Stamping a Winter Canvas

 

Peaceful Winter Moments

Some stampers shy away from working on stretched canvas feeling the canvas has "too much give" to get good images with their stamps. But there are many ways to use stamps.  Here are some details on how I use stamps to create the focal image and other images on this canvas.

I started by applying a generous coat of gesso to the top surface of the canvas using a credit card sized piece of packaging plastic. To create the surface dimensional texture I pressed an inkless swirl foam stamp into the gesso and in other areas laid the plastic card on the gesso (see center of right edge) and pulled up on it.  I immediately washed the stamps and other tools. I let the gesso dry to a very solid surface. 

 

I painted the background and ran gold acrylic dabber paint over some of the raised edges to add interest. I stamped several images around the edges with ink and/or acrylic paint. 

 

The Stampendous snow bird is stamped on thin white tissue paper with permanent ink. The image is colored with permanent ink pens and acrylic paints. When dry I tore the tissue around the image and then I smooshed the tissue into a wad and open flat. Gel medium is added to the canvas and then the image is place on top. Another layer of gel medium on is brushed on top of the tissue with strokes to continue to flatten the image to the canvas. The edges disappear like magic. I cannot detect the tissue paper even when I take a close look...so cool.

 

Once the gel medium is dry additional layers of acrylic paint are added onto the image as desired.

I added glossy accents to the berries and snow glitter to their tops and branches. Dry stardust glitter was sprinkled across a canvas prior to finishing with a layer of gel medium.

 

I strongly encourage you to try creating a stamped canvas.  Experimenting with making textures in the gesso base is a ton of fun.  There are a lot of magically moments in how easy this seemed to come together for me--Totally FUN! 

 

Wishing you lots of wonderful creative moments now and into the New Year!...Jan

Happy Anniversary Inks Stains-Altoids Tin Blog Hop!

Today is Roni Johnson's 5th anniversary of  her blog-Ink Stains  She is celebrating by hosting a blog hop/art festival with her blogging friends and stamping community with fun and prizes.

 

This tin combines some of my favorite things...metal, flowers, flourishes, alcohol inks and opportunity to create and share a little surprise for someone. Really does it get any better than this?  I painted the base of the tin with acrylic dabber paint and the rest of the tin with alcohol inks.  I stamped the flourish with Versamark and embossed with green tinsel.  Add the dried flowers from last summer's garden and decoupage entire lid.  I wanted to keep a simple look so I did not embellish the sides beyond the alcohol ink-polish stone.

Roni, sending you wishes for another wonderful 5 years!  Many thanks for all the inspiration you bring to the stamping community through your book, Teach Yourself Visually - Collage & Altered Arts  and of course your blog.

Inky HUGS!...Jan

Multi-medium Christmas ornament

Tis the time to start creating for this holiday season!  These 4x4x.25 paper mache stars have taken up space in my "to be altered" box for several years because I have never been satisfied with a focal image that I felt worked well with the star shape.  Finally when I saw this  snow bird cling stamp by Stampendous I immediately knew I had to try it out on the star.  And to sweeten the work Simon Says Stamp and Show's challenge this week is to stamp with out ink. 

So to get started I painted the base with Ranger's white acrylic dabber paint and continued with Hero Arts Music Collage background stamp CG376, Claudine Hellmuth's Gel Medium, Acrylic Paints, Luminere w/Gel, Dimensional Pearls, Distress Stains, Ranger's dry glitter, glossy accents, Rock Candy, embellishments-stars, mini jingle bells and pipe cleaner.  For me this project became extremely challenging with the paint's uneven lines. As I was painting I looked at the lines incorrectly and ended up with a bird that that looked like it was wearing a cape!  I had painted 3 of 4 sections of the bird I created the wrong color-yikes! It made for some great laughs! And I learned the best thing of working with acrylics paints-just add more layers of paint.  However the bird you see was hand drawn...do know I stamp because of my limited drawing skills.  So for me this was a terrific challenge in which I stretched my skills in many directions of putting together an ornament, using products that have not been cracked open in the last year and drawing a bird!  Who would have thought!  But tons of fun!  I will be happy to sign and date this one!

Happy holiday crafting!
Jan