's the finished 12 x 12 canvas...there's lot of glittery bling on this one, so I tilted the camera down a bit to capture more of the details and less of the reflection...

And here's the LSG color board with this month's challenge colors - I picked the minty-aqua, fuchsia pink, and golden tan as the three colors I would play with:

You might be able to see by the edges that I started with a piece of vellum with torn edges as the base of everything - gluing the vellum unevenly gave me the horizontal texture lines that I wanted to build into the background - you know I'm a big fan of texture! So it started like this...

A little hint: to "iron" down the vellum creases to make them flat, I turned the canvas over and used my brayer on the back side...

The next step was to apply a coat of white gesso over the vellum and canvas - now you can really see the horizontal creasing...

Then I added crackle paste through a Prima Netting stencil, and more in the upper right corner using the Tim Holtz Speckles stencil (as always, you can click on any of these photo to see it larger and, in this case, see the crackle detailing better)...

And finally to the step where it all comes together - COLOR! :)  The background colors are Lindy's Stamp Gang Magicals - Autumn Maple Crimson, Merci Beaucoup Mint, Bonjour Butter darkened with Cafe au Lait and for shading and darkening, Sandra Dee Sepia ...

Once I placed all my larger elements on the canvas and had an idea how the layout was going to look, I stamped a criss-cross stamp with brown ink randomly around the open areas...

Then it was time to start gluing down elements and bling to get to the final finished product. Here are some closeup shots around the canvas, starting with the beautiful fabric and bead Prima butterfly in the upper left corner...

I painted the brick chipboard piece with both the Red Hot Poker Orange and the Autumn Maple Crimson colors so it had a beautiful soft iridescent glow beneath all the beads and flowers and buttons and pearls...

The metal lock piece was gessoed and painted and stained to look old and rustic, so it would blend with the painted chipboard chain...

Under the mulberry rose and metal leaf is a double-layer diecut heart from one of the newer Tim Holtz mixed media dies...

To make the chipboard words stand out from the rest of the embellishments, I first coated the piece with black gesso, then painted it with Aqua Stickles. When that dried, I accented some of the letters with a white Uni Posca paint pen. The final coat was with some of the Merci Beaucoup Mint Magical, to blend it all together and tone down the glitter just a bit...

Love this "hope" charm! I didn't have a chipboard piece that worked beneath the circles...a flourish just didn't look right, but I felt it needed something beneath the embellishments and beads. So I handcut a few strips of chipboard and painted them with the Red Hot Poker Orange Magical. I wanted to mimic the look of the thinner pieces of the circle above it, and the strips were the perfect balance for the embellishments beneath the circles...

And last but not least, the little group of goodies in the lower right corner...painted wooden angel wings, a painted wooden birdcage, a painted urn button, another word stone, and lots of bling and flowers with another little snippet of lace...

Supplies:

Color mediums:   Lindy's Stamp Gang Magicals - Cafe au Lait + Bonjour Butter,  Autumn Maple Crimson, Merci Beaucoup Mint, Sandra Dee Sepia

Art mediums:   Liquitex white gesso;  Darice Studio 71 black gesso;  Golden crackle paste;  Aqua Stickles;  Coffee Archival Ink,  Viva Inka Gold metallic paints (rose quartz, hematite, and violet)

Chipboard:  Dusty Attic "Mini Chains";   ScrapFX Wordlets ("with brave wings...");   Blue Fern Studios "Shabby Brick Bits" and "Graduated Circles"

Wood Accents:   Kaisercraft "Wooden Flourishes/Wings";   local craft store (birdcage with bird)

Stencils:   Prima "netting";   Tim Holtz "speckles"            Dies:   Tim Holtz "Scribbles & Splat" (heart)

"Hope" charm, metal door lock, fabric butterfly:   Prima            Metal leaves & corner scrolls:   TheFunkieJunkie.com

Stamps:   Unity Stamp Co. "she remained true" and "distressed criss-cross"

Pearls:   Recollections                     Flowers:   Wild Orchid Crafts          

Background vellum:  Tim Holtz "Wallflower" collection

Miscellaneous:   word stones,  seed beads, urn button, spiral clip, cheesecloth, lace pieces

Thanks very much for stopping by for a visit...I hope your week is starting with a smile!