UNDER THE SEA DECOART CHALLENGE SEASHORE ADVENTURES MEMORIES CANVAS

Hello everyone!  Happy Summer!

We recently had the most fun vacation ever to Gulf Shores, Alabama with our children and grandchildren.  For two of our grandchildren, it was their first time to be at a sandy beach and see the ocean.  We got to be there to experience that momentous occasion with them!

This adventure was something I will always remember.  Enter the DecoArt "UNDER THE SEA" Challenge theme!  Perfect timing!

I created this lovely 9" x 12" canvas to display in our home with seashells from the beach and a photograph of my husband and I with our grandchildren.

To celebrate summer and possibly those summer vacations at the beach you may be taking, DecoArt is featuring an Under The Sea Challenge.  From July 11th through August 12th, the DecoArt Media Design Team will be sharing our interpretations of this theme.  Then you are invited to join us by entering our challenge with YOUR Under The Sea art project.

The winner will receive ...

YES!!!  That's a $100 DECOART GIFT CARD!!!!  How's THAT for a prize??

Okay, back to my project ...

This is something anyone can do and it's not difficult at all!  Create your own very personalized memories to display in your home using DecoArt's amazing Media Line products!  Want to know how to do it?  

Here's the list of products you will need for this specific project and all of the step by step instructions:

• DecoArt Media White Gesso
• DecoArt Media Matte Medium
• DecoArt Media White Shimmer Mist
• DecoArt Media Modeling Paste
• DecoArt Media Texture Sand Paste
• DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics Titan Buff
• DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics Burnt Umber
• DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics Titanium White
• DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics Cobalt Teal Hue
• DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics Cadmiun Orange Hue
• DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics Hansa Yellow Medium
• DecoArt Metallic Pearl Acrylic Paint
• 9" x 12" canvas
• Paint brushes
• Cardstock cut into rectangular shapes and also one fairly thin strip to use on the fence
• Paper Towels and/or baby wipes to blot off excess paint or mediums
• 1/4" Scor Tape (double sided tape)
• Finnabair Mini Stones
• Andy Skinner Whirlpool 6"x6" stencil
• Tim Holtz Bubbles Stencil
• Wooden Craft Sticks from craft store
• Wire
• Palette Knife
• Small piece of chipboard underneath the photograph
• Pop Dots
• Hot Glue
• Tim Holtz Ruler
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Glossy Accents
• 4" x 5" scrap paper (to represent photograph)
• Various little sea shells
• Various textural objects such as skeleton leaves, pearls, corkscrew wire or other items that would fit in well with a beach theme.
• Mini Mister water bottle (for creating your own shimmer spray)
• Perfect Pearls Pearl

Step by Step Instructions:

Begin by brushing DecoArt Media Gesso over the surface of the canvas, including the sides.  Let dry or gently heat set.

Cut various cartstock scrapes into regtangular shapes and glue them in place on top of the gesso'd canvas using DecoArt Media Matte Medium.  Simply brush the surface of the canvas and the backside of the scraps.  Lay in place and then brush another coat of the Matte Medium over the scraps.  This glues and seals them in place for future steps.  You can either gently heat set or let air dry.  I also added some Finnabair Mini Stones for added interest around the edges of the canvas.  Do this by brushing on a generous amount of Matte Medium and dropping the stones in place.  Let air dry.  Then gently brush over the stones with more Matte Medium in an attempt to set them in place.  You will still lose some of them in later steps of dry brushing.

I added another layer of a stenciled image over the surface of the scraps using a Heavy Clear Gloss Gel and let it dry but later discovered that it really wasn't necessary.  But if you want to add that, do it now.

Spray over the surface of the colorful cardstock with DecoArt's Media Shimmer Mister.  It is semi opaque thus allowing some of the patterns and color of the cardstock to show through.  But your objective is to have a pretty much white or white washed appearance to your canvas.  Let air dry or gently heat set.

Add more interest and texture to the canvas with Andy Skinner's Whirlpool stencil and DecoArt's Media Modeling Paste.  Lay the stencil randomly on the canvas and scrap the Modeling Paste over the stencil using a palette knife.  I thought this resembled ocean waves.  Let air dry or gently heat set.

Next I added a few more "bubbles' to the canvas surface using Tim Holtz' Bubbles stencil.  I did this in the same way as the Whirlpool stencil: randomly and using a palette knife.   Let air dry or gently heat set.

As the top was drying, I carefully added DecoArt Modeling Paste to the sides of the canvas using my finger.  Let air dry.

While the canvas was drying, I started working on a little "fence" that I wanted to add do my canvas to represent the weathered seaside fences you commonly see at beaches.  I used 12 wooden craft sticks measured to 2 3/4" in length to create the picket fence.

