A New Technique (to me)

(Inspired by my eldest daughter who has brought Country music into our lives I created this piece.  

The  photo used in this piece was taken on a back road in Oregon. It was a gorgeous summers day and we were driving to Silver Creek Falls when I pulled over to take this photo.)

I have been experimenting with collages and mixed media for the last six months.   I started collaging because I needed to earn hours for my daughters school and volunteered for the annual Christmas boutique.  This involved a project that I could take home and create. It was basically a recipe book made from cardboard, scrapbook paper and the finishing touches with ribbons and stickers. I took it on with gusto and dove in.  They were adorable and all but three sold!  Having finished them I was wanting to continue the feeling of creating a finished product and that is how the seed was planted and started to grow into something more.

One of the challenges of this project was where could I create and not have to put it away, where could I leave things unfinished?  I took a look around and decided  I  could convert our empty small wine cellar (we don't drink!) into my art room.  No one was using it and although small, just enough space to put in a table!  I pulled out the many Stampington magazines I had been purchasing and started stocking up on the products I needed to have to begin and well in my spare time I began to CREATE.

Since then I've sold a few pieces in a local store called Knot Too Shabby and I'm about to take several pieces over to Laguna Beach and see if the Stampinton Company would like to publish them in any of their publications.  (Wish me luck!) I am finally ready to release them.  Funny they feel as if they are like my nested birds, now ready to see if they can fly.

So this post is about a result of a new technique for me.  It is a combination of the my two loves.  Photography and collages.  I recently pinned on Pinterest the process of how to use gel medium to transfer a photo onto canvas.  I tried this on a blank canvas first  but wanted a background behind my image as I had done with my other art pieces. This time however, I was using a transfered image of my photograph instead of a regular copy or a drawing or painting.   Being inspired by the incredible artist Mae Chevrette's blog I decided the time has come to do this myself.

First I collaged maps,vintage ribbon and pages from old books (that were to be thrown out because they were so tattered) with also some bits of vintage wall paper my grandmother had in her basement, onto my canvas.  I then Mod Podged it and allowed it to dry over night. The next morning I put my gel medium over the top of my sealed collage and covered it with my reversed color copy of my chosen image and allowed that to dry overnight.  The next part is messy but the result was so fun.  I sprayed the image with water and rubbed of the paper until all that was left was my image.  I painted over the top my words and used my Silouette SD to cut out the word COUNTRY from some old window shade I bought at a garage sale.

Hope you like this piece.  The important thing for me was that I got great joy out of creating it.  The rest is icing!