Mixed Media Kind of Weekend
// December 3rd, 2012 // 1 Comment » // madeitmonday, Mixed Media, Journals & Papercraft
This weekend was a creative kind of weekend. After sending and receiving some amazing artwork for the ATC swaps I was inspired to create. The starting point was “What if…” and I asked the question “What if butterflies never left?” That led me on to this adventure.
I began by painting the tree trunk using a VERY heavy coat of Tim Holtz Distress Crackle in Crushed Corduroy. As the paint dried it developed large cracks that gave the feel of old bark on a tree trunk. I added a base of white and blue for the background and added some white to the tree branches to make it look like snow had settled on the tree.
Next I used a glue stick to adhere the butterflies to my page and used a light coat of acrylic medium to seal them in. I used a wash of white paint and acrylic medium to cover some of the butterflies and used a brighter blue to outline the largest butterfly. I continued to add paint, then sand down until I was happy with what was showing through, and what was hidden behind my paint, then I added one final layer of acrylic medium. Once that was dry I outlined the painted butterflies with watercolor crayons to add a little depth to them, and I mixed a little pearlescent powder to my acrylic medium and painted my large butterfly. The combination gives it a light opalescent shimmer.
I added some music to help frame the butterfly collage and did the same process of applying paint and sanding down until I found a look I was happy with. Then I found and cut out the word ‘HOME’ from a magazine. I applied that with acrylic medium and coated it with layers of paint/medium mix. Finally I traced the letters with a black permanent marker and once again added paint until I was happy with how it looked.
While trying to find something to put in the empty place where the quote is I used an acrylic stamp and my acrylic medium and stamped a few snowflakes onto the background then I lightly sprinkled it with a clear glitter.
Finally, using shell paper (rice paper with bits of shell embedded) I added journaling strips and wrote my quote. I added a few more strips of shell paper randomly to tie it in and used my whitewash technique on these strips.
I hope you enjoy this collage, and find inspiration to create something yourself.
~Nikki



































































