Mixed media fun.

I have created a new picture to hang up for my calendar this year. It is something I change yearly and this year I used an article from Somerset Apprentice Spring 2013. It is by Kandy Myny, an amazing artist.

The article was done as a larger canvas but I kept mine small and did it on a piece of artist canvas that I cut to size. I had to tape it to my work surface so it wouldn't buckle when I added the gesso.

I coated the canvas with gesso then while it was still wet applied some tissue papers randomly. I used a palette knife to apply some more gesso going over the edges of the paper a little. I didn't cover the whole canvas so it adds to the texture.

I used a brayer to spread acrylic paint onto the dried gesso.   I didn't blend it out too much because I wanted the colours to still be seen. I used green, yellow and warm white.

When the paint was dry I used scraps of paper to make a picture. I like a torn paper edge so I did that on most of the pieces. The houses are cut out with scissors. I lay everything out so I can see how it looks.

I used gel medium to glue everything down. You can see I have moved things around a bit. I also added birds, doors, windows and more trees. I originally had the roof shapes like Kandy does in the article but I decided I liked triangle roofs more. We all have our own ideas and it is always ok to change art.

I used more acrylic paints to go over the collage pieces. It helps to unify the piece and add more colour if needed. I wanted more of the pink/purple color.

Finally I used a neocolor crayon to outline everything, smudging it as I went. I used a Stabilo Marks All pencil on the finer details. I removed the tape and hung the picture up. I will enjoy looking at this for the next year.

This is the calendar. I used one of those boards that has a metal on one half and pin up board on the other half. The calendar squares are scrapbooking papers and numbers attached to magnetic paper. Each month I move them to the correct date. I also have a few holiday squares like the one you can see here for Australia Day on the 26th.