DecoArt Butterfly Mixed Media Canvas

Hello! Today I have a mixed media canvas that I am really excited about sharing with you. I really do LOVE how it turned out. It really takes guts to start putting color onto that terrifyingly blank canvas and turn it into something you love. Now I would like to share real quick that this is a post sponsored by DecoArt. However, I really do love using their products and reach for them every time I paint regardless. 

In this project we are exploring using some of the fabulous products from DecoArt's Media Line. But enough jabbering on and on, lets take a look at what you'll need to complete this project. 

SUPPLIES

Americana Stencils

·         Brocade & Berry Borders

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics

·         Carbon Black

·         Quinacridone Violet

·         Phthalo Green-Blue

·         Green Gold

·         Cobalt Blue Hue

·         Cobalt Teal Hue

·         Phthalo Blue

·         Dioxazine Purple

·         Phthalo Turquoise

·         Titanium White

Glamour Dust Glitter Paint

·         Purple Princess

DecoArt Media Specialty Products

·         Matte Medium

·         Tinting Base

·         White Modeling Paste

·         Black Modeling Paste

·         Liquid Glass

·         White Gesso

Americana Multi-Surface Satin Paint

·         Silver Metallic

Other supplies

12” x 12” Stretched canvas

Brushes: 3/4” flat, #3 round, #2 round, #6 flat

Scissors

Palate knife

Plastic container or paint palate

12” x 12” Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper or white glitter paper

E-cutter with SGV file – 3D Cutout butterfly for Silhouette

Egg carton

Hot glue gun

Wooden tag

Metallic gold baker’s twine

Gold buttons

INSTRUCTIONS

These Media Fluid Acrylics really do have a lot of pigment in them and even a tiny drop packs a serious punch. Don't put very much paint on your palate because it stretches much further than you think! Mix a couple drops of each of the following colors with a little dab of Matte Medium: Quinacridone Violet, Cobalt Blue Hue, Cobalt Teal Hue, Phthalo Turquoise. Brush streaks of these colors onto your canvas as desired. 

Now, what does the Matte Medium do you ask? Well it takes the beautiful color from the bottle and turns it into a transparent version of that paint where it is completely opaque. 

Add some darker shadows with some Dioxazine Purple and Phthalo Blue straight from the bottle.

Use Carbon Black to paint the sides of the canvas.

While painting the sides of the canvas you will inevitably get some of the black on the top of your canvas. Or maybe I'm just a messy painter... To make this look more intentional and to add shadows around your piece dry brush Carbon Black around the edges of your canvas taking care to make sure that it is not perfectly even all the way around. After all, what shadow is perfectly straight? 

Use the Brocade & Berry Borders stencil with a palate knife and Black Modeling Paste to add the two filigree shapes onto the left side of the canvas. I have the canvas turned here to make it easier to work on.

After you have spread Black Modeling Paste over the stenciled area carefully lift up the stencil and wash the stencil off.

With a clean stencil and palate knife use White Modeling Paste to add the berry borders in the corner.

After you have spread White Modeling Paste over the stenciled area carefully lift up the stencil and wash the stencil off. Allow your modeling paste to dry completely before continuing. This will take approximately 1.5 hours depending upon how thick you applied it. My husband seemed to think he needed dinner for some strange reason, so I actually let my canvas sit overnight until I had a chance to work on it again. 

Mix a single drop of Carbon Black paint with a little dab of Matte Medium, again, a little bit goes a long way. Now grab a piece of bubble wrap and resist the urge to pop all the bubbles, you need them! Brush the paint onto a piece of bubble wrap, then press the bubble wrap paint side down onto the canvas. This adds some fun irregular dots onto your canvas background. 

Repeat to add bubble dots in two other areas of the canvas. If you press the bubble wrap onto the canvas twice before refilling with paint you will get lighter bubbles.

Use Green Gold and Phthalo Green-Blue to paint in the leaves. I loaded my #3 round brush first with Green Gold and then dipped just the tip of the brush in Phthalo Green-Blue. This allows the colors to mix and blend while you are painting the leaves and stems. Now dab a generous amount of Glamour Dust Glitter Paint in Princess Purple onto the berries.