To make the fence look more weathered and realistic, I added a coat of DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics Titan Buff and then lightly added a topcoat of DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics Burnt Umber to add an aged look.

Then I began wiring the pickets together to create a fence.  I marked lines at the top and bottom of the fence to keep my wires in the right place on the individual pickets.

Here is the fence.  I cut a 4" x 5" piece of cardstock to represent the approximate size of my family photograph that I would be adding.  This gave me an idea of how my fence would look in relationship to the photo.

Here is the way the canvas looks at this point with the area for my photograph and the fence's placement.

To make the fence even more "sandy" and believable, I created my own sand using DecoArt's Media Texture Sand Paste and mixing it with a little DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics Titan Buff paint.  I mixed them together using a palette knife.  I then added a fairly narrow strip of torn scrap cardstock across the bottom of my fence with double sided tape.  Then I covered the paper with the sand mixture.  I then added a few shells and little sand dollars to the sand using Glossy Accents just to be sure they held in place.  Let it air dry.

And here is the sea fence that I will later even add a bit more Titan Buff over the surface of the fence to soften the brown tones and make it more "shabby" in appearance.

Now it is time to create my design on the canvas, leaving a space for my photograph.  I created an asymmetrical design for this.  I glued everything in place using DecoArt Media Matte Medium and a brush or my fingers.  Add a generous amount of Matte Medium to the areas of the canvas where you want to lay shells, pearls, metal corkscrews, rings ... whatever you choose.  The colors of the objects don't matter as they will all be covered with DecoArt Media White Gesso.  Just layout your design and gently brush over each item with the Matte Medium as well to seal it to the canvas.  Let completely air dry; sometimes overnight.

Gently brush over all of the raised objects and even on some of the canvas with DecoArt Media White Gesso.  In this photograph, you can still see some of the details from the original cardstock that was the first layer of the canvas.  I even brushed a little Gesso over the skeleton leaves at the opposite corners of where my photograph will be placed later.  The gesso bottle is laying in the area where the photograph will be.

Create your own colorful spray mist using a Mini Mister bottle, water, a little DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics Cobalt Teal Hue, Titanium White and a pinch of Perfect Pearls Peal powder.  Skake it well inside of the Mini Mister and begin spraying the soft blue ocean color onto your canvas, leaving areas of white open around the outer sides of the canvas.  Let the blue color radiate out from under the photograph.

Here is the canvas after is has been sprayed with your homemade shimmer spray using DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics.  Be sure to rinse out the mister bottle when finished.

Now to begin the detail work on your canvas by dry brushing over the raised objects to bring out their patterns, colors and interest.  I chose to use softer "beachy" colors that coordianted with colors in my photograph.  So I created my own shades of soft yellows, peach and blue using DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics Cadmium Orange Hue, Hansa Yellow, Cobalt Teal Hue, a touch of Titanium White and DecoArt's wonderful Metallic Pearl paint.  This paint can make your acrylic paints have a bit of a subtle shimmer to them!  Love it!

 Bring out all of the detail of the shells, starfish, pearls and so forth by DRY BRUSHING the various DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics colors over the objects.

Keep adding more dry brushed layers of paints as you continue to cover everything.  Blend colors as well for beautiful shading and depth.  I also took a small make up sponge and added just Titanium White over some of the Andy Skinner Whirlpool stencils to capture a bit more of the ocean waves feeling to this canvas.

Here is a closeup of a small section of the canvas so you can see all of the texture and depth you can create with dry brushing and just adding subtle bits of color to edges and so forth.  

And finally, I used Scor Tape to adhere my photograph on top of a piece of chipboard.  I matched up the colors from the photograph to the sides of the chipboard so that the photo seems to continue off of the edges.  Next I added stacks of Pop Dots on the back of the photograph so that it sat level and comfortable in place.  Finally I added small pop dots at the very bottom of my photograph, stuck the seaside fence in place and hot glued it onto the canvas at the sides.

I hope that this tutorial has given you some ideas of ways to display your family photos and possibly you've picked up a trick or two along the way.

Please join us for DecoArt's Under The Sea Challenge.  We'd love to see your art and have YOU inspire us with how you use your DecoArt products!

Happy Crafting!  

BOOKS AND BLOSSOMS FOR CREATIVE CARTE BLANCHE

Greetings all!  Welcome to a new challenge over at Creative Carte Blanche!

It is our mission to inspire and support each other in this community.  We love to share our ideas, our techniques, our knowledge of products and get to know everyone who is traveling this art journey along with us. I hope you will join us and share your talent with us.

