Saturday, April 30, 2011

The Future is as Bright as Your Faith -- Mixed Media Canvas

Hello again! Today I wanted to share my newest mixed media project, a 12x12 canvas of my own family!  I had this vision in my brain as soon as I heard this quote from the leader of my church, Thomas S. Monson: "The future is as bright as your faith."  In fact, one of the main reasons I decided to take Christy Tomlinson's SheArt Workshop was so that I could learn the techniques to bring my vision to life.  And here it is!


I added a lot of layers and stamps and craziness to this canvas, and by the time I was finished (at 2:30 a.m. the night before our church art show) I was not sure if I loved it or if I had ruined it.  You know how that feels when you've just been looking at something too long?  Yeah. I actually wasn't going to put black elements on at all, but when I meant to stamp with WHITE staz-on in the sky in the upper right, it turned out the stamp still had all sorts of BLACK ink on it, so suddenly I had a chunk of black words right in the middle of my nice bright sky.  Oops.  After that I just figured I had to roll with it.


As I said above, I created this to show in our church art show, which I was on the committee to help organize.  Here's what I wrote on my little info card for the show:


"I love this quote from our prophet.  The future’s uncertainty can seem scary sometimes, but our faith in Jesus Christ and His love makes it possible for us to move forward with our families  in joy and gratitude and hope!"


One amazing thing that happened -- a man who works as a consultant for an art publishing company came to the art show with his daughter (who lives in our stake) and loved it so much that he wants to show it to a buyer at a huge church bookstore chain to possibly sell prints of it! Holy cow. I can't imagine it would actually happen (because it is pretty rough and also because I used products from about 14 companies, so I think there are probably some copyright issues) but it was awfully flattering!


Speaking of which, here are the companies whose products I used.  I really raided my scraps drawers for the paper, and there are pieces here from Cosmo Cricket, DCWV, Sassafrass Lass, Scenic Route, Crate Paper, Making Memories, Chatterbox, Bo Bunny, Imaginisce, Daisy D's and Scrapworks.  The stamps are from Stampin Up, 7Gypsies, Hero Arts, My Mind's Eye, Sassafrass Lass, and Fancy Pants. Oh, and I also painted on one of my embossing folders from my Cuttlebug to get one texture!  


Who's in the mood to play I Spy? :)  I've never been great at mixing things from different companies and styles, so I really had fun just gathering everything I had and throwing it all together.  Other than that, this is just made with acrylic paints and a whole lotta Mod Podge.

4 comments:

skcoe said...

It think it's really REALLY beautiful. What a fun piece of art!

Nancy Wyatt said...

This is amazing and you did a beautiful job!! Hugs from Conroe, Texas

Hannah said...

Wow, that is amazing, well done. The canvas is lovely, it's great to see how you've taken the techniques from Christy and used them in your own way and on your own different projects :)
Hannah

Maria said...

Oh my goodness...can I be you when I grow up!!!??? This is totally amazing! You are so talented!
Maria S,