Use the 3/4” flat brush to apply Titanium White streaks onto the canvas to add some contrast and more interest into the background.

Add dots of Liquid Glass onto the canvas. It dries crystal clear and looks like dew drops or rain drops on your background.

Now for the flowers. Take a recycled paper egg carton and cut off the flap and the lid. Paint both sides of the egg carton with White Gesso. Now take scissors and cut apart the egg cups. You need two cups and one pyramid shape piece (from between the cups) to make one flower.

Trim off the higher sides of the cups to make them close to an even height. Then cut down from the top of the cup in all four corners. Use scissors to cut around the top of each side of the cup to look more like a petal.

Spread the sides of the cup that will be on the bottom of the flower out wide.

Here is what your assembled flower would look like with two cups and one center pyramid shape making up the layers of petals.

Mix a little bit of Quinacridone Violet paint with Tinting Base. What is Tinting Base? Well it allows you to make a lighter yet opaUse the #6 flat brush to paint the inside and the outside of the flower layers. You do not need to paint the bottoms.

Now mix a little bit of Quinacridone Violet with Matte Medium. Dab the transparent mixture onto each petal starting at the base and working not quite all the way to the top. You want the bottom of the petals to be darker than the tops. Repeat to paint both the inside and outside of each petal.

Use a hot glue gun to glue together the flower layers. Add a gold button into the center of each flower to cover up the glue.

Use hot glue to glue the flowers onto the bottom right hand corner of the canvas. 

Use your E-cutter with your butterfly cut file of choice to cut out six butterflies of various sizes from the white glitter paper. Fold the wings of the butterflies together to make it look like they are lifting off the canvas. Mix a single drop of Cobalt Teal Hue paint with some Matte Medium and brush a thin layer of color onto the butterflies. Mix some Quinacridone Violet with Matte Medium and paint the centers of the butterflies with the paint getting lighter as it reaches the edges of the wings. Arrange the butterflies as desired and use hot glue to glue them in place.

Thin down some Titanium White paint with a little bit of water and paint your wooden tag. Take some of the Cobalt Teal Hue and Quinacridone Violet that has been mixed with Matte Medium that you used on the butterflies. Add streaks of color onto the tag. Take a 24” long piece of metallic gold baker’s twine and wrap it around the tag several times then tie the ends of the twine into a bow. Use a permanent marker or pen to write the following quote onto the tag: 

“Your wings already exist. All you have to do is Fly”

Hot glue the tag onto the canvas and hot glue three gold buttons onto the canvas.

Now display your canvas where you can see it regularly and smile at your beautiful piece of art! 

Progression of a Painting

As an artist it is always interesting and even amazing to see how a project starts off and doesn't look like much of anything. You get the thoughts in your head that this looks terrible. That a child could paint better than this. But you're persistent and keep on going adding more here and there in those spots that just need something more. Until finally you get to the point where it is done in your eyes. Those who buy the art just see the finished piece. Not the process that takes place while developing it.

So I thought it would be interesting to take photos of a painting as it progresses so you can see some of my process. This particular mixed media piece I was painting as a gift for the Craftaholics Anonymous gift exchange.

Supplies Used:

• 12" x 12" Canvas
• 12" x 12" text print scrapbook paper
• DecoArt Americana Paint: French Gray Blue, Bahama Blue, Desert Sand, Whispering Turquoise, Alzarian Crimson, Royal Purple, Forest Green, Espresso, Golden Straw, Berry Red, Charcoal Gray, Irish Moss
• DecoArt Multisurface Satin Paint: Dark Scarlet, Black Tie, Cotton Ball
• Decoupage, Soft Charcoal Pencil, bubble wrap, DecoArt Decou-Page, Tim Holtz Dot Fade stencil, DecoArt Gold Glamour Dust

Although you really can't see it here I started off by painting the sides of the canvas in Espresso and then decoupaged the scrapbook paper onto the canvas. Then I coated it with a variety of paints trying to blend them somewhat. I added some streaks of brown for stem like shapes. 

