By The Sea Canvas

Good Day everyone!!!!!!

One of my most favourite places to see and to view is the ocean.  Even though I don't get to view too many oceans, pictures can inspire me.  Today's project is a canvas to bring the ocean into my home.  I have wanted to do a project like this for a while now and here it is.  I have included a short tutorial on the methods I used to achieve it and the products I used as well.

To start with, I applied heavy white gesso to the entire surface of the canvas (11" x 14") using a spatula and creating ridges as I went.  I wanted lots of texture on the background.

When the gesso was dry, I cut 3 strips of patterned paper, 3" wide by the full length and layered them across the middle of the canvas. I took some white gesso and dry brushed it onto the papers to blend them into the background.  When this was dry, I took two colours of turquoise sprays and sprayed all around and onto the papers.

After the sprays, I took a water effect stencil and applied the turquoise texture paste keeping it around the outside.  With a spatula I took some of the turquoise texture paste and swiped it here and there at the top and bottom areas of the papers.  Let this dry.   And for more texture, I took a stencil with different sized bubbles on it, and applied texture paste here and there around the outside edges.  I did go over some of the turquoise stenciled areas.

And now the fun begins.  Some time ago, I purchased a package of this fish netting at Michael's.  It actually looks like real fish net.  I took a reasonable sized piece of this and spread it out across the canvas starting closer to the left side and spreading it out to the right side.

I took my white oval resin frame and decided to do something to it as I didn't like the way it looked as it was on the canvas.  So I took some burlap string and wrapped it tightly around the frame until I had it completely covered.  I had this piece of chain, (I don't know where it came from) and wrapped this around as well.  I thought it looked like a porthole from a ship.  I also added a picture that I had from a package of Tim Holtz "Found Relative" cards.  You could use a picture of yourself or a friend or anyone else.  I adhered the frame to the canvas as shown.  Now for the rest of the items which is my favourite part.  I like to layer and tuck and layer and tuck until I have the look I want.  I start by adhering my main piece which was my star fish and from there I added the flowers and lots of shells.  I made sure the shells came out from under the flowers.  I had a small glass bottle from my stash which I added as well.  Sometimes you can find these bottles at the dollar store, but I do know that Tim Holtz has them as well.

For the final touch, I added Finnibair's "art stones" here and there (below the star fish, on the frame, above the flowers). These are the perfect accent for almost any project.  At the very end, I tucked in some greenery pieces (again in my stash) and small pieces of cheese cloth to soften the look.  I also dry brushed some of the brass patina paste from Finnibair for accent onto the stones and onto the canvas around the bottom below the star fish and the flowers.
Closeups

Products used:

Strips of patterned paper for background

Gel medium for adhering the pieces down (very strong holding)

Mega Art Stones from Finnibair

Brass Patina Paste from Finnibair

Heavy white gesso

Metallic texture paste (Heidi Swapp)

2 turquoise blue sprays

Fish net

Shells

Flowers

Resin oval frame

Twine

Glass bottle, greenery, and cheese cloth

I hope I wasn't too long-winded with my instructions.  Give it a try.  Just use your imagination and let the creative juices flow.

Until next time, this is Donna wishing you a safe and happy week of creativity and fun.

"HAPPY SCRAPPING"

"After you tell your husband where you'd like to go on your vacation he asks:

"Why? Is there a scrapbook store there?"