Mixed Media Canvas #1

Doing the Tim Holtz tags is definitely reducing my anxiety about mixed media.  It's working...hooray!!  I got together with some friends to make this canvas.  Everyone in the group had a different theme.  Wynema and Vicki did ephemera collages using lots of things from their relationship with their husbands, Wynema let me post hers so make sure you scroll all the way to the bottom of this post so you don't miss it!  Carolyn's canvas had a beach theme and I decided on a botanical theme.  We had boxes full of stuff EVERYWHERE, which gave us a lot to choose from when embellishing!  Our canvases were 9 x 12 and were painted black with acrylic paint.  We used Adirondack sprays to put color onto the small cards and then began using our imagination to add ephemera for texture and interest.  Oh what fun!!

Here is my canvas...

I was a little worried that the background colors on my card pieces were too bright, but I was going for garden colors and pink, fuchsia, and greens are my favorite garden colors. I went for it and I'm happy with how it turned out.  I think Tim Holtz has some amazing ephemera and I used some of it on my canvas, but to me just using that isn't enough.  I think it's so much more interesting to use found objects, vintage papers, and embellishments made from combining this and that so that is what I focused on while making my canvas.  It was a challenge to place the cards so that my completed piece was well balanced and pleasing to the eye.  I feel like I made one mistake but once it was all glued down it was too late to change it.  What do you think?  Do you notice something?

I'm not going to bore you with a close up of each little piece of my collage, but here are a few of my favorites...

I loved doing this so much that I'm going to make one more, with a beach theme next time!

Below is Wynema's gorgeous ephemera canvas!  I just love the combination of the teals and blues with the orange and rusty color...gorgeous!  You can see more of Wynema's work on her Pinterest page here.  Make sure to check out her jewelry and painting boards.  She is a very talented lady!!  I'm still waiting to see Vickie and Carolyn's work.  Once they get them finished, I'm hoping they will let me share them here :)

Thanks for visiting.  I'd love to hear what you think of this project so if you have a minute, please leave a comment!

Love,
Janet


Supplies used:
The basic supplies were a 9x12 canvas, black acrylic paint, watercolor paper and assorted Adirondack and Dylusions sprays.  Some of the other things we used are wire, encaustic wax, cheesecloth, metal sheets, embossing powder, slide frames, stamps, plaster tape, twine and fibers. Just about anything will work on this project!