Here is where I decided that it was too bold and bright so I added a wash of Cotton Ball paint that was thinned down with water. I used a stencil I picked up from the paint section at Home Depot and a sponge to add the white filigree on the left side. I also added a layer of Gold Glamour Dust paint on top of the white filigree with the same stencil. I sponged on some dot type shapes with the Tim Holtz Dot Fade stencil in some more Espresso paint. Then I brushed some Golden Straw paint on some bubble wrap and pressed it onto the canvas in a few places to add some fun pattern and texture. 

I added some white bubble wrap print as well. Then I started to paint on the flowers in Berry Red. This is where I was seriously questioning my painting skills. The flowers looked terrible. But I kept going and worked to add more shadows and distinguish the highlights on the flowers better. 

After a lot of adding shadows here and there and adding some black dots in the center of the flower, some light colored stems, some charcoal pencil around the edges blended out to create more shadow and define the flower petals. 

Here is what my work table looked like when I was done. What a huge mess!

Now you can see some of the details of the finished panting. I almost didn't want to give the finished painting away because I liked it so much!

I used a fine point sharpie to add my initials in the bottom corner.

I really love how all the colored layers came together to give these bright flowers a beautiful background. I must say I am very proud of this painting!

What do you think?

Linking up to these parties. 

Smile Mixed Media Card

I made these lovely mixed media cards for a swap that Tracy was hosting. These were so much fun to make! But it has been several weeks since I made so I will try to do my best to remember the steps and materials.

• Smoky Slate card stock 5-1/2" x 8-1/2", scored at 4-1/4"
• Night of Navy card stock 4" x 5-1/4"
• Canson Mixed Media Paper 3-3/4" x 5"
• Paint: turquoise, purple, white, yellow, and orange 
• Stamps: Everything Eleanor, Happy Day
• Ink: Night of Navy
• Accessories: Deco Page, Stazon Jet Black, Large Rhinestones, White Gel Pen, black fine point Sharpie

I started off by brushing on some turquoise, yellow, and orange paint in three sections, then dry brushed over the whole thing with some of the orange paint. This paint was from an older stash so I don't remember the exact color names. I was kind of in a hurry to get these done so I didn't write it down as I went. After this dried I stamped the swirl from Everything Eleanor into the lower left hand corner in Night of Navy ink. I allowed this to dry, the brushed over the whole thing with a layer of Decou Page.

Since both the ink and Decou Page are water based the Decou Page re-activated the ink causing it to smear. This was actually the look I was going for, but you have to have a full brush and only brush over the ink once or your image won't be recognizable any more. (I figured that one out the hard way!). After the Decou Page dried completely I painted on the white border lines in white, the flower with turquoise and the  stem with green paint. After that dried I doodled around the edges with a black Sharpie marker and added some white dots in the center of the flower with my White Gel Pen.

Finally I stamped the greeting from Happy Day onto the paper in Stazon ink, glued this onto the Night of Navy card stock, glued that layer onto the card front, and added one large rhinestone.

Some Watercolor Doodling Fun

I thought I would share this lovely from my mixed media journal...

I was procrastinating working on something else that needed to be done. So what do I do? I pick up a paint brush and my Grumbacher opaque watercolors and paint some flowers. They are kind of sort of like coneflowers, but not... 

Then I added a lovely bluish-purpleish background around the flowers and some paint splatters in a darker blue color. 

A few weeks later I finally got around to adding some journaling and doodling around the flowers. I'm loving this quote lately. Even if my words are crooked on the piece. The doodling was done with ultra fine point Sharpie. 

I just love those fun splatters! The colors from the Grumbacher opaque watercolors are so beautiful and bright! Definitely my favorite watercolors so far! Oh... this is not a sponsored post in any way. I just love these watercolors and like sharing the products I use. 

So what do you do when you procrastinate? Do you pick up watercolors and just start playing around?