It is not our intent to recommend one product over another.  We, like everyone else, have certain products that we have found we love but they may not be the same ones you love.  So, please, by all means, use what you love and share them with us!

This month, the lovely and multi-talented Hels Sheridan is hosting our art adventure.  I think Hels is known for many things but particularly her beautiful dimensional flowers that she so often uses on her art pieces.  I for one love them!  So her theme of "Books and Blossoms" is a perfect theme from her.

I decided to create a couple of simple art journal pages for this theme because sometimes less is more and I really wanted to experiment more with my concentrated watercolors.  More about those in a minute...

I began by brayering white gesso and then some DecoArt Media Cobalt Teal Hue and a touch of Hansa Yellow Media Acrylic Paints onto the surface of a child's paper back book that I am altering into an art journal.  I let this dry and then moved on to the next step...

I brushed Matte Medium (any brand will work) onto the surface of the art journal pages and then pressed a piece of Tim Holtz' Terminology Tissue Wrap over the surface of the two pages. I chose this particular Tissue Wrap because I thought it was perfect for the "Book" portion of the theme; book text glued into an altered children's book!

I didn't want the book text to overpower my images that I would soon be adding to the pages, so I randomly scraped some white gesso over the print and let it dry.

Now for the "Blossoms" portion of the theme.  I sketched a flower pot and placed the stems from Tim Holtz' Flower Garden stamp set where I would want them to be arranged in the pot.

Next I painted the flower pot to look like a terra cotta pot using DecoArt's Media Fluid Acrylics.  First I brushed on a coat of Vermillon followed by Transparent Red Iron Oxide to add depth and shadows. Then I added Burnt Umber lightly along the shadowed sides and in the center to represent the dirt.

Next I masked the gentle curve of the flower pot so that when I stamped the stems in place using Jet Black Permanent Archival Ink, they would not stamp over the pot.  Next I painted the stems with DecoArt Titanium White Fluid Acrylics to cover any orange pot or brown dirt going up the stems.  When I paint them with green paint, I wanted them to be a uniform color of green up the entire stem.

Next I stamped three different flower tops from Tim Holtz' Flower Garden stamp set on top of the stems (using Jet Black Archival Ink) and heat set them.  

I broke out my Dr. Ph Martin's Concentrated Water Colors and began brushing color onto the flowers.  The concentrated colors are really vibrant and fun to manipulate with water and a small brush.

I moved from flower to flower, adding color, shading and bringing them to "life".  Then I heat set them dry.  Now, if they were to be touched with water again, the water would activate the watercolors, so I sprayed them with Krylon's Workable Fixative to seal them.

Next I sized some images of vintage seed packages that I saved on my computer.  I cut a piece of scrap paper to the size of the seed packets, cut the printed images a little larger than the kraft paper, wrapped the printed imaged onto the kraft paper and glued them in place using 1/4" Scor Tape.  I then distressed them using Ranger Vintage Photo and Ground Espresso Distress Inks on the edges.  I would be using a couple of them shortly on my art journal pages...

I wanted to add a little color to the background of my pages.  So using Ranger's ink applicators first with Peacock Feathers Distress Ink followed by Fossilized Amber, I created a soft, gentile background.  The left side is colored, the right side is not.  You can really see how the inks warm up the background.

I decided to use this sweet vintage girl from Tim Holtz' Found Relatives cards on my art journal pages.  I cut her out and colorized her using Neocolor II Watercolor Crayons.  This was a little tricky as there is a slick finish on the image.  So, I sprayed her with Workable Fixative first to sort of seal her and hopefully give some "tooth" to the surface.  It helped a little and I was able to add the color from the crayon and then smudge it in place using my fingertips.  When I tried to use the water brush, the color would just bead up.

Here is the arrangement of the vintage little girl amongst the seed packets and some little foliage from one of Wendy Vecchi's Build A Blossom stamp/stencil sets.  They are colored with a combination of the concentrated watercolors and the watercolor crayons.

Here is a photograph of the art journal pages at this point.  I have also added black acrylic paint around the edges of the pages to frame them.  But the top right has a very distinct bare spot.  That is where I planned for my sentiment to go.

I sketched "BLOOM" in place and then computer generated "where you are planted" to be cut and glued underneath "BLOOM".

I outlined the letters with a permanent black pen and then filled them in using a small detail brush and DecoArt Carbon Black Fluid Acrylics paint.  I really love how the black letters and black blocks pop on the page!

And once again...here are the finished pages.  Books and Blossoms ...
Bloom where you are planted.

I hope that your creativity blooms as you contemplate what you will create using this theme.  Then join us at Creative Carte Blanche by linking your project to our blog.  That way, you can share not only your art but your techniques and your step by step with everyone else.  It's so fun to learn new things from each other.