working with artist canvases

For nearly twenty years my parents did wildlife rehabilitation here at Jean's Jungle. In fact, the Woodshed where I live used to be the rehabilitation center--my kitchen was the fawn pen, beaver and ferrets were housed in the livingroom along with a cage of flying squirrels...you get the picture. Anyway, Pilgrim was a runty Great Blue Heron that my dad cared for, nursed to health, and released to the wild. Every year Pilgrim comes back and fishes in our pond and visits on the opposite shore. We know it's him because he is so small and he doesn't take off when Dad talks to him. I made this canvas this weekend for Pilgrim. I inked up the edges of the canvas and stamped 3 heron images on the left. I photocopied photographs of a blue heron taken by Pat Bither, attached them to pieces of black cardstock, and added the puffy letters. I cut three strips of paper (Basic Grey) and attached those to the canvas with glue dots. I added the heron photocopies, and the two envelopes, and some bamboo pieces from another card I deconstructed, The smaller envelope has a tag with Pilgrim's name on it. The larger one holds the story of Pilgrim that my mother wrote before her stroke. I glued a piece of ribbon across the bottom of the canvas, added a punched circle from the same background paper, and made a doodad from an earring mounted on a rollabind disk.



The other image is of the second canvas I made this weekend, 18"X24", GRUNGE 1-9. I picked up my digits and punctuation grungeboard at Your Maine Stamper on Saturday and could hardly wait to start playing. This stuff is amazing! It's paper but totally flexible and has almost a suedey feel to it. To start my canvas, I divided it into triangualr sections and cut pieces of scrapbook papers to fit which I glued on with Scotch Tacky Adhesive. For each grungeboard piece I tried different techniques. 1: Shabby Shutters crackle paint. 2: Versafine Satin Red ink, Versamark, Firebrick Red Distress embossing powder. 3: pine needles distress ink, shabby shutters crackle paint, Glossy Accents and copper ultrafine glitter.
Parentheses: black soot distress ink and copper embossing powder. 4: Versamark and copper embossing powder (looks like metal!). 5. tea dye distress ink and tea dye distress embossing powder. 6. gold embossing powder, glue pen and ultrafine copper glitter. 7: walnut stain distress ink. 8: Pesto Adirondack Color Wash. AND: shabby shutters crackle paint, pine needles and black soot distress inks. 9: tea dye crackle paint and walnut stain distress inks. Exclamation Point: tea dye and shabby shutters crackle paint. I adhered the grunged pieces to the papers with glue dots, added some antique buttons and a beribboned buckle. I LOVE this piece!

canvases were purchased at the Christmas Tree Shops for cheap--9X12 $1.69; 12X18 $3.99